Farm and ranch kids learn lessons differently than some kids.

I have a first grader named Tee. Two years ago, he and I raised a little Hereford heifer on a bottle. When she was ready, she made daily trips to the wash rack where he rinsed her in cool water and then tied her in a cooled barn with his older sister’s show steers that were being readied for county fair. She adjusted quickly to the lifestyle.

He named her Chili Pepper and told our county agent, Marlin Eisenach, at the bucket calf show during the fair it was so because “she’s spicy.” He went on to sing “There’s a Tear in my Beer” to Marlin.

Chili Pepper came home after the fair and spent the fall growing alongside other calves her age. Most of those calves went to the salebarn or to 4-H kids for show steers, but Chili Pepper stayed. Tee chose blue as the color of his ear tags and he tagged her himself, helped dad brand her and she stayed.

Tee was there when dad bred her to a Hereford bull. He was, much to his chagrin, at school the day the veterinarian came out and said she was, indeed, bred. She spent the summer on grass, and we brought her home to calve. Tee checked her and watched for signs of labor for weeks.

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The gestation in cattle is 283 days, which is a lifetime for a first grader. She happened to calve on a day without school and Tee was home to help. She is a small heifer and, because it was her first time calving, she needed a bit of help. We brought her to the barn, and he put red plastic sleeves on, ready to pull a calf. She didn’t need too much help, and Tee and his older sister were able to pull the calf — a Hereford bull calf.

Tee named him Jalapeno. His dad congratulated him and welcomed him to the cattle business. He has never been so proud of anything in his life. He and I tagged the calf with a new blue tag. The pair spent the night in the barn and Tee bounded out of bed the next morning to help me turn Chili and Jalapeno out to a pasture to graze. He stood in the alley and watched as his cow softly called to the little calf, and he tip toed through a few puddles and followed her into the pasture.

He continued his multiple daily checks on the pair and things were going well. Until they weren’t. I don’t know why the calf died, but he did.

Wednesday night Tee had catechism class and mass, and I was sitting at the back of the church, watching the pews completely filled with young kids. Tee leaned over and told another boy to be very quiet while Father spoke, because “Jesus lives in here.” Tee was in a row of little boys, all the same age, and the light was coming through the stained glass and casting a glow on him. I looked at the window, each depicting a different saint. The one shining down upon Tee was Saint Isadore the Farmer.

St. Isadore is the patron saint of farmers and rural communities. Isadore married a rural woman, who was also canonized a saint, Maria de la Cabeza. The two had one son who died as a child.

Isadore worked the land, fed his neighbors, and cared over his animals with great concern. He is the saint who reminds me of the dignity of hard work and the alignment of spiritual life and work well done.

After mass, Tee and I returned home to feed calves, and I had to deliver the news about Jalapeno. His first response was tears. My mother-in-law cut Jalapeno’s ear tag off and saved it before he was buried and had it to give to Tee. I printed some of the copious number of photos I took during the previous days and he held those and the ear tag in his chubby little hands.

He told me God must have needed a good Hereford bull calf and wiped his tears. In the spirit of every ag producer I’ve ever known, he told me there’s always next year.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.