Kayci - with her prize winning steer
At a time when our elected leaders give us pause, when we can hardly rely on what they say, given how little they actually accomplish, more and more we look to our friends and neighbors in the community to get the job done – to do what makes life friendly and productive.
Let’s face it – we can’t wait for our public officials to get it right, and they hardly set the table any time without it becoming a food fight.
Among the most encouraging sign I find among us real folk are the young people, the next generation, who are motivated by family and personal interest to make a difference – and at a difficult time in our nation’s history.
There are lots of great organizations but one that just doesn’t get enough attention in my opinion is our 4-H Club.
Your son or daughter, if five to nineteen years of age, should think of joining.
The goal of 4-H is to learn to lead by leading.
It’s about a lot more than agricultural, how it got started, but I’d still like to focus on 4-H’s natural origin – and not just because we have the Loudoun County 4-H auction on July 29th. at the fair grounds on Dry Mill Road.
It’s because Kayci Dukes wrote me to spark my interest in a steer she hopes to auction.
She wrote me that she had this “beautiful dark red tiger striped steer that took reserve champion at the Northern District Livestock Show.”
About a month ago, “Red Tiger” tipped the scale at 1,060 pounds, and he was then gaining weight at the rate of 3 pounds a day.
Plainly, Big Red is no candidate for weight watchers. Of course, how many who go to weight watchers have a natural diet of pasture grass and hay, or lick a mineral salt block, or consume ground grain from Armarc Farms.
Kayci not only has raised this prize winning steer, she has learned how to sell and to do it, in a way, that is sensitive to us folk who want to buy local and green; she wrote me that this prize steer has no steroids – none.
Kayci’s Dad, Tom, created the environment that made her curious, caring, and devoted to nature as well as animal husbandry.
After working in refineries for about 20 years in Texas, Tom returned to Purcellville, and there were no refineries here, and, Tom says, “I didn’t want to fight traffic at 5 am, in order to work a ‘real’ job,” so he learned how to be a farrier, and does; his “only regret,” he says, “is that I didn’t start doing this 20 years earlier.”
Kayci is just one example of the 6 ½ million 4-H members in the United States at about 90,000 clubs; it shouldn’t surprise you that there are also clubs in 80 other countries around the world.
If you’re wondering what the 4 Hs mean that adorn the 4 leafs of the clover that is the club’s symbol, they are for a head (that thinks), a heart (that cares), hands (that work), and health (that flourishes).
I asked Kayci what was the 4-H motto; she said, “To make the best better.”
Imagine how much better off we’d be if that was the motto for our public officials.
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