The Fair! Clean pigs and our "zamb".

Tomorrow is the official start to the County Fair. 'Round these parts, and I am including my family in "these parts", The Fair is a week unlike any other. It is part Christmas, part final exams. It is the week that takes more effort to prepare for than any other week of the year. And, unlike Christmas, I am not the only one exerting great effort. This Fair week, my three children will be exhibiting 16 projects. That includes 8 livestock projects (and taking 12 animals), three cooking projects and...others (this is where I get a bit vague). My 4-H children (our club of 81 members) are taking somewhere in the nature of 165 projects to The Fair.
For two intensive days this week, Middlest, heading up the Fair Booth Committee- jointly with Emma J., worked hard with their crew of Club faithful to create a Fair Booth with the prescribed theme of "Sew it, Grow it, Show it". The committee chose to do a fairytale spin on this, and created a lovely booth, featuring a "4-H Fairytales book" full of posters showing what the kids learned in their miscellaneous projects.



Chairpersons



The Fairbooth Committee!

We have been deep in all Fair preparations, and somehow, felt it necessary to also sneak in a Pony Club Rating this morning, where Middlest and Patches were able to earn their D2 rating! The camper was also collected this morning, outfitted with the necessities (pretty sheets and flowers to counterbalance the "camperness" of the thing, and then moved to the fairgrounds. Huz was on this detail, enlisting the help of friend and truck owner, Paul to collect the living quarters for the next week. Huz also went on a Homer-style Odyssey to find a hose splitter- there are never enough hose outlets to hook up to water, and made a side trip to fill the fridge with artisan beer. Hmmm.
Back at Cowfeathers, the hens got bathed, the sheep got bathed, and February got "slick sheared"- this means right to the skin. The hogs got scrubbed, tack trunks were outfitted and loaded in the truck, posters were made for miscellaneous food science, veterinary and nutrition judgings, and the barn got a good cleaning courtesy of Nick- who is helping me out this summer.
Tomorrow is "move-in day" this means many, many trips to the fair grounds to deliver animals and equipment. Hogs go first in the early am. This, mainly because we don't have much hope of being able to manuever our big trailer in the crush that will be evening arrivals. The sheep are amenable, and can be walked from distance. The hens and the ducks can be carried. The dogs don't "move in", so stay here until they show, and for the first time in many years we are not taking a horse to the fair. This turns out to be a relief. The horse gets not a real break though, as the day after fair, she moves to Pony Club Camp, to be ridden three times a day. But that is a whole week away, plenty of time to plan....



Middlest putting her hand to shearing February.



Baby geese are the cutest!



Poppy, one of our eldest ladies, surveys the barnyard, and thinks of her evening constitutional to the garden and compost bins.



Youngest gives Wilbur's head a scrub.



Getting cleaner!



After shearing February with Middlest, Kendra show's Middlest how it's done. Making our wool sheep look like a market lamb! He has extraordinary zebra stripes. If a horse/zebra is a "zorse", then this is a "zamb".