Bulldog Bonanza

This week was NUTS! Monday was the girls' first day of school. Ali Grace started 6th grade and Addie started 2nd grade. Don't they look thrilled? They love school, but they love romping around the farm all summer much, much better. It didn't take them long to get into the routine of school but it's never easy for us.

As if this back to school week wasn't crazy enough, we thought it would be a GRAND idea to go to a goat show in Athens. I'm not sure why we thought that was a good idea since we're all exhausted but ANYHOO... we all had a good time. We had a GREAT cheering section. I meant to get a picture of the peanut gallery but never did. Beth (the teacher of the gifted) came along with her mama, (the tea lady) and they met up with Cynthia, a friend I met on the mighty Altamaha this past summer. She actually went to high school at Brentwood with Beth. Small world. The girls were so excited to have "goat show groupies"! Addie Belle especially adores the tea lady. I've always believed the more people you have in this world to love your children, the better off they'll be. We're in good shape so far. 

Addie washed her goat and got her ready for the show this morning while wearing an EBA field day shirt, running shorts and her trademark red boots. She really has a style all her own.

Sweet Ali Grace is hard to photograph before she goes into the arena. She gets nervous I think. However she says she's saving her smiles for the judge.

Here's a sweet smile I managed to capture!

Things got hectic when we had 4 goats in the same weight class. Never fear! The teacher of the gifted is here! You can take the girl out of the farm but not the farm out of the girl. She helped Addie get her goat to the holding area while we got the other goats ready.

I think Addie may be praying over her goat. ha!

It's impossible to keep Addie clean at a show. I starched and ironed her shirt and jeans before she left this morning. What a waste of time. She ends up much dirtier than the animals.

Addie and Sidney played in the barn while waiting on their classes to be called.

And check out my nephew Colten Cooper! He had a rough show last week when his goat horned him in the eye, dragged him and then knocked him down. Look who's right back at it! And guess who won his weight class and got 6th overall?  Yes, yes he did.

Ali Grace doesn't even look like the same showman as she did 2 shows ago. I'm so proud of her. She always has such a calm grace about her. 

We got home this evening and all of us crashed! We were beyond exhausted but had an awesome time at the show. We've got a few weeks off until the fair season starts and we wind up Goatpalooza 2012 at the State Show in October.

One of my friends at work, Jacquie Jukes, told me in a casual conversation last week "you're giving your kids a pure childhood". I don't think I've ever gotten a better compliment. In case you didn't know Jukes- that made my week and I really needed to hear it. Thanks. I get by with a little help from my friends. 

Goatpalooza!

Lord y'all my parents are saints. Or insane. Or both. Insane saints. Yes, that's what they are. Since Friday was Pete's first day of school, and the end of my first week of school, we had to send the girls down to Perry with Nanny and Poppy. I don't know how they do it. I hope I'm still running gangbusters like they are when I'm 64. Anyhow, Pete and I drove down this morning to see the Georgia Young Farmer Market Goat Show at the Georgia National Fairgrounds. I had to leave in a hurry since Ali called and told me her pants were still in the dryer. Yes, my parents trucked my brother and me all over the country- Dallas, Texas..Fort Worth... Lawton, Oklahoma, Wichita Falls, Louisville, Kentucky and a thousand more places- yet I can't get my two girls to Perry with their pants. I'm a regular Mother of the Year!

You rest assured, these Burke County girls were the cutest girls in the barn!

The Cooper grands were spectacular! 

Addie Belle and Sidney had the best time at the show! Sidney is a doll. Her parents own the dairy down the road. She and Addie were peas in a pod this weekend. I made Sidney's mama a deal. I'll wash the goats if she'll braid the hair. I have a true disability when it comes to hair braiding.

This SHOW business will wear you out!

And I swear y'all- Ali Grace looked so dang grown this weekend it was hard for me to look at her without crying. And I never cry. Ever. Seriously. 

A great time was had by all. We're taking it easy the rest of the weekend since school starts for the girls on Monday. I'm kinda looking forward to getting back into our regular school routine. Addie won't let me say the word school around her yet. She's totally fast forwarded through next week in her mind and she's already at UGA for next weekend's goat show. 

All I ever really needed to know about teaching I learned as an Ag teacher

As school starts back for another year, I do as I have always done and reflect on just what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. What is the point of this calling? Will one word that comes out of my mouth make one iota of difference in this world? I don't know how other teachers feel about this time of year but I  know it's a time of anxiety for me. This year I started my fifteenth year as a teacher. Although I'm technically not a full time classroom teacher anymore, I still anticipated the first day of school the same as I always have, with the exception of one thing- I didn't have any back to school dreams. No dreams of missing desks, waking up at lunchtime, or coming to school naked. None. Zip. Same thing last year when I began my first year as an Instructional Coach. It occurred to me that maybe I'm not really a teacher anymore. I began to think about all that I HAVE been. Of all the hats I've worn, I learned the most as an agriculture teacher. I've never worked harder than I did then and I've never really known my students as well as I did those kids whose parents entrusted me to take them to FFA Camp and return them home safely with a trophy proclaiming us "Team of the Week". 

My own family demands pushed me to the more heralded world of academia as a 6th grade science teacher and onto math and social studies too. At some point in time, I've taught all grades 6 through 12. I've taught everything from welding to woodworking to algebra. I'm one of those teachers who loves teaching more than they love their subject. If my principal wanted me to teach mandarin Chinese, I think I'd try it, albeit with a distinct southern accent. Almost everything I know about teaching, I learned while teaching Agriculture, a vocational class. Oh I know some of you hoity toits will raise your eyebrows and some of you vocational folks will look down your nose and proclaim "it's not vocational, it's career and technical education". Give me a break! We did a great disservice to education when we abandoned the word vocational. 

We all know the words "job" and "career", but we seldom ponder the true meaning of the word vocation. Vocation comes from the Latin word "vocare", which means "voice", or to follow the voice of God- to follow our calling so to speak. Wow. Profound. I consider a vocation, far, far more rewarding and honorable than a job or a career. Becky Horst, dean of Goshen College, says " a vocation is a calling which merges our mission in life with God's mission on Earth." How dare we look down our noses at such a calling. You see why I still proudly proclaim myself a "vocational teacher"? Horst goes on to remind us, "The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet. That intersecting point is your calling, your vocation". How truly personal is that? Wow. What IS it I'm supposed to be doing this year? What a monumental calling this teaching thing is. I'm not sure I'm worthy or capable. 

I recently read a blog linked by a cousin of mine. The blog was written by a former public school teacher who claims she was "brainwashed". I feel her pain, and I hope many school teachers who read this will recognize their own brainwashing. She recalls her early years as an English teacher. She laments the fact that she berated a 6 ft tall boy towering over her in tears, for not appreciating The Scarlet Letter. He was not "proficient" in reading. In our test crazy school system, he was a screwup, a failure, a loser. The teacher is deeply saddened that she failed to recognize his strengths. This "failure" she berated worked nights at his uncle's mechanics shop. He knew the names of every part of every motor ever mass produced and he could take them apart and put them together- all without the help of the Scarlet Letter. How terrible is it that instead of honing his strengths, she, just like we all have a tendency to do, focused on his failures?  The blog author said she had tried so hard to find this kid and apologize. She'd heard he was quite a successful mechanic. Now I love the Scarlet Letter, but you know what? I love a guy who can fix my car too!

This school year, may we all aspire beyond a career and toward a vocation, the place where God calls us. The place where our happiness intersects with the world's needs. 

So 'tis true! All I ever needed to know about teaching, I learned as an VOCATIONAL Agriculture teacher... (My top three)

1. Kids trust you when they know you care about them. If you're willing to back a trailer into the woods in the snow in order to get their pig to the State Livestock show, they know it and they don't forget it.

2. Sometimes kids need to learn their own lessons. For example, if you wear cuffed pants while you weld, you may catch your pants on fire. After the fire is out, people laugh at you.

