His name is Fabio cuz he’s Faaaaabulous!

My little sister is 3 years younger than me, and I must admit, for a long time now her cattle showing knowledge has long surpassed mine. As they would say in one of those cheesy movies:  “the student has become the teacher”.  So when it comes to her 4-H animals my sister kind of does her own thing and although she is still somewhat small in size she still manages to do most of the halter breaking, feeding and grooming all by herself. She only calls me out when she needs someone to be the ‘anchor’ on the end of the rope of an animal that is put on a halter for the first time. My job has become just holding on to the end of the rope so the 1000lb steer doesn’t get away from her. Today I once again got the opportunity to be the teacher and not the ‘muscle’ or the student. Our neighbour, and my best friends little sister Lauren joined our local beef 4-H club for the first time this year. Lauren is 6 years younger than me, and since our families are so close I always call her the little sister that I never had, and she will always reply “and you’re the big sister I never wanted” as you can see Lauren and I share and odd sense of humour, whether it is being the only two laughing at the joke ‘why did the Ram fall off the cliff: because he didn’t see the ewe turn” or joking about strange slogans there are always laughs when we get together.

 When I was home for Christmas break I had heard that Lauren had joined 4-H and when I asked her the name of her steer she replied to me “Fabio cuz he’s Faaabulous” (making the A long). Since then I have been very excited to see her fabulous steer. Today I got that opportunity when I came out to help her try to lead him around. I was very impressed with all the work she had done. Fabio had only been led a few times but when we got in there to help her out he followed us around like an old pro. This was because Lauren had put so much work into quieting him down, she had tied him up often, packed food and water too him and brushed  and petted him all the time. I really enjoy helping out new 4-H members in my community because as a young 4-Her myself I was given lots of help too. With all the work she has put into her steer I can’t wait to see how fabulous Lauren and Fabio look on show day!