Learning the Ropes

Yesterday evening as I was sitting here at the computer feeding Dakota, the phone rang. It was my MIL from out in the barn. She said I might want to grab a camera and get out there.

Tyrel and Kimber were helping with the barn chores. Kimber gathered the eggs and Granola asked Tyrel to get the calves in to the pen in the barn.

 She suggested he get the rope hanging in the barn to help him. Once I got out there I kinda gave him a few pointers on using a rope. Not that I am a great roper, but I did coil it for him and show him how to hold it.

 He chased the bigger calf  around and around the barn lot.

 He got discouraged and asked me to do it for him a few times. I told him he was doing great, and that me doing it for him wouldn't teach him to rope. He's seen Daddy do it enough that watching me wouldn't help. I just think he was surprised that it wasn't as easy as Daddy makes it look.

 He got it over the calf once, but didn't pull it tight and the calf went right on through. Eventually he got him chased into the barn.

 

                            Then he started on the smaller one. It was a little more his size. I was a little worried about him actually catching the bigger one.

 He got the rope over her (we need to work on where to hold the rope as I can see by the above picture).

 And hung on. He almost ran out of rope before he got a good hold on it.

 The calf wasn't very happy about having a rope on her.

 He pulled

 And pulled

 I told him to get up there closer to her.

 So he worked his way up the rope

 And pulled some more. Eventually I grabbed the end of the rope so the calf would quit getting farther from the barn, but I made him use his own muscle to get her closer. (You can see Granola chasing an ornery milk goat around behind him)

Finally, with a little help from Granola behind the calf, he got her pulled in. He was very proud. He had to go call his Daddy and tell him that he'd roped a calf. He got a rope burn, but I think he's kinda proud of it too. :)