It's over

...and I am SO GLAD!!!



State Fair is a fun time, but also incredibly hectic. Add to the mix, we had sold a steer calf to a girl in Medina County, and their steer show was Wednesday night.



So Todd loaded up the pig Tuesday night, got home about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, and I headed out with the kids and an incredibly packed full Durango to meet the camper rental dude by 8:15 a.m.



And then I had to feed said pig several times on Wednesday, and deal with weighing him in at the fair late Wednesday afternoon.



Todd did come down to the State Fair early Thursday a.m. where I was very happy to let him take over the feeding of "Tyler Jr." can you tell which kid named the pig??? Lol....

We started off showing Showmanship on Friday:

the "bling bling girls". What you don't see in this picture is their bling belts, which did sparkle quite a bit in the ring!

Waiting in the holding pen to enter the ring for showmanship. Not sure where she gets the intensity from...

Total seriousness....

Staring the judge down....the idea in showmanship is to keep your eye on the judge or on your pig...she has mastered that part very well.

Not sure where the chewing on her toungue came from....must be all the concentration!

She ended up 5th out of 23 kids in the 11 year old class. Which she was THRILLED with.

Then she had to show market on saturday where she didn't do so hot - 12th place. But....she had fun and enjoyed herself.

On Sunday was the Open Barrow Show. And we let Tyler show "Tyler Jr." in that class. He is going to be quite the showman I think when he is actually old enough to be in 4-h and have market animal projects.

He had fun...didn't place (they only place the top 5 in the Open class and there were 16 pigs in his class)....but he enjoyed it.

And Tyler Jr. was getting tired after 3 days of showing....so he wanted to get the heck out of that ring!

The market pigs are all terminal, so Tyler and Jessie had to say goodbye to him on Sunday afternoon. It was not easy for them but....as they both said, they have other animals at home that now they can devote their time to working with them!

And we get a break next year from showing at the State Fair!!!! It's an expensive week (when you include the cost of the pig and feeding said pig, plus your entry fees, camper rental, parking fees and gate entry fees not to mention your food and drinks), and Jessie and Tyler both said they would rather go to the Medina County Fair and show their heifers and steers in the Open Show.....so I think we are going to do that next year instead of the State Fair.

I'm sure we will go back to showing at the State Fair, but both of the kids want to wait until Tyler is actually in 4-H, and then take either their steers or their feeder calves to the State Fair. Which is a major bummer only from the standpoint that everything you haul down there (including the animals) you have to haul home at the end of the week. We shall see....

All in all? The trip was a success and we got home Sunday night in time to wash and dry her steer, wean all 7 calves, and the kids are busy halter breaking them - which they are doing a fantastic job with so far!

4-H still projects

Jessie got a little over ambitious this year with her still projects for 4-H. She knew she wanted to take a sewing project and the scrapbooking project, but she also wanted to do the photography level 1 project. She must be a little OCD like her mother (ahem....).


Todd's and my ONLY requirement was....all these projects had to be done before she left for 4-h camp on July 2nd. She got home on the 6th and judging was on the 12th. She didn't quite meet that deadline, but 3 hours of work last Sunday and she was done.


The actual judging was Tuesday night....


Loungewear - the fleece robe was what was judged. She got an "Excellent."


Scrapbooking - another "Excellent"



Photography Level 1 - she got an "Outstanding". The judge was a photographer for one of our local papers, and she came out of the judging with Jessie and said to me..... "your daughter took some amazing photographs. I really hope you consider letting her put them in the Open Youth Photography division at the County Fair."



Needless to say, she was on cloud 9 the rest of the evening. When we got home, she picked out 4 pictures that she wants to exhibit at the county fair this year:




Tonight, they had a "Style Review Show" where she gets to model her robe and her scrapbook and find out if she received an Outstanding with either her robe or her scrapbook, and see if she made it to State Fair with any of her projects. I knew she would really love to go to State Fair, but I will dread it 100%.

