Ask Caitlyn Spear and Saoirse Bogart what they like best about helping out at Alan-Dee Dairy Farm, at the Morris Farm in Wiscasset, and their answers come as quickly as a goat to hay.

The Wiscasset girls most enjoy being around the animals.

Whether Bogart, 10, is helping deliver a calf or bottle-feeding one, or Spear, 15, is milking a goat, the work is fun for them.

But their experience in the dairy farm's 4-H Club has also given them ideas about their futures.

Bogart, a Wiscasset Middle School fifth-grader, wants to be a veterinarian. Spear,  a ninth-grader at Wiscasset Christian Academy, wants to study agriculture in college.

Milking was a little hard to learn, Spear said. “But once you figure it out, you never forget it,” she said.

Spear, the daughter of Laurie and Jonathan Spear, and Bogart, whose parents are Kate and Lyle Bogart, have been helping with chores two or three afternoons a week, after school, all winter.

They spent their February school vacations working at the dairy farm. Co-owner Candee MacQueen, couldn't be prouder of them, for the dedication they've shown.

“It's hard work, and they work their hearts out,” she said. “There's no free ride in agriculture, or in life, as far as that goes, so this is giving them life skills and teaching them to be good, responsible people.”

Plus, she appreciates the help. “Definitely,” she said.

Laurie Spear said her daughter does it for the satisfaction she gets in helping care for the animals. Caitlyn Spear got into the Alan-Dee Dairy Farm's 4-H club after volunteering to help care for a pony at the Morris Farm, her mother said.

“Now it's like a second home for her,” Laurie Spear said.

Lyle Bogart said his daughter's time at Alan-Dee lets her immediately see the results of her efforts. “She's grown leaps and bounds in her level of responsibility and confidence,” he said. “It's really been great to watch.”

Saoirse Bogart's younger brother Waylon, 7, is looking forward to joining the club at the dairy farm, too, their father said.

Plans call for the girls to show some of the dairy farm's animals at fairs this year. Spear will be showing a calf and several goats; Bogart, a calf and a goat, also, MacQueen said.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.