The Arkansas Farm Girl

You know how Arkansas is known for being rocky? Yeah, our animals know how to use said rocks to their advantage. When I started halter breaking Daisy she lived in the pen with a bull calf so I decided to halter break him too. He was not overly fond of this arrangement and fought the halter most days. My solution was to get Grandma to go out to the pen and follow Buddy around while I lead him. Every time he stopped before I told him too Grandma would pay his rear or twist his tail and get him moving again. It worked out fine until he got smarter than us. One time Grandma twisted his tail and the little stinker took off at a dead run. Understand that this little guy had the speed of a car. Being the stubborn person I am, I tried to keep up with him so I wouldn't have to let go of the rope. I did pretty good for about five seconds before I tripped on a rock and hit the ground. Did you know that a determined calf can drag you quite a ways even if you are bigger than them? I fo...

For this blog we're throwing it back to about sixth grade when I wrote my first Bible short story. What you are about to read is 100% real. The only thing that has been changed is spelling errors. This is the story that got me interested in writing popular Bible stories from a different perspective. It has been written from the perspective of a guest at the king's feast. For the whole story check out Daniel 5. "Thank you for coming to the feast," says King Belshazzer. "Long live the king!" everyone yells. "Behold the cups of the temple of Jerusalem," he holds up a golden cup, "Eat, drink and be merry my friends." "To King Belshazzar," a woman says. We all lift our cups and drink. Suddenly, a woman screams. I whirl around and nearly faint. A single finger lingers in front of the wall. Then, I see the writing on the wall. "What is the meaning of this?" asks the king, "Get my wise men and advisors." ...

Finding out that Grizzly is actually a heifer marked the beginning of the 2019 show season for me. This also got me to thinking about all of the things that come into play with showing livestock. It isn't for the flighty or faint of heart. That's Show Biz is a series I will be doing throughout the show season. I will cover topics like feed, training and grooming. If you are a stock show kid, I hope that these posts will contain something that can help you. Before we get started here are some things you should know: 1. I will be using cows and cow terminology for these blogs because that is the animal I have the most experience with. You can most certainly apply it to sheep, goats and pigs though. 2. You will read this phrase a lot; "Do what works best for you and your animal. " I stress this to everyone that asks me about showing livestock. This doesn't mean that you have to ignore other people's advice, it just means that not everything that they do ...

In the last two lessons we have learned what faith is and if it is enough. Now let's talk about the most important part: who do we put our faith in? Jesus gave a very simple answer to this in Mark 11:22. If we have faith in God, He will never fail us. I don't know who said it but I love the quote, "Show God your faith, and he will show you his faithfulness." He is always there to show us the way. Here is another of my favorite faith quotes. Have faith that God knows what is ahead. Everything that happens to you has been carefully planned out by God to bring about a wonderful end result. I suppose you could say there is a method to his madness. I want to leave you with a song suggestion. Go listen to What Faith Can Do by Kutless. It's one of my very favorite songs and there is a powerful message of faith to it. God bless.

Snow is God's way of making our winter days beautiful. People of all ages and walks of life enjoy the white wonderland outside their windows. Even farmers like snow, though it has many downsides.  Most people love to sit inside and watch the snow from the comfort of their favorite chair with a big cup of hot cocoa. Of course, no snow day would be complete without a good book.  If you go to a farm on a snow day you might encounter tracks like these. The animals are up and moving around despite the rigid weather. They are also very hungry and looking for some grub.  Next to these, if you look closely, you will find another familiar print: a boot print. Even when it snows farmers still have to tend to animals. We don't get a break. It's cold and wet outside but we don't mind because the chores have to be done and we love what we do. So if you go to a farm on a snow day, you will see lots of animal tracks and next to them you'll see a farmer's boot prin...