Anyone that spends more than their fair share of time with kids will have a mine of hilarious conversations, funny one liners or just jaw dropping facts that kids their age just shouldn’t know.  My own family has their own quotable quotes that always seem to fit the moment.  Even after decades and years of maturing, some of those favorite juvenile quips resurface with just as much amusement.

My younger brother will never live down the conversation that started with, “... well I was walking along...”  I don’t even remember all of the details except that he was walking towards the pond, not that far from the shop where someone must have been doing some mechanicing.  He must have been walking with either great deliberation or in great contemplation because as he was swinging his arms with a little extra umph,the tool he had in hand suddenly flew out and plopped right in the pond.  

Sometimes those conversations aren’t so much funny as amazing.  Amazing that a kid so young could know so much, maybe even more than a grown adult.  All too often, I forget that our home chats about ranch work aren’t the usual discussions families have.  

Most recently I was reminded of this by my son's third grade teacher who apparently was taken to school by my son who was astounded by all the things she didn’t know about ranching.  That day he taught her all about the difference between the bulls and cows, the steers and the heifers, and he was very specific in his teaching.  

When I picked him up early from school that day, she couldn’t help but giggle as she recounted their conversation.  She didn’t know if she should be impressed with all he knew, ashamed with the little she knew, or worried about the details he had just taught his young classmates.  Luckily for me, most of his class are ranch kids too, so I’m pretty confident they already knew most of those new vocab words.

I’ll admit that I have even had a conversation or two with my kids where they give me a bit of an education on ranch life.  I’ve never been more proud and more annoyed than when my pre-k son would constantly correct me when I would call the tractor or implement by the wrong name.  Even if I wasn’t completely wrong, if I didn’t use the exact right name he would make sure he explained the difference.  I never called a backhoe a tractor again and never forgot to specify if it was an open-cab tractor or not.  

Not long ago we had family visiting when our three year old said in an exasperated voice, “The pivot nozzles are plugged again!”  At first they laughed at the little boy being overly dramatic about something they were sure he nothing about until they realized that he knew exactly what was happening.  And then they were laughing in amazement that better than understanding the problem, he knew exactly what to do to fix it!

This same little boy, obsessed with pivots, would constantly critique our neighbor farmer and ranchers and their irrigating practices.  For one reason or another, he felt that the pivot should be going in a different direction, should be on if it was off, or even moving too fast.  And then he would always finish his assessment with, “Right, Dad?!”  

Sometimes we actually invite those surprising conversations on ourselves.  Our nine year old boy has a mind for remembering anything about cows.  It has taken us a few years to actually, really trust what he can remember, but now we know that if there is some long lost fact we need to recall about a random cow, he will know it.  It's almost like a magic trick, I swear.

Of course there are those conversations with ranch kids that you hope to avoid.  You know the ones, usually about the birds and the bees, or at our house, the bulls and the cows.  While I don’t actually shy away from the conversation, I just hope and pray that it stays appropriate for their age and that they never repeat it to their friends at school.

This conversation with my daughter actually took on a little twist and instead of the bulls and the cows, it was the studs and the mares.  We were dropping off our mare to get bred when she got a front row seat in life’s animal reproduction class.  As the stud mounted our horse she exclaimed, “What is he doing to her?!”

In the most general of terms, I explained that he was breeding her so that she could have a baby.  She asked a few basic questions and then went silent.  I could tell her mind was still mulling over things and waited for the next question.  She couldn’t hold the question in any longer and slowly said, “Is that how people make babies too?!”  “Yes, yes it is,” was all I could say as I tried to hold in my laugh because the disgusted face she was making.

Ranch kids don’t have the corner on funny conversations and surprising one liners, but I do have to admit that I find these a little extra endearing and right up my ally.  From the cute and innocent funnies to the far more mature facts that they need to know, these ranchy discussions will always keep you on your toes.  I only wish I could remember more, but on second thought, maybe it's better that I don’t.