Well, we made it to fair time and it was not a smooth trip. Athena did the great 'explode' one day and we thought for sure she was gone and this was going to be the end, however, Jessie stuck to it and continued to work with her and it payed off. Athena still wasn't sure about new people being around her, especially men-they always made her quite nervous. Thankfully, we got some 'manly' help with her and 'desensitized' her to these 'scarey manly' figures before fair and it helped.
The week before fair, Jessie decided to do Athena's hair with a yellow rose-it was quite complimentary on a black heifer.
At he fairgrounds in the barn after and 'explosive' unloading from the trailer. The ride over had her pretty shook-up and we had to get one of those 'scarey manly' figures to help unload-it was all he could do to hold on-she was not impressed!
Athena's company for the weekend.
Saturday morning of the fair-bath time early in the morning-brrrrrrr. By now she was calming down quite well and lead for Jessie perfectly out to the wash-racks.
Ta-da!!! All bathed and brushed!! Now to keep her clean the rest of the day. The kids all stayed quite busy with keeping the areas around the cattle clean-they did a great job.
The first class that she showed in was 'Showmanship'. She did very well for her first show and Athena did great; she thought once about maybe pulling the 'great escape' but then seemed to relax and stick with Jessie. They really had quite a close bond that I thought was very unique and special.
Standin' her up for the judge-Athena did this very well.
Second class-yearling heifer. She showed in this class with 3 other competitors; 2 of which were friends that she got Athena from.
Time to line up for the judge
She was even more relaxed this go around then the first and did great!
All done for the day and without any 'explosive' behavior-it was a very successful weekend.
Sunday afternoon, Athena was very comfortable with her surroundings now. It was a bitter-sweet moment though as we had decided to have Athena go back to the ranch instead of bringing her home. The cost of keeping her was more then we were going to be able to do. However, Jessie came home with a lot of new knowledge to consider for future times if cattle is something that she wants to pursue-the door isn't closed but is definitely not wide open right now. Athena went home back to the ranch that she came from and can look forward to years there were Jessie can go visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment