PORT TOWNSEND — The gates of the Jefferson County Fair don’t open until 8 a.m., and the buildings at 10 a.m.
But Amanda Johnson, like other 4-H members who have animals entered in competition, is up by 6 a.m.
“I have to give her a bath, clean her stall and feed her,” Amanda, 10, says of her project, an 800-pound black Angus heifer.
Amanda, who lives on Marrowstone Island, is an honor student at Chimacum Elementary School, where she will be in the fifth grade.
Not from a farm family, she adopted a calf last January at Westbrook Farm in Chimacum at the suggestion of the owner. A member of the Wild Clovers 4-H Club, she is the only girl in the junior age group in Jefferson County whose project is beef cattle.
Amanda became interested in raising cattle when she was 4 years old, and the farm’s owner, Julie Boggs, asked her to bottle-feed an orphaned calf.
It was Boggs, a 4-H leader for 25 years and Amanda’s school bus driver, who suggested she take on a calf as a project.
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The rest of this story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition. Click on SUBSCRIBE to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.
