South Pork Ranch internship program

So, if you were the parents of 5 young children and you wanted to learn about raising livestock and running a small  farm what  would you do ? Read a book ? Attend a seminar ? Surf the web ? Or  would  you wake up at the pre-crack of dawn, bundle up  your little ones and drive over an hour to make sure you get to witness early morning milking with your own eyes ? Well that is exactly what the Scholte family did yesterday. Arriving at our door at 0630 with HOMEMADE bread in hand, Simon, Stacey, Samantha, Alexandra and Zachariah came to intern on our farm.

 

The Scholte Family

                                         Keith and Simon gang up on one little bitty calf. 

And by "intern" I mean work. They helped us milk, and clean up, then they fed calves and bedded them. They helped me remove a dead chicken from our chicken house (none of us gets out of this world alive you know),  throw hay to horses and one greedy donkey and held goats while feet were trimmed. They fed pigs, moved big calves into the big calf pen and moved little calves into outside hutches. All of this was accomplished before noon. And quite a bit of it was done while lazy Zachariah slept. I guess he figured because he was only 6 months old he could take the easy way out by letting mommy Stacey carry him around. But if big sisters Sam and Alex have anything to say about it he'll be carrying his own weight next time. Those girls, just 10 and 8 years old were no slackers.

     Sam taking straw to calf hutches. I wish I could say I smiled that much when I did chores .

Keith and I often wonder why we do what we do. We get tired, we get really tired and then we get exhausted. About that time someone comes into our lives who thinks our way of life might be a good one for them too. This in turn energizes us and reminds us why we farm. Because people show up with homemade bread that's why.