Cleanest pen controversy

Good Morning from the kind of clear, but cool Knolltop.

I'm on an errand frenzy this morning which includes oil filters and groceries...I'm sure you can figure out which stores I'm headed to.

We had a very quiet night last evening..no games...no practices....just sitting at home eating popcorn. Although there was some controversy in the barn. Sarah has created a "Who has the cleanest heifer pen" contest between she and Jake. She has drawn up a chart on the white dry erase board in the barn, complete with a key for what all the symbols mean. I had to spend a day just learning the key and what I was supposed to put where.

At the end of chores I'm supposed to judge who has the best looking heifer pen. Each of the kids has a heifer pen they have to clean which includes scraping out the front of the pen where there is no bedding and then putting clean shavings on the bedding pack in the back of the pen. It doesn't take very long and when it's done each day we don't have to clean calf pens that are 4 feet deep in manure...this way they are always clean.

Well, Jake got to his pen first and because he wanted his pen to look the best, he not only put shavings on the bedding pack in the back of the pen, he put shavings in the front of the pen so he had a nice blanket of clean shavings front to back. He also used up all the shavings so the other kids didn't have any to use for their pens. While he stood around proud as a peacock over his pen, the other kids were screaming "Jake is disqualified! He used all the shavings!" Bobby and I just laughed. You have to laugh at these things....there's no taking sides...we just laugh.

They were wanting to argue about it yet this morning over the breakfast table. I put an end to it when I began reading our morning devotions...which was about servanthood....something they could improve on!

Off to town!