It’s 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday when Doc and Marsha Daughenbaugh start to load Ms. Forbes’ and Ms. Gebhardt’s third grade classes onto tractor-trailers at Rocking C Bar Ranch. 

As the trailer with Ms. Forbes’ class starts up, Doc and Marsha’s granddaughter, Leah Allen, takes the lead as she starts to explain life on a ranch to these Soda Creek Elementary students, while Ms. Gebhardt’s crew starts their field trip on a different part of the ranch.

Leah is home for the summer from college in Wyoming, and growing up in a ranch environment makes her a natural when it comes to giving tours.  

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Turbo, the resident ranch dog, runs in front of the trailer with Ms. Forbes’ class, as if to guide it to the cows.

“Turbo is taking us to see his best friends, the cows,” Leah says to the third graders.

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The third graders decide that since the cows and Turbo are both a mix of brown and black, it makes sense that they are best friends. 

As they drive through the fields of Rocking C Bar Ranch, Leah explains to the kids that mother cows generally can only take care of one calf at a time. So if twins are born, the ranch will match one of the calves with a different cow to act as its mother. 

Student Izzy Dragnev gasps.

“I can’t even imagine if they did that to me and my twin, that would be so sad,” she exclaims.

Once Izzy gets off the the tractor-trailer, she is relieved to reunite with her twin, Gabby, who was on the other side of the ranch with Ms. Gebhardt’s class.

Adonna Allen, Leah’s mother and Doc and Marsha’s daughter, leads the second portion of the field trip for Ms. Forbes’ class. All morning, it has been stressed to the third graders to be careful with the various gates. Adonna’s portion involves going through several different gates to get to different parts of the ranch.

Luckily, third grader Addison Warnke has been carefully listening to the gate directions, so much so that she soon becomes the designated gate girl for the field trip. For every gate that is opened and closed, Addison ensures that everyone gets in and out safely. 

“This is really fun, it’s definitely one of my favorite field trips I have been on,” Addison remarks as she holds the gate open for her teacher and classmates. “I want to come back here again.” 

Students Sam Mitchell and Ramsey Birkett say that in addition to having an awesome ranch dog named Joe, the Daughenbaughs taught them about how calves were born and that there are different types of cows. 

“I learned that a cow is not actually a cow until they have a baby cow,”  Gabby Dragnev notes at the snack table, sitting next to her sister Izzy, of course. 

These students are in their final push for the school year, which ends Friday, and they all seem to agree that learning about ranching and cows from the Allens and Daughenbaughs is a third-grade highlight.