Fair, Frank, and Farm Fun!

Last week was our county fair.  Kid #1 entered a convenience food, model, diorama, electrical science, and a feeder calf.  Kid #2 entered a model and a feeder calf.  They worked hard on all the projects, but the competition in this county is fierce.  Many wonderful, successful adults have come out of this program.  In the truck on the way home from set-up, I told the boys that I had prayed that God would reward their hard work somehow, and that it would be interesting to see how He does that.  I want them to grow up expecting that God will do great things, not just hoping that He will.  They did have a good week.  Kid #1 was awarded a rosette on his electrical science, Kid #2 a rosette on his model (which I thought was amazing. You take ONE project and you get a rosette?), and Kid #3 took home a trophy in the kids' pedal pull.  She is just a Cloverbud, but she sure did start her 4-H career off with a bang!

 

 

The prospect beef show also went well.  One made it to the final showmanship round, and the other to the final market class.  Each year we take a picture in the park for the tack box.  This was my favorite:

For the first time ever we were able to make a purchase at the Livestock Sale.  We bought my nephew's pen of chickens and a lamb.  The lamb was Rick's idea....then before I knew it my sister sold him another lamb!  The plan is to breed them and sell the offspring.  We'll see how this goes....

Our friend's son had a rooster at the fair.  The dad wanted to butcher it, the son could not do that. The compromise was that it came to our house to live.  We gladly took Frank home the last night of the fair with Bonnie, the lamb.  There were a lot of unusual noises the next morning when we went out to milk!  The following Sunday we played a little joke, and left a cooler in our friend's drive with a meat bird in it.....except it wasn't quite as funny to them as it was to us until later in the day when we reassured them that it was NOT Frank!  Now we call him Frankster the Prankster.

Yesterday we had the windshield in the truck replaced.  I went out and asked if I could take some pictures, and he said "Yes, but you're not allowed to swat mosquitoes on the windshield anymore!"
In reply I said "For the record....I got 'em!"

 Our garden has not fared well.  The very wet spring and summer has been hard on it.  We're getting some tomatoes but I'm not sure if there will even be enough for the minimum amount of canning that needs to be done.  On the bright side, the gladiola bulbs that Rick and the kids gave me on mother's day are beautiful.

"There's no big loss without some small gain."
-Caroline Ingalls

Have a great week!
-Terri