I have three major hobbies. Number one is raising live stock from rabbits to cattle and everything in the middle. Number two is farming and gardening, mostly the latter because I don’t have enough acreage to row crop. Last but not least is dog training. These are the big three. Lucky for me I have three children and each of them favor one of my hobbies more than the others. So it gives me a chance to bond with each of them individually and to pass my heritage on to the next generation. With my history with the F.F.A. and my wife’s lifetime dedication to the 4-H you can only assume that our kids were in the club as soon as they where old enough to join, which is exactly what happened.

My oldest daughter is of age to show animals in 4-H this year. For her first project, she is taking over my rabbit hutch and she is doing wonderfully. Actually, I was quite impressed with her first decision. We had an extreme predator problem which cost us all of our current stock, but she didn’t let it slow her down. She bucked up and started fresh.  I thought that showed great potential for a livestock farmer. She picked a breed to raise, which I prayed would be a meat rabbit and not be some fuzzy pet, and once again she surprised me. She picked the standard rex which is the best of both worlds. With a velvet like fur and a good meaty body they make a good all around rabbit. So with that in mind, I contacted Mr. John Hendrixson the manager of the Centralia Buchheit store, who I knew raised standard rex. We got her started with a buck and two does. Now we’ll see how she manages the hutch. As always, God bless you and yours, from me and mine.