we are back...

We are home. What a great week at fair. We got all 5 pigs - excuse me- 4 pigs, Buzz, and Fairy Princess (the duck) loaded and taken into fair. Thank you Kerri... Addie and I couldnt have done it without you. I drove with Buzz in my trailer and prayed the whole way that I would get him there safely. He is Addie's baby after all. We got to the scales and realized that Buzz had layed on the duck cage during the trip which had pinned the duck to the floor of the cage. Close call!! 2 pigs made weight- so both kids had a market hog to sell!!!

Tuesday 12:00, we are checked into fair and the work begins. By the end of the day Addie and her friend Jesse had washed 7 pigs and body shaved 5. Noah began Wednsday off by winning GRAND CHAMPION duck (there was only 1) and then taking Grand Champion overall waterfowl. Molly was pretty proud that her duck already had 3 large purple ribbons and 1 trophy!!! By the end of fair the duck had 3 trophies and 7 ribbons. There will be no living with him in the barn now! When it came time for Molly to show her duck on Saturday, the judge couldn't get anywhere near her. Everytime he leaned in to talk to Molly, Fairy Princess would hiss and try to attack the judge. As long as he kept his distance from Molly everything was fine. Noah won Grand Champion showman and was able to participate in the small animal round robin tournament.

The kids did good. We didn't place so high with pigs this year, but learned alot... this new judge likes something completely different than the last judge... and luckily next year we will have another new one... so who knows. The kids had so much fun hanging out with their friends. The pig kids did a great job working together.

Addie ended up fairly sick... By day 2 we realized that she wasn't just working too hard in the heat and she wasn't just overly stressed. I checked her temp and found that she was running a temp of 102.5. There was no getting her out of the barn, although we did make her come back to the trailer for a little bit and her wonderful friends snuck back to the barn and snuck her pigs out for a bath. Even one of the boys who is too young to have a pig came up to me to tell me to not wake Addie in the morning for early morning chores. He said he would muck out her pig pens for her. How sweet is that? She stayed sick all week, but didn't stop. We went to the dr the day after fair and she had lost 5 lbs and they were threatening to put her in the hospital on IV fluids... some nasty virus (we jokingly said we thought she had the swine flu- sick joke I know). She seems to be over the hump now.

County Fair 2009 is over and we have to consider it a sucess. We came home with 2 pigs fewer than we went with and the same number of children...

And so we are off...

Where has this summer gone? I have hardly even posted... I do need to catch up, and plan to. There are so many great pictures of fun times this summer- company from out of state (including ours 10 kids/4 adults), Yordi's birthday, Addie's graduation, pool fun... but that will have to wait. We are outta here- off to county fair tomorrow am. Here are the stats:

me
5 kids (gaining an extra or 2 once there)
4 market hogs (please God let them be 230 lbs or more)
1 stubborn Buzz
1 duck
100 lbs of feed
groceries to feed all of us for 1 week
36 pairs of shorts
36 tshirts
42 pairs of undies
6 pairs of barn boots
6 pairs of show boots
7 show outfits
1 set FFA OD
2 sets complete animals records
2 show sticks
3 sets of completed Daily feed records (with all feed fed in 60 days documented- as well as rate of gain and cost per pound per animal)
tent trailer
5 pair clippers
5 bottles of shampoo/liquid bluing
6 feed pans
2 waterers
6 stall card signs


and whatever else we might possibly need...

Here is a glimpse of how it looks:
Day 1: notice the barns DO smell
Day 2: notice the barns don't smell as bad as previously thought
Day 3: notice the trailer smells like the barn
Day 4: notice that WE smell as bad as the barn
Day 5: settle for sorta clean clothes, debate if showers really are necessary, and then decided that it really doesn't matter
Day 6: shower? no. Clean clothes? forget it. WHEN DO WE GET TO LEAVE?????

Really, it is a highlight of the year. Today the kids are excited... they work so hard. They will be in the barns every morning at 6:30 am, work all day, show all evening, hang out until curfew with friends in the barns, bed by midnight and start all over the next day.
So, my next post will be once we are home... and have found our way to the showers and over the heaping piles of laundry. But there will be pictures...

another relaxing evening...

Tonight we had pig weigh-ins for county fair. This means county fair is just 60 days away. How can that possibly be???? This is a different year for us, a trial year... we are keeping the pigs at our house which allows the kids more chores and more time with their pigs. Normally we borrow a trailer from a friend, but this year Tom got all crafty and built us a trailer. Usually weigh ins take most of an evening... lots of hard work, several big bodies to push, pull, roll, screaming, skittish pigs up into a trailer. This year... the pigs loaded themselves. We literally couldn't get off the ramp quick enough for them to wriggle up into the trailer (the bucket of rotting food I saved for this very occasion certainly helped). Of course it had to be raining, but this is Oregon after all... We get to the fairgrounds and wait our turn to weigh the pigs. We back in the trailer and usually the 2 big boys they have to help with the animals take 1 look at Addie and then start wrestling her pigs from the trailer for her. This year they handed her a pig board. She climbed up in the trailer and wrangled both her and Noah's pigs onto the scales. Poor thing was so tired... she climbed back into the car and Molly started screaming about not wanting to sit next to "pig poop"!!!! I think we are in good shape though... weights are 115 lbs, 120 lbs, 133 lbs, and 154 lbs. We have 60 days to get to minimum of 230 lbs. Now if we could just teach them some manners, personal space, and respect we might just make it!!!

Instead of sleeping...

Sheesh!! I wish I could sleep like normal people do. You know from the hours of 3-6 am??? Instead I'm awake or dreaming very vivid dreams. And what is on my mind during these hours? Lately, it has been fabric. Crazy I know. But I have these very vivid dreams of sewing something VERY specific. Then I wake up and I'll I can do is lay there and go over it in my mind. So, this is a picture of what I dreamed last night and finally just got up and sewed... Now just picture this cute little model wearing her pink sparkle light up boots and mucking out pig pens at the fairgrounds ...