I don’t know that I have a specific teaching mantra that I follow.\u00a0 Basically, I don’t want to be bored and the kids don’t either.\u00a0 I haven’t been afraid to try new things because of something that a kid(s) wanted to do.\u00a0 We showed chickens at Tulsa and started showing goats because of students wanting to try something new.\u00a0 And if you are going to do\u00a0something and they give a banner….well then, you might as well try to win.<\/p>\n
But, some things don’t have a contest.\u00a0 You do things just to try something new while learning a bit.<\/p>\n
Fresh out of college, there were very few teaching jobs open in Oklahoma.\u00a0 We had a large class of ag teachers that graduated that year AND the year before.\u00a0 My dad thought that I was a moron as I turned down a few jobs until I decided to serve a 3 year stint at Billings, OK.\u00a0 There were some great families there and I learned a lot.<\/p>\n
One of the classroom endeavors that we embarked upon was taxidermy.\u00a0 \u00a0We did this during a Natural Resources class.\u00a0 At first, we stuffed several squirrels.\u00a0 They weren’t bad but they weren’t good.\u00a0 The kids worked at it.\u00a0 The hard part was having enough refrigerator space to keep 8 or 9 squirrels chilled when the kids weren’t working on them.<\/p>\n
The kids liked to look through Van Dyke’s taxidermy catalog.\u00a0 It was cool to see the different mounts, eyes, additions and tools used to make those awesome mounts.\u00a0 They always had big visions.\u00a0 I was fine keeping it small.\u00a0 I quickly realized that taxidermists are artists and well, some are better than others.\u00a0 We were just learning the basics.<\/p>\n
Later in that year, I had an ag pickup full of kids while making project visits.\u00a0 We were west of town on a dirt road and a quick moving, slow thinking mammal darted under the moving ag pickup.\u00a0 We heard the thud.\u00a0 I stopped, put it in reverse and we got out and surveyed the suicidal beast.\u00a0 A dead armadillo.\u00a0 The kids wanted to perform taxidermy on it.\u00a0 Knowing that since armadillos jump straight up when a vehicle passes over them, it would probably have a cracked shell and would therefore be impossible to mount, I agreed as long as it was in good condition.<\/p>\n
Well crap!\u00a0 The shell was completely intact.\u00a0 I made them put gloves on before they picked “him” up.\u00a0 I say “him” because when they grabbed him by the tail and lifted him, HE had an appendage hanging out.\u00a0 Who knew that they would have a tentacle like that!?!\u00a0 The kids named him “Woody”.<\/p>\n
Van Dyke’s didn’t have a foam mount for an armadillo.\u00a0 We ordered a mount for a raccoon.\u00a0 Shaved the foam to fit.\u00a0 Dried and stretched the skin to fit.\u00a0 Filled it and sewed it up.\u00a0 And no, I did not let them keep the extra leg.\u00a0 The final hurdle was that we couldn’t find eyes for an armadillo.\u00a0 So, they improvised.\u00a0 Red map pins just happened to fit.\u00a0 So, we had a runover, stuffed armadillo with solid red eyes that was mounted by high school students.\u00a0 He was the centerpiece of the front table for the FFA banquet.\u00a0 Woody got his own page in the school annual that year.<\/p>\n
I still get messages from former students that remind of projects like this.\u00a0 I always smile, remember the fun stuff and then remember the REAL stuff.\u00a0 That dang armadillo kept the fridge stinking for weeks.\u00a0 That was an undefinable odor.\u00a0 I’ve never allowed an armadillo to be stuffed again.\u00a0 But, it was kind of cool!<\/p>\n
People, have a good one today and a better one tomorrow.\u00a0 Speaking of tomorrow, that will mark the 14th day in a row with snow on the ground.\u00a0 12-15″ (with wind, so who knows) two weeks ago.\u00a0 3″ last Sunday and 8 or 10″ today.\u00a0 Chores are fun.\u00a0 All the cows & calves got a big dose of cow cubes.\u00a0 All the goats goat some alfalfa and fresh water.\u00a0 I did, however, drop my ass into the front yard and make a Snow Angel.\u00a0 Never too old for loud music or Snow Angels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t know that I have a specific teaching mantra that I follow.\u00a0 Basically, I don’t want to be bored and the kids don’t either.\u00a0 I haven’t been afraid to try new things because of something that a kid(s) wanted to do.\u00a0 We showed chickens at Tulsa and started showing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4050,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}