Another County Fair in the Books

As a parent, I have tried to instill a love of the county fair in my boys.  Growing up, we attended the fair every year, showing cattle, and I would take many different 4-h projects, like sewing, cooking, photography, and child development.  I remember the excitement of rushing to the fair to see what ribbon each project got.  I remember being scared going into the ring leading a 1100 lb calf.  And most of all, I remember saving money all year to go on the rides at the midway.  The Tilt-a Whirl was my all time favorite.  This year was a slim year form my boys, since they are starting to get older and have less time for 4-H.  John entered just two photos, (after much nagging he did finally take a few steps out the back door to snap photos of some wild flowers) but did really well with them. 

 The photo above won Grand Champion Wild Flower.

 This photo won Reserve Champion in Senior Photography and will be going to the state fair.

Noah had quite a few good photos.  He did at least put a little work into his photography and took quite a few photos at Sunken Gardens in Lincoln. Unfortunately his photos did not really feature wild flowers,  However, there were two that really stood out and both will be going to the state fair

 This photo won Grand Champion Senior Photography (yes he beat his older brother).

I think the judge had a hard time deciding which photo she liked best because this photo had Grand Champion written on the corner of the entry tag and then it was crossed out.  This photo received a purple ribbon and is going to the state fair also.  

Earlier this year we got some lambs that were bottle fed.  Noah and cousin Rachael showed them.  The did not get last place.  So that was not bad for just starting out.  The lambs were very small compared to many of the lambs at the show, and are very tame, so they made good lambs for the petting zoo.

Noah was nice and let Rachel show the lamb who led better.

 Noah's lamb did very well too.

 He is all ready to do lambs again next year.  I don't blame him.  They are seriously cute!  We also need to send a huge thank you out to our neighbors the Coopers.  We could not have done this without your help and guidance.

Noah and Rachel also showed bunnies.  He got purples on his big bunnies and a litter of baby Tans all got blues (they were really too young to show).  

Finally it was time for the parade.  Noah was very concerned about attempting to play his trumpet with his new braces.  John was taking care of some State FBLA business and was not able to march in the parade, so I suggested maybe he ask if he could play a drum instead.  It was hard to find him, but he was able to play the base drum in the marching band.  I think that made his day!

Aunt Sharon was wise and had us line up all the cousins to get a photo this year.  Everyone is getting so big!

Ben had fun at the petting zoo, showing off his lambs.  

I think he might be old enough to try it next year.  

 We finished up the fun fair with some rides on the midway.  Ben had a blast.  Mom not so much.  Remember how I said I used to love the Tilt a Whirl?  Well not any more.  I went on with Noah to use up the last of our tickets, and it was horrible.  I kept pleading to the attendant with my eyes to stop the ride and I really think he kept it going longer to see if he could make the old lady throw up.  He got REALLY close.  But I held my cookies.  However, I will never go on that or most likely any ride ever again!

New Babies on the Farm

Meet our two newest members to our farm family.  This is Goat (mostly white) and Odie (mostly brown).  Obviously one of the boys worked harder at picking out a name than the other one did.  They are 4-H projects for the fair this year.

This means they will be treasured members of the family until about August at which time they will become a tasty meal for someone else.  Plus if we are lucky, they might help a bit with some of the mowing duties. 

Actually, I am really proud of the boys for saving their Christmas money this long, and buying something that will be both educational and fun.  It also does not hurt that they will recoup most of their money when they sell the goats after the fair.  They are already planning for a bigger better heard of goats next year.  Let's just get through this year, shall we boys? 

All we have to do is keep them in the pen and the coyotes out....for 3 whole months. 

Ben even went out to meet them and liked chasing them around the pen.  However, he was not able to grasp any concept of the electric fence and got way to close on too many occasions.   A little shock won't hurt him too much.  Right?  I remember as kids lining up hand in hand with my cousins and one of us would touch the electric fence.  It was good to be in the middle of that line because the shock was not too bad.  But the person on the far end of the line, generally got a pretty good jolt.  Maybe to be safe, we will only let Ben visit the goats when they are out of the pen. 