3. Children need to know that education without service is useless. Give the janitor a bucket of squash from the school garden, and you can do no wrong the rest of the school year. You will also have an endless supply of paper towels that the rest of the school will envy. 

Have a wonderful school year everyone. Whether you're off to private school, public school, homeschool, or teaching school!

Here are some pictures from this week. Addie insists that her future vocation will be "a goat doctor like her uncle Ernie".  Ummm Ernie is not a goat doctor. He is a goat wrangler, dragger, show picker outter, etc. Addie says "well that's about the same thing don't you think?".  

We

Well MERCY BOOKOOP!

Y'all know I don't leave the Ponderosa that much. I'm a homebody. I've tried to change. It hasn't worked. I love my house. I love the farm. I love the dirt road. I love everything about this place. Well maybe except that the phone goes out every time it rains. But hey- who needs a phone anyhow. But there does come a time when you need to get away so they tell me. So, when the Teacher of the Gifted invited Pete and I on a fishing trip to Apalachicola Bay, we decided it might be a nice last blast before summer's passed. Y'all remember the Teacher of the Gifted, right? We were friends before the great lab fire, but after, when our friendship had been literally forged by fire, we became good friends. That's a good thing since she and her husband have a kickin' camper and boat! I love the CS Lewis quote about friendship. He says, "Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, WHAT? YOU TOO? I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!".  Ahhhh so true. Beth makes me laugh. A lot. And she won't tell if I pee on myself. Because I know the true story of the Maxway pants and I will tell it. 

So anyhow, we set off to St George Island on Friday of last week. Beth and I pulled the boat and Pete and Timmy pulled the camper. We camped at St George Island at the state park. It was a really nice area and we enjoyed the beach there. The first night there we met Betsy, or as her French mother pronounced it "Bedzee". Bedzee and her "Bonne maMA" as she called her, cooked our dinner the first night there. I just attract good folks I guess. We had a nice dinner with perfect strangers that we'll probably never see again. The funniest part of the night was when Bonne maMA told us "Merci, Beacoup!" (Thank you very much). Timmy replied "Mercy Bookoo". I swear it sounded just like that. Imagine "Mercy Bookoo" with a Washington County accent and you'll have it. Poor Bonne maMa just looked at him perplexed. 

I told Addie Belle we were going to catch some scallops and cook them for dinner one night. She gave me some good advice before we left. "Y'all better pack a sandwich". It's a good thing we did. We found like 8 scallops! It was fun though. Something I'd never done before.

Friends are good... if they have a boat, even better! 

I'm not sure where Pete learned to snorkle. He looks like he's genuinely pissed off with those elusive scallops. 

Good thing we didn't depend on Beth for dinner. She had a hard enough time keeping up with her chap stick. 

Pete found this AWESOME conch shell. I wanted to keep it for my mantle but we were afraid we'd end up in a Cuban prison for taking Florida wildlife. Since there was a big G on the front of the truck, I was doubly concerned so we threw it back. 

Pete and Timmy tried their best "Old Man and the Sea" impressions...

On Wednesday, we went shark fishing. Y'all know I don't give a wet whistle about fishing. It is fun watching people reel in sharks though! It was REALLY fun to watch Beth hurdle the bench in the boat to catch her first shark. If she'd have fallen I would have wet my pants. That's how friends are I think... you know... you trip up and they help you up. Then they trip you again.

Poor Beth got tired trying to teach Timmy to fish. 

I got my shark! Sort of.. while the guide held the rod and I reeled when he told me to!  I just remember Beth yelling HELP HER TIMMY! DON'T LET HER FALL IN! I must have looked like a total nut trying to reel that stupid fish in.

We had a great time. It was just what the doctor ordered. Now I'm not leaving the compound for a few days. Mama and Daddy left for a bed and breakfast in West Virginia for a few days, so it's just us around here. We're slowly getting used to the idea that school is starting soon. I've had a fabulous summer but I must admit I am getting used to the idea of a sweatshirt, football, and a crock pot.