We just got home - and she got an "Outstanding" with her scrapbooking and qualified for State Fair in both Photography and Scrapbooking. Wow. So we will be down in Columbus a lot. She will go down on the 28th for scrapbooking, the 30th for photography (which is also the day I have to work at our big conference - so Todd just may have to take her down there) and then the 3rd through the 7th (or is it the 8th - Sunday?) with her pig.

She is definitely on cloud 9 - although in true OCD form, she wants me to find out if she can edit either of her projects - she has thought of ways to make them "better."

Here we go.......

Summer......

It's been a busy summer here so far this year.....I don't see it changing, and I think I've finally got my rhythm and I'm cool with how hectic it seems at times:)








Tyler marched in the Memorial Day parade with his boy scout troop:








Jessie has spent countless hours bonding and working with Tank:

I'm not sure how she will deal with selling him in September, but....we'll cross that bridge in September I guess....

And she spends almost every evening walking her State Fair pigs.

This one ("Chasin") will more than likely not make it to State Fair....he is a little large right now....but he will taste good in our freezer!

And if your pig won't walk at first.....you simply get behind him and PUSH!

The first night was rather interesting, but "Tyler Jr." is learning the ropes and starting to walk pretty well for the kids.

We've since graduated to both kids out in the yard with both pigs. I haven't had a chance to take a picture of both of them out there together, but hopefully one of these nights. It's pretty comical, which is keeping things light around here.....

I do have some knitting and quilting projects finished up - hopefully I'll be back in a couple of days with some photos (if I can convince my photographer to take some decent shots!)

Have a good one!
Kris

Newest Additions.....

Last weekend, in addition to clipping calves until 1:00 a.m. on Friday night, and going to a steer show on Sunday (more on those later, I'm still sorting through the 175+ pictures I took that day), we also went to a pig sale. It's getting to be that time of year again, and if we are going to State Fair, we need to find some pigs.

Meet "Tyler Junior" and "Jason":

We originally were going to buy just 1 state fair pig as a companion pig for a pig that we have coming from Todd's cousin in PA, but it won't get here for a few weeks yet. And as we were sitting at the sale, I mentioned to Todd that we are just about out of pork in our freezer.

So we had to buy a companion pig for the companion pig!

If all goes as planned, Jessie and Tyler will show 2 pigs at the Ohio State Fair in August. And one of these pigs will go in our freezer:)

And when we got home, the kids had to spend some quality time with their new pigs:

Wayne County Fair.....in review

Wow. That is all I can say about our County Fair this year. It was tough.

There were some fantastic steers in the show on Saturday. So we were thrilled with 2nd in her market class. And can I just ask how she can look so incredibly old while she is showing her steer? Is it the hair do (which took 2 girls almost an hour to curl it all)? Is is that she has worked with him so much that she is just comfortable with him?

This picture kind of reminds me of this one.

Showmanship class was so thrilling. She got a huge plaque to hang above her steer, but we had to return it to the fairboard on Thursday. I offered to pay for a new one to be made so that we could keep it....but no go.

All that hard work really paid off with Punx.

We just won't talk about when we sold him. The 5 of us couldn't take it. Still can't really......but that's ok cause our vet brought him, and he had to rush out of there after seeing us adults standing there while she sold her steer and we all were crying and he started crying.

If you had told me 10 years ago I would get attached to a steer, I'd have been rolling on the floor laughing.

Hamilton made it in to the fair with 5 lbs to spare.

There's Jessie in her orange shirt (that I made her) in showmanship. She was convinced it was her "lucky shirt". It certainly stood out in the ring!

She ended up with a 2nd in showmanship. The judge had it narrowed down to her and another boy, but Jessie's pig ran out of steam and wouldn't go down the fence - he liked to be out in the open. And when the judge stands in the corner of the ring 2 feet away from the fence with his back to you and wants you to get down there as fast as you can to get in front of him and your pig doesn't want to go near the fence, it's a problem.

But I'll take a 2nd in showmanship and a 3rd in her market class.

Because that just means she doesn't have to go back in for the Championship Drive and can instead run as fast as she can down to the beef ring to show her heifer. And win her age class so she can go back in and win Grand Champion Shorthorn (out of 6 animals)....

