My beautiful daughter, EJ, is planning on majoring in Agricultural Education in college. She wants to teach high school Ag and has been taking a lot of ag classes and is very involved in FFA (Future Farmers of America). If you knew us you might think this odd considering the fact that we live in a large city and have never lived anywhere else. However, I grew up in a small town of about 10,000 and both sets of grandparents lived on farms in the country. I think my love of small town and country living passed into my daughter's genes in utero. She has always wanted to live in the country and loves animals. So...the goat.As a step toward earning her Lone Star degree for FFA, EJ is required to raise an animal. Two weeks ago "we" became the proud owners of a small goat named Samson. Thankfully, our school district has an ag farm and that is where Samson resides. From my prior post you may remember that EJ doesn't drive. So..."we" get to drive twice a day to the farm so EJ can feed the goat - every day, including Christmas! EJ is not a morning person and is not enjoying getting up early every morning, including weekends. Samson will be cared for until the end of February. After being shown at our big livestock show and the county livestock show, he will be returned to the food chain, as the teacher so gently put it. Hopefully, we will recover some of the money we put into little Samson. EJ is being a real trooper and doesn't complain much about having to arise earlier than usual. But, it has been only 2 weeks! And the show training hasn't even started.
I was opposed to the goat but knew that this was something EJ needed to do. I'm afraid I made her feel bad about doing it (with my ramblings on about what an inconvenience it was going to be for me). I'm not proud of that and I decided that this would be a family project. So...when EJ cannot take care of the goat for whatever reason, Mom and Dad will fill in the gap. We are also not complaining(yet). After all, our time with her is becoming short and I'm trying to be a better mom and enjoy this year - not always easy but definitely worth it.
