Family Farm Friday #88: I'll Take The Stock Show

Last week I saw an interesting conversation on Facebook that had people pretty polarized.  It all started when a mom suggested that her kids should not show animals this summer so that the family could go on a vacation to Disneyworld.  Now, let's start with a reminder that I'm all for everyone having their own story and making their own decisions. And I'm not harping on someone about making decisions differently than I would make. 

But that said....I'll take the stock show.

Growing up, we did not go on family vacations.  We went to stock shows.  And while I've never been to Disneyland, I'm pretty sure that the roller coaster rides, churros, and fake mouse ears can't replace what the stock shows gave me.

 

At those stock shows (and the months leading up to them), I learned what it meant to work hard.  My brother and I got up early, went to bed late, busted our butts in between dealing with weights and drench guns and feed regiments and wash racks. I also learned that not everyone worked that way.  I remember countless times it would be 8:00 at night and I'd come into the dorms covered in feed and hay and manure and lord knows what else, while some of the other girls would be all dressed up, make up on, and hair fixed.  And while I can't say that it happened this way all the time, but I lot of the time it was those of us who spent the week covered in manure who ended up smiling come the end of show day.  Not a bad thing for a kid to learn.

 

 

 

 

At those stock shows, I was surrounded by adults who became like family to me.  There were women who would haul in enough food for an army and be sure that we didn't go hungry by dishing out posole and beans from a crock pot in the tack pen.  There were men who helped sheer my sheep and haul our show boxes in and out and had no problem telling me if I wasn't doing something right.  There was an ag teacher that became one of my very favorite people in the world with his glare for people who showed up late for feeding, and his Rainman-like remembering of the weights of seriously every lamb in the barn, and his uncanny ability to sniff out coffee somewhere in the barn before anyone else was even awake to make it.

At those stock shows, I made friends from across the state.  Friends who have known me since I was 10 years old and who are still in my life 20 years later.  Friends whose babies I have held and funerals I have attended and weddings I have stood up at.  Friends who I never would have met were it not for the yearly "family vacation" to a stock show.

 At those stock shows, we spent quality time with our family.  After one particularly long, and I mean LONG night at the barn, that I'm fairly sure involved my dad breaking his toes after kicking something, I remember him saying that we might look back at parts of this showing deal and remember the fights, but we'd also look back and always remember him being there.  And he was right.  I remember the fights for being funny now, but I remember all of the time and money and sacrifice that he and my mom made so that we could go to those stock shows.  And that was a gift that is priceless in my mind.

 

And there's certainly more that those shows taught me.  Competitiveness.  Being a humble winner and a gracious loser.  Lucky shirts and lucky halters and the smell of sawdust and Revive.  That post-Led Zeplin concerts are probably not a great place to be in the dark.  A lot about love was learned at those dances and the dorm steps and the dairy barn alley where certain curse words were hurled at BFF when he hurt a girl's feelings.  How to change a trailer tire that blew every year on the way to Albuquerque.  How to talk to the police when things got a little rowdy at a street dance (and a certain someone needed me to lead him back to the dorms by the arm!)  That life is not always fair.  That I was never going to be as high maintenance as some of the other girls who hauled in a crap ton of clothes and shoes and fancy belts.  And that the best place for a bed was in the back corner (and the best friends to have were those that always got there early to snag them!)  What it felt like to be handed that bright purple banner and shiny belt buckle.

 

 

So, all this to say....I'm sure Disney World is great.  But I'll take the stock show.  Every single time.