You get out what you put in.

Cattle showing season begins once again!

Saturday May 14, 2011 was my 4-H clubs Achievement Day. In preparations for this day, my brother and I had to wash and clip every single one of our projects the night before. In total it was 10 animals, plus my friend and her brother's steers, making it 12 animals. It took us seven and a half hours to do. Mostly because the majority of those animals are Charolais'. Silly white animals.

Saturday morning we had wash all the spots on them that got dirty over night. We got up pretty early and washed until about 10:30. Then we loaded up the animals and the equipment and headed to the show. As soon as we got there and unloaded everything, it was time to start fitting. Personally, I love fitting cattle. I don't know why but I find it pretty great. It might possibly have something to do with the fact that it's about the only thing I can control with my animal but either way I enjoy it.

I started with my purebred Charolais heifer, Wish. She doesn't have a lot of hair, especially on her tail head, so fitting her didn't take long. She ended up coming in second last, between two Herefords, but I got a participant ribbon! So I wasn't too upset about placing so low.

Me clipping my heifer.


Next I did my two-year old Charolais, Wisdom, and her purebred heifer calf, Theory. I didn't really do much to the cow because, well she's a cow. There's not a lot to do on her. I took a long time to fit Theory, though. My hard work paid off because, surprisingly, they got first in the class! They also won me Grand Champion Female. It made me so proud!

Next up was my steer, Dunsparse. He was the easiest to do, but it also took me the longest. He was easy to fit because he's a black Angus X so you can't see most of the dust on him. It took me so long because I had to glue all of his legs and his tail head and I had quite a few things to clip. But, once again, my hard work paid off because he got second in his class. And then second out of all the senior steers. Unfortunately, he didn't place after that, but I completely agree with the judge's decision.

Me showing Dunsparse.







After all the hard work was done it was nice to sit down and feel so proud of the work I did to get what I got. My dad always tells me you get out what you put in and I guess it's true. That's about all for now but I'll keep you updated.

~Miranda~