(My son, Dalton, was four going on forty in the year 2006.)

 Dalton always has something to say about everything on the farm. He also has to check on all those “everythings” every chance he gets. Since we have a new colt (born just this week) we had to go see it, pet it, and try to feed it.  After we exhausted that area, he decided his calves were missing him.  Petting the calves and feeding them hay didn’t last long. Dalton then decided he was going to ride them. However, since Uncle Paul and Daddy were both gone for the day, I told Dalton the only way he was going to get to ride a calf was to rope it and get on it himself. I figured I was safe. (I should have known better.)

After letting the calves all out of their pen, and running them around a bit, Dalton finally roped the black one. Perfect. (I didn’t have to help lol.) He even had it by the fence so he could crawl up the gate and get on the calf.  As Dalton started up the fence, the black got smart and started bucking a bit causing the rope to slide down it’s back and off- except for one leg. (Guess who had to get the rope off?) Then Dalton decided the little holstein would be easier to rope. He quickly got the rope around the calf’s neck and had the calf almost choked down in minutes. I told him he could NOT do that because he was going to kill it! I reminded Dalton that he had to get the rope around the calf’s belly.

After less than 30 seconds of thought he undid the rope. Talking to the black calf (Dalton’s way of diverting the calf’s attention,) he tossed one end of the rope over its back, scooped up the end and had it tied around the calf’s belly. Dalton was on maybe 8 full seconds with two circles of bucking before the calf got smart, stopped, and wouldn’t move. Dalton crawled off exclaiming, “he’s done! Let’s go rope the horse”, meaning the baby one. I told him he could not.  “Then get the white one!” he argued. (Buck is actually a buckskin).“No way! You wait for Dad!” I told Dalton as I led him back to the house.

And there was no way I was going to tell him to go rope it himself!

Edited 2-19-21