Jake and Ab

Well, I updated the Here We Go....Again entry down below.  Nothing exciting really.  I just couldn't handle finishing it that night.  Plus I still need to finish the Name Your Poison entry!  I think that's a bit more interesting and there's really a lot to that story!  But it's so depressing and I get mad just thinking about it.  So, that one may take me awhile.

Tonight we met Ab's new sheep, that we named Jake.  Actually we first saw him a day after he was born.  He was part of a quad birth, but only 3 of them survived.  Now, he's a 3-month old, cross-breed that's been castrated.  We learned that he's now called a "Whether."  I don't know if I spelled that right or not.  This is her first experience with raising a farm animal so I am learning right along with her. 

She's joined a local Ag group, similar to FFA.  She's going to raise Jake to show and sell at our county fair in September.  It will be something really positive to keep her busy this summer. 

Her advisor has a degree in Agriculture and works for our county's Ag Commissioner's Office as an Entomologist.  Perfect, since Ab loves animals and insects!

The advisors teach them how to do innoculations, shearing and to bathe the animals.  They learn how to exercise the animal to build muscle, break him to walk on a lead and without the lead and show techniques.  The advisor keeps the animals at her home, just out of town and she feeds them all in the morning.  There are 6 kids in her group and they take turns feeding all the animals each evening, one day a week.  Abbie's day will be Thursday. 

Jake had on a halter and lead tonight and Ab learned that she's got to train him to walk with her.  Mary, the advisor, used an analogy with Ab saying that she needs to think of it as if she's "the parent and Jake's the kid. " Jake doesn't want to do what the parent wants and it's up to her to "make him mind!"  What a wonderful life lesson!  Right now Jake is being dragged along, digging in his hooves.  I pointed out to Ab that it's just how I feel when trying to get her to do something that she's resisting!   

Speaking of creatures, great and small....Ab just rescued a field mouse from the grips of Oreo, our cat, out in the front yard.  She put it in a shoe box and brought it in the house.  The only way I knew that something was up was because she ran in and out with that shoe box. 

I have instructed her to let the mouse go in the field surrounding our house.  She'd much prefer to keep it. 

 YUK. 

::note to self...do not let her bring that shoe box back inside::