An Ag. Day to Remember

So here I'm continuing my "Spring Has Sprung" story. This one only goes back to Friday, so it's a little fresher in my mind and it makes me smile whenever I think about it.

My college experience as an ag. major has been a great one so far, but I have to say my favorite part of it all is the events that involve the Ag. Club and its activities. This past Friday was the annual Ag. Day. There were numerous committees that were involved with the planning of Ag. Day including an animal committee, a machinery committee, a food and serving committee, and an activities committee, which I was on.
Members of the Ag. Club set up Thursday night and at 6:30 Friday morning. One look outside my dorm window told me it would be an interesting day. Let's just say that the clouds were low and gray and it looked ready to pour down on us at any moment. Luckily for us, it held off just long enough.  
Part of Ag. Day is when classes from the local elementary school come in and have guided tours. For some of them this day is their only exposure to agriculture even though agriculture was once the town's livelihood. So our goal is to fit the as many different areas of agriculture into an hour as we can.
Well, being a freshman and this being my first Ag. Day, it was interesting. Abigail, Cora, and I were told that we would be leading 'tours' for groups of ten 3rd graders...as they were lining up after getting off their bus. Talk about short notice. All was going well for the first bit. It was a sprinkling rain as we started the tours. Of course, the first thing all the kids wanted to see was the animals. So Abigail, Cora and I spaced our groups apart and began to talk to the kids about the different animals we had there, where they came from, and what their use was.
My group's first stop was in front of an Angus cow and calf pair. The pen that these two were in was made up of the cattle panels you often see on any farm, but they were hollow and weighed about fifteen to twenty pounds each. I (with all of my 5'6" frame) could easily handle one on my own even though it was as tall as I was and ten(ish) feet wide. These panels were not heavy duty at all! They were just asking for trouble.
Anyway, back to the cow and calf. Rachel stopped by because she knows more about beef cattle than I do and helped me answer the questions that my inquisitive third graders were asking. We made sure that they understood that these animals were not pets and they are not humans and that these cattle are mainly where we get our meat from. These are different from the cows that give us milk, which we would see later.
From there we moved on to goats and then to pigs. Well, let's just say that I have NO experience whatsoever with pigs, so I was hoping we could move onto the dairy heifers as quickly as possible.
My plans, however, were waylaid by a huge crash. As my group and I looked around to find the source of the sound, my eyes found it. It was kinda hard to miss. The Angus cow was knocking her pen over in an attempt to get out.
Now, under normal circumstances this may not have been as big of a deal as it was, but we were not on a farm, we were on the college campus parking lot and there were thirty little 3rd graders screaming, shouting, pointing, and scattering which aggravated the animal all the more. She succeeded in knocking the four panel pen onto one side and simply walked out.
I don't know if I've ever seen the ag. majors that were around move so fast. We did not want her to get away, so we formed a human fence and (with only a few mishaps) moved her and her calf back into the pen once it was righted.
Well, from there we returned to our groups of third graders and explained that that's what happens when animals get frightened and scared. They don't do that just because they are feeling mean (though I've known a few dairy cows that are exceptions to that rule), they do it because they are scared and want to get away from whatever they don't like. It was good for them to see.
What happened next made it all the more important for the kids to understand that this cow was scared out of her mind. Within a few minutes of her failed attempt at escape, the crazy thing tried to tip the pen over again. This time however, we had put someone by the pen to stand on the panels in case she tried that stunt again. Well, Matt was standing on the panel all right, but that wasn't going to stop her. She definitely wanted out. And so she tried to jump it, got stuck with her front legs over the bar, jumped again and this time got stuck with her belly on top of the panel, which made it partially collapse. At this point our biggest concern was getting her out without breaking a leg or hurting any of us.
Before we knew it her calf was running free without the cow, which was not helping the situation. We freed the cow but before we could form the human fence again, she took off running.
Now this was my first time working with a beef cow and calf and I found out that they are rather flighty. So while they slowed down behind a grove of trees, I was running on the other side in an attempt to get in front of them. I wasn't quite fast enough but by then there were some others helping me so we did catch her.The next task was to get her into a pen full of Angus heifers so that she would calm down until we could load her into a trailer and take her back to the farm.
Well, let's not forget the third graders. Now they were really concerned that we had a very angry cow on our hands and they wanted to make sure that that was NOT going to happen again. Well, we assured the kids that since the cow was with more cows, she would be fine until we could take her back to the farm. This seemed to satisfy them and we quickly moved on to see the rest of the animals before it started to rain.
We were able to show them all the animals quickly and do a craft with them before they left, which they really liked, but I think the highlight of their day was the cow getting out.
Our day was far from done, however. With the kids gone, the Ag. Club committees now focused on making the food that was for lunch. The officers had roasted a whole hog and so some people worked on pulling pork while others grilled pork patties and hamburgers. Cora, Abigail, and I were in charge of making sure the meat was ready to go when they needed it.
Then it started to rain. By the end of the serving time our coats were soaked, so we went  inside to eat. Then it started to pour, so Ag. Day was done for all the visitors. Not for us, though. We still had to get our animals back to their farms and take all the fencing down and clean up the bedding in the parking lot. Needless to say we got very, very wet, but overall it was a really fun day. There were lots of memories made and some very good stories that will be told.