Taken Unexpectedly Happy

Frieland LF Bama Breeze

By a Facebook post by a very nice lady I have met a couple of times, asking for dairy judging terms. It reminded me of the days when the kids were involved in Dairy Quiz Bowl, Dairy Judging and the Dairy Ambassador (Dairy Princess and Court) program.


At the time I'm sure it was challenging to cart them to all the myriad practices and barn meetings and public events, where they dished out ice cream and great big farm kid smiles, but somehow I have fond memories of those hectic days.


And I love the way the terms for dairy cow judging roll around in my mind even now. (You can't help but learn while the kids do, and I coached the novice quiz bowl team for several years....loved those novices! They were so eager and interested and fun and even on the years when the team didn't do well, they always won on some level.)


Sharp and clean through the throat, sharp shoulders, straight top line, wide at the hooks and pins, sweeping rib, deep rib, correct set to the hocks, deep bodied, great body capacity,  heart girth, wide chest floor, dairy character, sharp and clean throughout, high, tight, wide rear udder, excellent udder attachment, smoothly blended fore udder....I could go on all day with the terms the kids had to use when giving reasons for their choices in dairy judging. The younger kids could just choose which cows they liked best in a class, but the seniors had to give spoken or written reasons and were judged upon them.


Liz went to state several times for both horse and dairy judging, and also went to state for quiz bowl. Becky was a junior and was placed on a senior team at the regional level. She placed high enough that she would have been an alternate for state had she been in the right age group. We all took the dairy stuff pretty seriously and I guess it stuck.


I sure do still love to look at a beautiful cow. Sometimes I go to the Harvue website just to look at Frosty.....


Anyhow, it was a nice little trip down memory lane...