61
to ensure that their animals look and act
their best for the show. Those days, the
girls are up at 5:30 a.m. and in bed by
11:30 p.m.
The girls spend from six to 1 hours a
week caring for their cattle, and more
during the fair week, Jessica said. “I’m
always very impressed with their work
ethic,” Jessica said of her girls.
Projects, not Pets
The other life lesson the Ryherd girls have
learned from cattle raising is an emotional
one. A steer is a male cow that’s bred
and raised specically for the quality and
quantity of the meat like steak and
roasts they provide for humans. The
twin steers that the twins showed and
sold at the fair in January were born on the
property and bottle-fed by Jessica and the
girls for the rst three days of their lives.
The family, which has a special love for
twins already, were thrilled that one of
their cows had twins. The girls named the
calves eorge and Fred Weasley.
“We cry every year,” Sarala said,
explaining that the fair is bittersweet.
While there’s a euphoria that comes from
successfully completing a challenging,
sometimes 18-month project, it is hard to
say goodbye to an animal you’ve trained,
fed, and cared for so long. The girls have
learned how to raise an animal for food
then let it go. They’ve also learned an
appreciation of where food comes from.
“It’s a sad time,” agreed Alex. But knowing
the calves had the best possible life they
could have had while with the girls, makes
them feel better, they said. “There’s a
grieving process,” said Jessica, who from
the beginning has made sure the girls
understand when, how, and why they will
always have to let the steers go. “But it’s
good to be sad. You’ve raised this animal
for this purpose. These are living things.
What we’re doing has value.”
Also, it helps that the girls bring heifers
back from the fair the process of
loading them up and taking them home
provide a distraction on that difcult last
day. At the fair, the girls usually break even
nancially, and if there is any prot, they
save it for their future college or their
rst cars, for example. They don’t raise
cattle for the money.
They do it for the fun, said Alex, who wants
to be either a rancher or an agriculture
teacher in the future. Whatever she ends
up doing for a living, it has to involve cows,
she said. For Alex, the fun comes from
getting to know the animals’ personalities,
being outdoors, and being with family.
“This is special and different,” Alex said.