Initiative

The other day I was working in the yard when I noticed Olivia come out of the house, grab Rafe's wagon, and head over to Matt's garage. When I saw her load a bag (a 50-pound bag!) of calf feed I figured out what she was up to.

She headed out with it, and after 10 minutes or so had passed I thought I'd better go check on her. By that time she'd managed to fill a 5-gallon pail full of shell corn out of the corn wagon - which required that she undo the straps holding the tarp over it, shovel out the corn, and then re-secure the tarp - and had both the wagon and the pail inside the calf pen.

I said, "Wait right there, I want to get the camera!"

You know she's a scrapbooker's kid when she didn't bat an eye at that.

"Good," she said, "then there'll be proof for Dad that I did this all by myself."

When I got back she proceeded to haul that heavy pail of corn across the pasture, refusing to let me help her. Then she came back for the wagon with the bag (50 pounds!) of calf feed.



The big feeder calves were hoping she was bringing it for them.


Then it was open the bag of feed and dump it in the feeder...


...dump in the pail of shell corn...


...and mix everything together.


I managed to keep my mouth shut about maybe not feeding calves in white shorts. Good mom! (And no, I won't let her do this all the time. Poor thing will give herself a hernia!)

So pardon my brag :) I was pretty impressed with this 8-year-old 61-pounds-soaking-wet girl of mine. (And so was her dad when he got home from work!)