And go back into the ring and win Reserve Champion Supreme Heifer overall (out of 7 breeds) and get a really cool trophy and director's chair!

Sorry, no picture of her with her trophy and chair, because she had to turn right around and go back into the ring with Huey:

And get a 2nd in her feeder calf class (out of 10)!

She did not show her last showmanship class. Both of her calves were tired and starting to not to stand and walk like they should. And it had been a long day as she started with showing her pig and then her heifer and then Huey.

But that's ok, cause it left time for fun stuff that we caught like this:

A 17 yr. old (Jason's niece) and a 10 yr. old doing some weird sort of head bobbing side-to-side thing.....

and you should NEVER bet a 17 year old a milk shake to go up and kiss a 13 year old boy on the cheek for getting reserve champion in his division. Todd learned his lesson on that one. Which he should have known as we've been hanging out with all these kids in various barns for the last month before the fair.....

Thursday after the sale, while waiting to load up at 10 p.m. and head for home, we went to the demo derby where Jason was entered.

He won his class and went back in for the final heat, where I think he placed 4th. I keep saying I want to have a car in the demo derby.....but no one has agreed with me yet!

And Tyler had his kiddie tractor pull on Sunday.

In his age division there were 57 kids. And he had a full pull and had to go back up against the other 5 boys that had full pulls. And he ended up 4th overall. I just noticed in looking at that picture the front tires are up off the ground. How cool is that?

He did complain for the next day or so that his legs were sore.....but he had a blast!


And when all else fails and you get tired you can always lean on Jason and take a nap. And yes, she was sleeping and slept this way for about 30 minutes. We thought she was faking it at first, until he went to prop her up and walk away she about landed in a heap on the floor if he hadn't been so quick to catch her.

Then we had to amuse ourselves with lifting her head up (or her arms) and watching them roll about like limp noodles. I told him to just wake her up....but he was too nice.....and stood there while she took a nap.

It's over, the animals are sold.....and will be in somebodies freezer before too long. We survived the tornado that passed just south of the fairgrounds during the beef sale and had a memorable week.

And now? It's onto next year. We are taking this week off, but next week will keep right on working with both heifers (a friends daughter showed our other heifer and won her class and got reserve champion crossbred heifer with her) and Huey, and next week we are traveling back to PA to pick out Jessie's next year steer prospect. She made enough money at the sale to hopefully buy a really good calf and put some money in her college fund......we brought Huey for her right before the fair so.....she will have her work cut out for her!

Have a good day

Kris

Real Quick...

Jessie is still sleeping....guess these long nights are catching up with her.

She has has a FANTASTIC county fair this year.

With Punx:
2nd in her market class
Grand Champion Jr. Showmanship
"Pro Showmanship" - they take the winners from each age division (senior, intermediate, junior and beginner). She didn't "win" but the Judge told everyone in attendance that he could not place her as the winner due to her age and the fact that she has 8 years left of showing. IF she had won, she wouldn't be able to show in her age division EVER AGAIN. He did come up to us after the class and say he has never seen someone her age so good....she was definitely "with it" on Saturday.....

With Hamilton:
2nd in showmanship. Let's just say the Judge was sneaky and Hamilton ran out of steam after 20 minutes in the class.
3rd in Market Hog. There were some really, really, REALLY tough pigs in that show!

With Fancy (her black and white shorthorn heifer):
1st in the Shorthorn Jr. Calf class
Grand Champion Shorthorn Heifer
Reserve Champion Supreme Heifer overall

With Huey (the feeder calf):
2nd in his feeder calf class.


She did not show her 2nd showmanship class last night. She was getting tired and getting frustrated with Huey as he was being something of a butthead. We figured it was better off to skip it and have her fair end on a high note. Which in hindsight was a good thing - there was 27 kids in her Jr. Showmanship class. And Todd watched the class and there were calves going every which way - jumping, getting loose, etc.


We are going into the fair today. Let the kids have some fun, walk around as we haven't made it any further than the swine barn and the beef barn and take care of her animals. Tomorrow is the sale, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be rough! There have already been a few tears over having to sell these animals, and the request that we BUY them back so they can be pets (which can't be done and we wouldn't do in any case).

