04/23/2026
This morning I snapped a picure of the family that Elsa made. Elsa was a bottle calf that we calved in 2015. She was treated more like a family member by our kids and was the first heifer that Jackson ever showed in the ring solo. She spent many hours in the back yard at our place on Miami-Shelby Rd hanging out with the kids at the swing set. A few times they would forget to put her away in the barn and come in the house, leaving their little bovine best friend looking through the glass door wondering where her play mates went. She went on to grow up and unlike her mother, she was suited for motherhood, although we always joked that she was ridiculously comfortable letting her calf around us humans. Her first calf, Fireball would be Jackson’s show heifer his second year of 4-H and would go onto do well for him in the show ring even winning Champion Maintainer in 2017 in the Open Show at the Ohio State Fair. Fireball has been a very productive cow for us raising some really nice steers and heifers, one of which is Sapphire which we also have kept in the herd and has been a good producer for us. In fact, Fireball and Sapphire almost look identical except for one white teat Sapphire has on her rear quarter. On paper keeping a smaller bottle calf for a cow was a bad idea, but we weren’t about to tell those two kids that we were not keeping Elsa for the long haul. I’m not sure how much longer we will have all three of them together, but one thing is for sure, Elsa has left her mark here at Shane Show Cattle.