The Shaving Of The Beef

Moo Bear Got A Hair Cut

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We're in the final stretch! It's only 6 days until fair!! In the last seven days I have bought a new one ton flatbed pickup, made a ridiculous amount of stall decorations, waded through the murky swamp that is 4-H project books, prepped our travel trailer for arrival at the fairgrounds, and left at least a morsel of my frugal soul at the local farm and ranch store.

Hmm. Context might be useful at this point. My kids are in 4-H. My husband is the shooting sports leader for our club. I, insanely, was talked into being the market beef leader for our club. I say insane because although I love cattle and know how to raise them, I had absolutely zero idea about showing them. Let's just say that knowledge bank has increased over the last few months. If you would have asked me a year ago what leg adhesive was I would have stared blankly in your general direction. Now I know more than I ever wanted to know about cattle beautifying products and things like average daily gain, but that is a post for another time.

Today's post is about an event that I scheduled and helped with last night, the show clipping fete! I have six beeflings (what I call my beef kids) in my group, and only one of them had shown a steer before. It has been a learning experience for us all. One of my beeflings told me a few weeks ago that she knew a girl who would come over and show us how to clip our steers. Show clipping is not like getting a crew cut at your local barber shop. Things like blending and tail trimming have to happen. Of course I was game for the idea and planned the meeting to happen a week before fair, as that is the ideal time to show clip your animals, for it gives the hair a couple of days to grow back in in case you mess up on the clip job.

Last night I rolled into our friend's lovely little estate to a yard full of hefty beeves. Instead of flamingos or garden gnomes, my friend's yard was adorned with fourteen and fifteen hundred pound bovines and their handlers. There were extension cords, clippers, blowers, and hoses everywhere. The steers have all met and were cordially mooing among themselves as they got primped before the shaving commenced.

Colt

My favorite part of the evening was when one of the moms, a beefling, and I were sitting on some porch stairs and I ended up holding Colt. Colt is an Angus steer that weighs in at a massive 1510 pounds. He doesn't know me too well and decided that I needed an inspection. Apparently I am acceptable as after an initial tentative sniff, he licked me from ankle to elbow. My pants took on a shiny hue of cow slobber and the loving beast began chewing on my knuckles and knees. Good times.

I have to say, the little gal that volunteered to help us with the show clipping was beyond an amazing kid. She wanted to just volunteer to help us and got really feisty when we threw money at her. Heck, I wanted to give her a bag of gold! She was so full of knowledge about things like tail hair shaping and how to use a blocking blade. In a few hours almost all of the steers were looking pretty fancy. My daughter's steer Moo Bear really looks spectacular! I will post some pictures of them both during fair, as you can tell I am pretty proud.

Another thing that blew my mind is how all my 4-H kids and their adult handlers came together throughout this entire year. While I was sitting on my friend's porch going through my beefling's project books, signing off on things like Animal Science checklists, one of my beeflings and his mother went to pick up my daughter and Moo Bear so he could get clipped. My husband brought an extra show chute so we could trim two steers at once, one mother lined up a date so that we could trim the last steer in my group that didn't get trimmed because it got dark, and the list goes on. So often you hear about how people are horrid, selfish, and all out moronic in general, but I have to tell ya, I see examples of the awesomeness of people quite often, especially so in my 4-H group.

And now I must run, I have to edit a 4-H story or two for my daughter that she typed up for her project book. Part of the reason my posts have been so sporadic is that pretty much every waking moment is spent on something involving our impending fair invasion, and don't think I am whinging about being busy. Quite the contrary, I am loving every moment of this, as I know it won't last forever:)

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And as somewhat more frequently than not, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's Moo slimed iPhone.

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