Have a good one!
Kris

50 hours.....give or take

That is how long we have to pull EVERYTHING together and get ourselves and these animals into the fair...

Punx walks like a champ - if we could only get him totally clipped! I've never seen such an idiot when the clippers get anywhere near his head or neck. He was clipped on Sunday night and Monday night. One more good night and his head will be done.....

Jessie is getting pretty good at blow drying all of these animals. And her heifer is really starting to come around for her and walk like she should.

And Hamilton the pig? He weighs 284 (max weight is 280) so we are hoping with some vigorous walking and washing and the trailer ride he SHOULD slide in at about 276. Friday night he weighed 289, so we are slowly getting there.

And yes, that is a marshmallow on the end of her whip. Amazing how far he will walk for a marshmallow.

Tonight Todd and Jessie are taking the camper into the fairgrounds while I take Tyler to football practice. Then we are going to a friends house to weigh their pigs and so Jessie can walk Huey one last time. Then it's home to weigh "Hamilton" and wash and walk him one last time.

Tomorrow night we are hauling the fan cage into the fair grounds and decorating our club's pens. Todd and I both have off on Thursday - I'm really hoping to get the grocery shopping done for the week and we will get the tack boxes and feed all packed up and make sure Hamilton is on track with his weight. Then while I pick the kids up at school, it will be one last weight check for Hamilton and our friend's pigs, and the first load will go to the fairgrounds about 4:30. I think they have to make 4 trips to get everyone into the fairgrounds this year......

And...I have to put the binding on the quilt I'm taking to the fair. It's all ready to go, it just needs sewn down so hopefully that can happen tonight as the quilt has to be in there tomorrow morning by 9. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, right?????

Determination

Last year at the fair, Jessie was a little gun shy of her steer. And who wouldn't be - when you weigh 80 lbs. if you are lucky and your steer weighs 1400 lbs? This year, she has worked with her steer from the time he weighed about 450 lbs. And a turtle probably walks faster than he does....on a good day. On a bad day - he doesn't want to move. at all.

But she had some nerves earlier this summer as he got bigger. And Huey (her feeder calf) was a little rambunctious the first time she walked it.

But she has gone from this:

there ain't no way I am walking this calf by myself!!!

To this:




And then to this:




To this:


To this:

In the space of maybe 2 weeks. She has worked her butt off this summer. Poor Punx...he has been her "practice animal" but she has him to the point, she stops walking, and he places his feet right where they need to be.

Although it hasn't been all hard work around here:



Apparently the blower for the steers/calves can be used to create unique and unusual hairstyles as well:



Something tells me we may be having a little too much fun these late nights in the barn with friends and their kids who are showing also....but we aren't stopping the fun now! And we are planning a major cookout/party at the camper in between the steer show and the tractor pull on Saturday night. And another one Sunday night.....and Wednesday night.....you get the idea......


We have 7 days until we move into the Wayne County Fair. Everyone is walking (for the most part). This weekend we will spend packing the camper, packing the tack boxes, the usual "walk, rinse, dry, repeat" routine we've had with all 3 calves and Punx all summer long, and walking the pigs.

We are still in the air on which pig is going. It will all depend on what they all weigh next Thursday night when the trailer backs up to the barn doors....and on what our friends' pigs' weigh. We are "hoping and aiming for" that none of them are in the same weight class. We'll see how well we manage THAT one.


For today.....I have to go find some hot pink spray paint to "decorate" a derby car for the fair........he should NEVER tell another Mom, the 3 kids and I "sure....go ahead and decorate it....."



Have a good one!
Kris


PS - THANK YOU everyone for your suggestions on my quilt dilema. Let's just say I finally made contact with a couple of family members, and my quilt should be coming back to me unquilted by the end of the week. There were circumstances beyond the quilters control, for which I am truly thankful she is OK, but a phone call, email, text message from someone would have still been helpful. So if everything goes as it should, I should have my top back here within the next couple of days.....for which I am ever so thankful!