My Darling Niece

Her name is Arlexis and I often call her "A Piece of Work". She is funny and amusing, annoying and sarcastic, loving and imaginative. Arlexis is an 11 year old farmgirl living in the city. She has always lived in the city but has spent the majority of her summers, and many weekends during the school year, in the country on a farm with her grandparents and that's shaping much of who she is. I read over her first assignments in Language Arts the other day, telling about herself, and it was neat to see how she made sure to add her experience showing cows in 4-H and how cows are her favorite animal.

Those are some photos with her cow from this years 4-H Fair. His name was Prancer Pants and she loved him so much! She'd taken a cow to the fair the summer before and didn't have much of a problem when it came time to sell him, partly because some family friends bought him but even when she knew he was going to be butchered she was okay with it and even wanted some of the meat from him. When it came to time clean up her stall area and to see Prancer Pants for the last time she became very upset. She cried while she finished cleaning up her things and gave him several big hugs.

Here she is working hard on the farm...

And all clean and pretty...

Above all, she's my darling!