My 4-H Story
This is my first year in 4-H, though it is kind of weird that I have just joined at the age of 16. I joined so that I could learn more about the animals that I have been around since I can remember. Cows have always interested me, but I have never been able to lead one or have it follow me around like an over grown dog. I plan to go to college and get a job doing something involving agriculture.
Though it was my first year, I found that everything I knew about cows was so small compared to what I know now. It was a little challenging at first balancing everything, but it was worth every minute of it. I pulled my steer out of our pasture and tried to put a halter on him. That was not the smoothest thing, but I slowly earned his trust and I built up from there. I can say that I learned more by training my steer myself. What I would do differently is I would introduce my steer to the blower a little bit earlier because when I was at fair he was still a little frightened by it. The one thing that my steer taught me is to be patient. The way he did this is simply by him trusting me and when we worked together it took time for him to get use to new things. An example of this would be, when I was training to load him into the trailer I would let him walk around it and then I would open the door and he was curious about what was inside, but he didn’t want to bring both feet up. Instead of getting mad I just took a break and tried again. He was slowly getting use to bringing up his front feet on the trailer. From there, it was just getting him to walk forward and bring up his back feet. From what I learned from this one steer is that though I was with him every day it, is still good for him to have other cows around. I did get a little baby calf for him and they were inseparable, and I still think the calf misses my steer, but he is out with the other baby calves, so he will be fine.
I was very lucky my parents have helped me though the financial areas. I have gone through all the receipts and I know what everything cost. It’s my first year and we didn’t break even, but we didn’t expect to. I get told the knowledge that I am getting though 4-H is priceless. But I will never forget that they have made this possible for me and I hope I can do the same for my kids. During the entire year, Mrs. Rector was helpful, she has been patient with me and has given me all the information I have need to get though it without failing. I also got help at fair from some of the parents and some other 4-H members, it was things like grooming tips and how to use the blower to fluff my steer better. I tried to help kids and families too. It was simple things, I let a family use my grooming shoot when they needed it. I helped catch a few steers, one got out when I was cleaning out my steer’s pen and a girl was trying to catch it and it was being stubborn by running into other pens. I asked if I could try and walked over and tried to calm it down and slipped his halter back on his head and walked it back to its pen. I went and told the owner and they came and made sure it wouldn’t happen again. I just figured that if it happened with my steer I would want someone to help me.
Leadership is a person who won’t just talk charge, but will help carry the load of work and assist people in getting their work done. They carry their work load and don’t put it off on someone else. Though I haven’t been in many leadership events this year, I have learned from this project that if you want to make progress, you need to start when you can and not put it off. I have done this when it came to helping out my FFA chapter for their member auction. They were selling metal art made with a plasma cutter and I was pretty good at the program, so I helped out. I found and made many different designs. I let our Ag teacher pick out what ones he liked and cut them out.
I have changed so much by being in 4-H. It is not just by age, but by knowledge. I learn so much by working with an animal. I took a steer out of the field and turned it into a show steer without much knowledge about how to. So, I do feel good about what I did this year and hopefully next year I will be a lot better. I think if I applied the amount of hard work I do with my steers, there is nothing I can’t do in school or out in the real world. Anything can be overcome with hard work! I have been told that multiple times and I believe it, I could do anything I want if I put in the work.
What does a 4-H member mean to me? That’s a big question. It means to me to stand up for what is right. Work hard and it will show. Lastly, be kind help a friend in need. That’s what I have done this year in 4-H. Though I have so much more to learn. I can’t wait to learn more and gain more progress in working with steers and help out not just my family, but also my little sister when she can start showing steers.