"Judge Not; Lest Ye Be Judged"

OK. The title of this Post may not accurately describe the contents of this Post. However, the Post does reflect errors of judgement.

As a member of Future Farmers of America ( I never aspired to be a career farmer; each horizon of every field seemed to be calling my name) I tried to make as many of the judging contests as possible---you got out of school for most of a day!

Dairy Cow judging proved difficult. Our team never got past the qualifying round. The cows were always haltered in a barn and the teams from various schools ranked individual cows, best to worst, with reasons for the placement.


Beef Cattle was easier to judge because most of our team had beef cattle on their farms. We had four head on our small acreage. At the contests it was ranking, best to worst, with reasons why. On our best year, we qualified for the round beyond the local contest. We lost and our dreams of going to the state contest evaporated.

Weeds and Seeds Identification was harder than it sounds. The grain and grass seeds were not that hard to identify. However, the weed seeds were very hard. So many weeds have very similar sizes and colors of seeds. We once had a weeds and seeds contest at the Vernon Courthouse and we completed our initial round and had time to kill before round two. We wandered the building until we found a court in session and proceeded to find seats in the back of the court room. We had not been there very long until the judge demanded we stop talking to each other or he would have us removed. Hey, we can take a hint. We got up and left. We did make the next contest, but again lost.


Soil Judging consisted of ranking various open pits in the ground  that had been made by a bulldozer or tractor back hoe. We had to identify the class of soil and suggested crops or cover planting to prevent erosion.  We made it to the round that was the stepping stone to the state finals. Confidence was in abundance on our team.

I don't know how my teammates scored, I only know I blew my evaluation. I scored the open pit as the worst type of soil and was only worth planting trees to prevent erosion. At the conclusion of the contest the judges announced that the soil I ranked worst was in fact a top crop producing soil that could easily yield 100 bushel of corn per acre! It was very, very quiet on our ride back to school.