County and State Fairs

This year was a particularly good year for the boys in 4-H.  Both Noah and John won their divisions in the Presentation contest that was held before the fair.  At the county fair Noah won Grand Champion and best Picture in the 4-H division for his photo of a rock splahing into water.  The photo also got a purple ribbon at the state fair. 

They were looking for kids to do interviews on the radio, and Noah got picked.  He had fun and got to talk for quite a while since the was the only 4-Her in the area

  Noah also got Grand Champion on his framed stock certificate and history of the Elmwood Theatre Corporation.  This entry got a blue ribbon at the state fair. 

Since we were going to the fair on Wednesday to see the bucket calf show, I asked Noah if he wanted to enter a basket in the basket contest, since the entry time was going to be during our visit.  He ended up getting 1st place with a trophy and a ribbon.  He thought that was pretty cool.  

 Our friend Kate had two goats in one class, so Noah got to help out by showing one for her.  I would say a better description was that the goat showed him, since it mostly drug him around the ring.  But the judge was very forgiving.

 John wanted to do the cake auction this year and made a cake with Olympic rings on it.  It sold for $100. 









John also got a trophy for Reserved Champion Wild Flower photo.  It was cool seeing both boys on stage at the same time.
















Here is his reserved champion photo. 

All of their hard work payed off, because we got to spend a day at the Nebraska State Fair.













John got to do his presentation while we were there.  We were a bit late and they would not let him use our laptop, so the videos in his power point did not work.  He still got a blue ribbon which was good considering he experienced technical difficulty.

He got a special recognition for his photo of a bald eagle on our pond.  Above it is Noah's photo of the Blue Heron that also lives on the pond.  Both birds happen to be sitting on the same log (but they were taken at different times)  

His Child Development book about Ben's Farm got a purple too.  Love the expression on his face.  I don't think there was anything worse than being forced to pose for a picture, when there was the entire state fair to explore waiting right outside.  

I will leave you with this.  Only at the Nebraska state fair would you see something like this.  They were not running when we went by, but I am sure they could get a ride on one of the ones outside the house right now if they really wanted too. 

New Animals on the Farm

Here are a few of the newsest members of our farm family.  We now have 3 French Lop Rabbits. They are experienced 4-H rabbits so hopefully that will help us since this will be the first year for both John and Noah with small animals. 

Meet Jonas  (aka Dad)

 Greyson  (aka son)

and Demi.  (aka Mom)

 Yes,  Jonas and Demi are a breeding pair which means at some point later on we could have little rabbits hopping around.  We will just have to wait and see, and do LOTS of research.  Thank You Fricke Family!

Come on Down and Join in the Fun........The Nebraska State Fair.

Today we went to the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island, so John could do his Power Point Presentation.  He already won Grand Champion at the county fair with the presentation and now it was time to do it again at the State Fair.  The title of his presentation is "Will You Step Up for Down Syndrome".  He did awesome. He got a purple ribbon.   I think having 2 hours in the car to perfect it helped.  Here are the screen shots from his presentation:

 

Here is a picture of John with his Creative Mix Cookies that also got a purple.   They were made with a devils food cake mix and have a white chocolate drizzle on them.  They were yummy!  The ones left at home are long gone.  The best part is that now John can make the cookies next time we have to take some for school!

Noah got to have some fun too.  Here he is catching a pass from former Husker Player Eric Crouch.  The funniest part was that the boys had no idea who he was while they were doing the little obstacle course.  I asked them how it was to catch a pass from the former Husker Quarterback and they all looked at me like I was nuts.  After going back to take a look they figured out who it was.  They thought it was pretty cool.

He also got to milk a pretend cow.   I told him after seeing the way he was going about it,  he would have been kicked in the head by that cow if it had been real.

Ben got to enjoy the fair too.  He liked petting the goats.  But it was just too much for him.

On the way home we stopped at Chances R in York.  It was delicious.  Maybe going all the way to Grand Island to visit the State Fair isn't so bad after all.  Our first year attending there was pretty good.