Hawley, PA hosted its annual hoedown this weekend, in which we’ve been happy to participate as a farm since last year. It’s still a growing event, so it’s very interesting to watch it develop each year we attend. 

Last year we were in Bingham Park with a few games and vendors, while this year we had plenty of company that kept us busy all day long. There was food, a dunk tank, live chainsaw sculpting, live music and other vendors to really make the event bustle. 

We set up our Model G tractor again for folks to take pictures with, and our freeloading rabbit came along to pull some weight as a mascot of sorts. My oldest son was in charge of handling Peter Rabbit and was busy talking about him and helping people hold and pet him all day long. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought we were there supporting his animal act. 

I made myself busy talking about our butcher shop and selling meat rabbits, which are a new product of ours, and found myself regularly clarifying that Peter was not on the menu.

There was a Wild West show for kids in the middle of the field. Some folks showed off their trick roping skills and gave many of the kids a chance to try roping a dummy practice bull. Our resident rabbit handler became enamored with the show and gave Peter a short celebrity break while he went over to try roping the bull. I watched from our booth and even caught a picture of his success. 

Since we got home, I’ve had to keep the boys out of my rope bag, as they’ve become fascinated by this latest hobby. 

While I may sound annoyed, I am anything but. It’s true that keeping up with my kids is a nigh-impossible task. They have energy that makes me tired just thinking about it, but what I will not be upset by is their desire to learn and be involved in new things. That’s not unlike me; I have a great many interests, hobbies, skills etc. Cowboys, for the sake of the current interest, are actually a glut of these things as well. Some may see them as one note, but it takes knowledge to handle animals, fix things, doctor things, survive things and more to make a cowboy. 

Roping is a fun part of that. It’s a tool, an art and a hobby built into one. It’s the kind of thing that can be added to the Swiss Army knife of my kids’ life experiences, and will either help them or entertain them for years to come. 

I reflect on this when I see them take an interest in things, especially of their own accord, but I also remind myself that they are still young. And even though the time is flying by for me, there is a peace to preserve, so they can savor the slower passing of minutes and hours at their age. To spend an afternoon throwing a rope, not worrying about work, or bills, or the hundred other concerns of the day—that is the blessing of their time now.

I remember learning how to throw a rope when I was several years older than they are. I had received a lasso for Christmas from my dad one year and spent a summer trying to figure it out for myself. My grandma, who was a legendary horsewoman, ended up visiting sometime around then and brought me to a cowboy friend of hers where I got a crash course in the fundamentals. He had a whole practice pen with a chute for steers and space for horses to run them down and hone the rodeo skills that he made his living on. While my grandma wasn’t a roping aficionado herself, I can imagine she might have looked at me practicing as I watch my kids now.

The way out here we’re not all cowboys, but it fills the soul to live like them from time to time. As I heard my grandma and her cowboy friends say in different ways over the years, “You can live to work, or you can work to really live.” Fulfillment happens when you pour that passion behind what you’re doing and live for something bigger than yourself.