My wife has been feeding the show goats for months getting ready for February. February is show season for us. She’s bought high dollar feed, drenches and expensive shampoos for their hair. She baths and clips them and fusses over every little detail.
She has her own hair clipping hair salon in my shop building. It’s equipped with special lighting so she can see, water and drains, she’s even got her a sound system set up so she can jam out while she’s clipping goats.
This past week she took a bunch of kids to a show in Wilburton. Some of them placed higher than others. I honestly don’t even know who all went. I wasn’t able to go or help her with the preparation of the goats.
It stays wet at our house, especially out around her goat barn. One evening she had a goat all prettied up and when she was leading it back to its stall it fell down in the mud. The entire process had to be repeated, wash, blow dry, fluff the hair.
I showed pigs in high school. I kept my show pigs in a barn next to my roping calves. My show pigs lived on the dirt. So when it came time to show they were always dirty. I had a much simpler solution than what my wife does. I’d load the pigs in my two horse trailer, drive to the car wash with a pocketful of quarters. After a few minutes and a couple bucks in quarters I had a nice looking show pig, ready to show. They squealed an awfully lot at the car wash, but it sure didn’t take long and there wasn’t a big mess to clean up after.
I’ve tried to get my son to show a pig for years, but he’s dead set against it. Next year Jakob will be a senior and that will be the end of our showing. There’s an awfully lot of good memories we’ve made over the years messing with the show animals. I’m already kind of getting sad we are getting to the end of it.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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