Nick was just getting where he could stand up holding on to things, so we went to the corrals to practice.

Yup, the calf on the left is Peanut. The calves weren't scared of Nick at all; he was a great little ambassador.

This was #1. She was just a commercial Angus, but she was very small for a commercial. She was a total sweetheart and it was sad to let her go when she came up open in Dec 2008.

This was Nick's dog, Trooper. Sadly, he was hit by a truck in New York.

Loading cows out of the mountains with some friends.

Most kids get the horse, we figured the bull was appropriate.

Nick has no fear of the cows (or bulls), he had no clue why these big commercial cows did not stand there for him to pet them.

This picture has been duplicated, blown up, framed, and distributed. Because she is so gentle, Becky is now Nick's cow. Even though she no longer breeds, after her calf was in the wrong position and we ended up doing a c-section on her (she comes into heat every 21 days, but never catches, we are thinking about spaying her). She is a total pet, though, and we weren't about to try and explain to Nick that he no longer had a cow. He pets her, sits on her, feeds her, everything a kid should be able to do with a pet cow.

#12 had to check for treats.

Jeramie's parents own a dairy in New York and Nick loved to go to the barn and help.

Nick wanted to pet Cutie the day she was born. I had to convince him to slow down and go gentle so he could actually catch her, instead of scaring her to death.

Charlie with Toot the day Toot was born (June 1, 2010).

Nick went and got some cow candy to treat the bulls with.

She may be little, but she can do everything a big kid can do (or so she thinks). The cows watch her monkey around, pretty funny.

The kids are convinced the water is for them to play in, not for the cows to drink.

No getting away from these two! One comes over the top while the other goes underneath. And here I thought I could walk through the pen by myself!

Nick with Pogo.

Anytime the tractor is running, Charlie thinks she needs on it.

It was her good fortune that her daddy is okay with her fascination with tractors and lets her ride with him as long as he isn't on the "big road."

She's completely content on the tractor. And you can barely see his head behind the rollbar, but Nick had also gone down and was on the tractor, too.

After putting a round bale in the feeder with Dad and Charlie, Nick brought his tractor back up to the house.

The cows are quite interested in what Charlie does. She was busy putting snow in their water and they had to watch her closely.

Again both kids are content to ride the tractor with Dad. They were headed out to help feed on this trip.