For the last decade, I’ve been so busy building this farm to sustain our family that time wasn’t a commodity I had to spare & I kept that reality tucked behind closed doors. I chose late nights building our website over movie nights. I often picked answering emails in the evening over card games. I would encourage the kids to get crafty but I usually didn’t partake while I was creating content for social media.

Then I got so sick that I knocked on heaven’s door and came back with one overwhelming thought: no more.

My time is far too valuable to keep giving it away when my family needs it most, even if that means falling short of our amazing customers expectations. 🙁

So when Gracie asked me to help her make something for her costume class with her heifer at fair this year, I didn’t try to convince her to do something easier. I listened to her ideas, gathered supplies, and spent hours hot-gluing 6,000 cotton balls to a bedsheet that would wrap around her Jersey cow, transforming her into a sheep.

I don’t regret a single hot glue gun burn because… LOOK AT THAT SMILE?!?!

There are very few things I love more than 4-H and fair week. So many memories that shaped me come rushing back with the smell of shavings, popcorn, and cattle. Every year, I looked forward to that week more than almost anything. But I had no idea that as a parent, I would fall even deeper in love with the program and the opportunities fairs would give my own kids.

This is where I fell in love with agriculture. It was long days in the cow barns with friends that introduced me to the world of showing cattle and sheep. It was qualifying for Round Robin—where the top showman from each livestock division (beef, dairy, pigs, goats, sheep, and horses) competes for the overall title—that made me fall in love with every species. And yes, I actually won it one year at our larger local fair. I still have the buckle and custom jacket to prove it.

I’ll cherish the time we poured into our kids this summer because we were creating something far more valuable than a costume.

We were creating core memories.

In the end, that’s what all of this was for in the first place. 😉