Fun With Suds

This week was a very short week. I only worked Monday and Tuesday because Travis Bunn and Leigh Ann Hazelwood were both out of the office on vacation. But with them being out, I got to spend a little more time with Tamica Reynolds, our Unit Administrative Assistant. On Monday I spent the day doing various things like shredding files from 4-H camp from 5 years ago, running errands like getting the mail and sending off forage samples, and working on the AI spreadsheet for Travis’s program. Towards the end of the day, Tamica and I went to the storage unit to grab soaps, scents, colors, and molds for the soap making we would be teaching to the kids at a day camp the next day.

Tuesday we started the day off by going to Stuart Baptist Church for the kids day camp. We brought all the materials needed for soap making that we would be would be teaching. Each kid was going to have the chance to make a unique body soap with their own scent and color. We set all the supplies up and we started melting the soap, then each kid got a mold to make their soap take shape. Kristy and I manned the scent and color table where each kid would get 5 drops of each to put in their soap. After stirring the scent and color into the melted soap, they poured the mix into their mold. All that was left was to wait. After the kids soap dried, we wrapped them in plastic so they would not make a mess on the way home. We then packed up and headed back to the office. The rest of the day was slow and I didn’t do much besides work on Travis’s AI program spreadsheet. The spreadsheet contains cattle IDs for farmers that participated in the program. It also contains the cows patch color from synchronizing the cows, who the AI technician was, the bull that was used for AI, if the cow was bred AI or by bull, and what gender the calf is. I worked on entering information that was gathered when the cows were last worked into the spreadsheet.

This week, I was able to spend time with different people and experience new things like making soap. It was also nice to work with kids again because I have gained much experience over the summer working with them. Although the kids and soap making were a joy, I always love to be able to work on something that involves livestock.