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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Fair Time!

This week has been such a blur!  But it was to be expected.  This week was our local county fair.  And if you have a son or daughter in 4-H, so you know what that means...you will be BUSY BUSY BUSY.  We have been there at least twice a day to feed our piggy and clean out his pen, along with showing him, getting him judged, and selling him.  This momma is TIRED.  My house looks like it imploded and my garden is overflowing with produce that needs, picked, washed, snapped, and canned!  But I haven't been home more than a few hours at a time, so I have accomplished very little.  I am beginning to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel since today is the last day of the fair, so as Martha says, "That's a good thing!"

With that being said, 4-H and have market projects at the fair is a great experience for kids.  They learn to take care of an animal and raise it until it's of selling age.  They learn to feed, water, and wash the animal.  And they get to sell it at an awesome price, thanks to area businesses.  My son sold his pig for $5 a pound this year!  Last year's price was $2.70/lb.  He literally made $1,000 on his pig this year.  In the auction barn, I literally had tears in my eyes when I heard the final price...I was so overwhelmed by the generosity of the area business that purchased it.  When my son gets his check next month, he will keep 10% to spend and put the rest in his bank account.  That money will be there to fund next year's projects.  It's a great way for your children to build up their savings accounts and learn responsibility at the same time. 

Today is also a sad day.  We have to say good-bye to our beloved pig that we've cared for for the past 3 months.  Not sure how it's possible to love a stinky, muddy, stubborn pig, but when they look at you with their long eye-lashes and they are wagging their tail back and forth while you scratch them behind the ears, it's hard not to like them!  I mean, look at those adorably floppy ears!!I keep telling my son that we gave that piggy a better life than it would have had at the farm where it was born.  No one there would take the time to wash him or scratch him behind the ears.  But it still makes me sad!  I'm just glad we don't have to eat him even though someone else will.  The pig we butchered this year (we always raise a 2nd pig as a back-up in case the other gets sick and dies and can't be taken to the fair) was a royal pain.  And he wasn't cute either.  And boy, was he stubborn!  I was glad to sink my teeth into that sausage sandwich last night for dinner! 

So, my extreme busy-ness this past week is why you haven't heard from me!  And I just realized that I didn't even get a change to post my Monday weigh-in either!  I did weigh in, however I can't remember what the scale said...don't think it was necessarily a good number (or I would have remembered it for sure!)  But his was also what my hubby calls "hell week", where I'm a raving mad women with out of control emotions who is carrying around an extra 5 lbs of water weight!  (Gotta love husbands and their humor!)  I can't say this Monday's weigh-in will be great either.  I haven't eaten all that healthy anything healthy (can you say Stromboli?) and I haven't worked out once unless you count shoveling out the pig pen once a day and walking to and from the fair from the parking lot. 

Who knows...maybe the scale will surprise me.

1 comment:

A.K.W. said...

Never did the fair since I was too old when we first got into animals but I still helped with taking care of the goats and other critters we have here but we're almost done with the goats now though.

Amy