Fair Time

I can heave a sigh of relief.  The fair is over.  It takes over the whole week, even though it only runs 4 days.  Monday night is fair clean up and setting up the animal pens with the educational displays, Tuesday is FFA display set up and swine weigh and haul in, and from there- the fair completely takes over our lives.  

Thursday was the market show.

Zeus got 5th place in his class, and a blue ribbon.

 Watching kids "show" their animal only keeps sisters so entertained...

The first blue ribbon!

Friday was showmanship.  Swine showmanship is frankly kind of strange.  Emma didn't like to nudge her pig very hard with the cane, but thankfully (for the most part), Zeus responded to her gentle taps.  As the show went on, the pigs started to get pretty grumpy so the pig boards and hair spray came out.  (I'd never seen hairspray used to distract pigs, but it did work...)

 Again, we had lots of time to fill.  Elizabeth refused to make anything but a silly face for the camera.

Thursday night my in-laws came, and both of Ryan's sisters came early Friday morning.  Everyone was really excited to see the first grandchild show her first 4-H animal.  Another generation begins!

Ryan had told me Thursday night that Emma would probably show around 8:30 or 9 am.  I got up, and was getting the other 3 ready to go when Ryan called.  The classes got changed around and she would be showing soon.  Very, very soon.  Elizabeth is not a go-getter in the morning, so I literally dressed her along with the twins, drug them away from their breakfasts (no breakfast for me), and drove 85 miles per hour on the freeway (I passed the guy ahead of me coming out of the on-ramp onto the freeway), parked inside the fairgrounds (had a parking pass this year- yes!) and ran, dragging children along to arrive at the end of Emma's showmanship class.  The kids had a great case of bed-head going on.  But I was there, and witnessed the last 3 minutes of her show, all before 8 am.

 One of the other local ag teachers brought along his "train" to the fair.   Ryan drove the kids around for a while.

Ryan's display.  We all helped him this year.

 Saturday was the sale.  Ryan thought it would be Emma's turn between 10:30 and 11 am.  Ryan went in with the Emma early, and I brought the rest of the crew in at about 10:15.  And we waited.  And we waited. And we baked in the sun.  We had the free lunch provided for exhibitors and buyers.  And we waited.  The swine were not the 2nd after the sheep like Ryan thought.  They were last.  And Emma was midway through the list.  Around 2:30 Ryan and Emma washed Zeus.  And we waited some more.

(Jordy, Kaylie and Emma)

 She lined up about 4 pm, ready to go.

 (Also seen in the picture is Megan- the girl who thought Emma should show a pig.)

The boys running the swine auction arena are used to roughing up the pigs a little to get them to move.  Well, they whacked Zeus to get him to move forward, and boy, was Zeus mad.  Emma ended up just trying to move out of the way and let the boys handle their mess.

Emma got $1.70/lbs for her pig.  Zeus was bought by our local orthodontist.  I assume he's trying to bribe us into coming to him when the kids are ready for that phase of their life. :)