By Golly, They Did It!

See these four brave young ladies? They did something a couple weeks back most adults surrounding them did not think was possible. It all started early one afternoon during spring break while we were at our family cattle ranch. Miki, Claire, Brooke and Kylee got it in their minds that they were going to sleep in the scale house down in the pens. They worked quite a while sweeping it out in preparation for their big camp out.

In order to give them their proper credit, I must say that the scale house (which is just basically a Tough Shed on a foundation) is not near the house. In fact, it is a ways away. Yep, a good ways away. It probably takes at least five minutes to walk to it from the bunk house. It is nestled in a maze of cow pens, which require heavy gates to be opened to get to it.

I threw these random shots in so that you can get a sense of the pens and gates I'm talking about. Big, heavy stuff. The girls would have to walk through probably four gates, in pitch black, to get out of those pens.
In my attempts to find a picture of the scale house, I found this one of Brooke and Max taken several years ago. No, it doesn't show the building very well, but seeing Brooke that little about broke my heart so I had to share.

Stacy and Misha and I were pretty surprised that they even thought this sounded like a good idea. Being that the ranch is in the middle of no where, it was mighty dark outside. Another strike going against them was that it was a terribly windy weekend. The moms were imagining how loud the wind would sound to the girls once they were all alone in the scale house. Thirty minutes, we figured, and they'd be back.

Jeff, our friend and Kylee's dad, walked the girls down for their big sleep over and so kindly took the following pictures for me. Thanks again, Jeff! When Jeff came back to the bunkhouse after dropping them off, we half expected him to come back with four scared girls in tow. Nope. They stayed down there. Jeff also let us know that Hank, who had walked down with them, stayed with the girls. He plopped down on the porch and didn't budge when Jeff walked off. Later when Jeff went back to check on the girls and make sure they wanted to stay for the entire night, Hank started barking at him as to protect the girls. Not only was I proud of my two daughters for being so brave, but my heart swelled with pride at our dog for having the instinct to stay and protect them. The girls didn't even know he was lying outside on the porch until they heard him bark. He got to sleep the rest of the night inside with them.

Don't they look so proud?

They should be!! Three of the four girls made it the entire windy, cold night! I know their brothers even respected their brave accomplishment.

I'd like to take my hat off to some very brave little ladies! You said you'd do it and you succeeded. From the looks of things, there's no stopping you now.