My First Calving.

Being raised by my grandparents, they treated me like I was born to them and they held nothing back. I spent the first five years of my life on a three hundred acre farm with a couple hundred head of cattle (just regular ole Holsteins if memory serves), pigs, chickens, tractors, and of course a couple dogs. I can't say I remember much of those first years, but I do remember a few. One that sticks out in my mind is when I "helped" birth a calf. At the time I sure thought I was doing all the good, mainly because my grandpa, cousin, and a couple hired hands that we had were telling me how good I was doing, and when it was over said how they couldn't have done it if I hadn't done my part. Now, if you have ever birthed a calf or know anything about it, you full well know that there's not much a four year old can do in that situation. I was mainly a gofer during this experience, and that did lend some credibility to how much I helped, but my main "job" was making sure the come-a-long stayed secured to the truck. There is really no way to attach a come-a-long directly to a pickup so we used a chain around the pintel hitch on the truck and then hooked the come-a-long to the chain. One of my jobs was to tape the hooks after the adults made sure it was secured correctly, then it was checked again after I was done to make sure things were ok. Always double check your work, lol. Then when the real work began, it was my job to keep an eye on the chain and come-a-long to make sure it stayed secured. After the calf was born, I did have to help with clean up, that was pretty.... pretty darn nasty. But, I was in there and I was helping damn it and I wasn't going to quit till the job was done. Through the experiences with my grandpa I was taught at a young age to work hard and to follow through with any jobs I undertake.