This week's favorite wan't a clear win as most past ones have been, but I chose this picture of Lilly helping her cousin fill up the calf buckets. I remember doing the same chore with my sister when was I younger.
But the story that sticks in my mind as a childhood lesson was when we were filling up the calf water buckets one hot summer evening. It was hot. The water was cool. So we dumped buckets upon buckets on ourselves. We were laughing because we thought it was hilarious watching each other dripping with waterWe were soaked and so was everything else around us. But our dad was in the milking barn watching us too. He did not think it was hilarious. We were threatened with a water-soaked bed that night (and he would pour water on our brothers to wake them up in the morning, so we knew he was serious!). We slept in a dry bed that night, but we never again dumped buckets of water on ourselves.
Lesson learned. Respect the comforts of others (humans and animals!). I pray my daughters make mistakes and learn from them here in the loving boundaries of the family farm. When they grow up and possibly leave, they will be equipped to make it wherever their life leads them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6