Cattle and Children Make Magic at the Hopkinton Fair

At the 2025 Sandwich Fair, I hitched Finn, a Scottish Highland steer, to a log scoot — a sled built to haul logs — and set off through an obstacle course. Finn was a space cadet. He wandered, he knocked over cones, and ignored most of my commands.

Two teenagers beat me handily that day. They had learned everything they knew in my barnyard, on my cattle, and I had almost nothing to do with it.

Molly Potter and Rose DeFreitas were 11 and 12 the summer they showed up at the Miles Smith Farm Summer Camp in 2022. They met on day one. Each was handed a calf to train, and that's when it started — friendship with each other, and love of cattle.

Four years later, those two young women hauled two pairs of my steers to the Hopkinton Fair.

I bought the four calves from Huckins Farm in Bristol last fall, and Molly and Rose came to train them to work in a yoke. At first I figured I'd make them better teamsters. Then I thought again.

Despite my pitiful showing at Sandwich, I've had my share of wins with showing oxen. But I've learned that training cattle is a lot easier than training teenagers. Molly and Rose wanted to learn — just not from me. So they picked better teachers: the calves.

All winter and into the spring, Molly and Rose drove to my farm to work their teams. In cold and oppressive heat, I'd hear them out in the barnyard geeing (right turn) and hawing (left turn). I helped where I was allowed to: adjusting yokes (the wooden beam that sits across the shoulders), removing warts, scheduling vet checks. They'd listen politely to my training suggestions. Then they'd go back to their real instructors.

It worked like this. Molly gave a command. The calves responded. She repeated it; they responded again, and their response built her confidence. Same with Rose.

The two of them were good for each other, too. Molly is a Potter — a 13^th generation farmer on her family’s on Oak Hill Road — and she's assertive and direct. From my apartment I could hear her shouting commands across the barnyard. Rose came to cattle brand new, and she started timid, until she took Molly's advice:

"Talk to them like they owe you money."

They both came home from the Hopkinton Fair with a basket of ribbons, and I'd love to take credit.

Here's the credit I'll take: in 2022, I held a summer camp, and two pre-teens met. That's it. The rest was putting two teenagers and four calves in the same barnyard and watching the magic unfold.

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Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, N.H., where you can have an Ultimate Cow Experience and hug Highland Steer, Curious Bleu. Carole can be reached at carole@cow-coach.com.