It's Over......

The fair is finally over and I'm still tired! Overall it was a good year for the kids but we did have some snags along the way.


A few months before the fair one of our pigs got sick and ended up dying. Luckily we had a few extra so Keri wasn't left short an animal to be able to show. Then the day that we take the cows to the fair Keri's cow gets sick. The state vet took a look at him and decided that he needed to be removed from the fairgrounds because he could be contagious! You can imagine the tears.


So I spent the better part of the day searching for someone that had an extra cow that they didn't bring that I could buy from them and run through the auction at the end of the fair. Several hours later Stacy & Christi Hostetler said that they had a small Jersey cow that we could buy from them! I was ecstatic but Keri was still skeptical because she wanted HER COW. My aunt took Keri to have a chat over some Dippin' Dots and when they got back Keri had decided that she would give the Jersey cow a chance.


So we switched from a 450 pound Holstein to a 243 pound Jersey! Not looking too good for auction money but she had a cow to show! The cow had already been named Bambi (can you tell why?) so we, of course, had to change all our decorating to reflect the new cow's name and not the Holstein's. (which was Dasher)

Once we made it through that drama we were on our way to a good week! The girls both did really well in their showmanship with the cows and the pigs! This was Keri's first year so we weren't expecting much from her but she did really well. Katie's calf placed third in it's class which was the best that she's ever done and she made it through the first round of showmanship. I was really happy for her.

The pigs did well this year too. Katie was once again the only person to have a Tamworth so she easily won Champion with that pig and she was penned 4th with her Crossbred. Keri didn't place on Wednesday with either of her pigs so she was very disappointed. I told her that the judge on Thursday would be different and that she still had a chance to do well.

Sure enough, Thursday her Hereford won Champion! She was so excited I thought she was going to burst!

Katie with her Champion.


Keri with her Champion.

Friday ended with tears from Keri because she didn't want to get rid of her animals but she was really happy when she started figuring up the money that she made for her efforts in 4-H! So another year is over and hopefully by the time this rolls around next year I will have forgotten all the drama and grief that I went through in getting to this point!