Farming in the shade

It's the time of year when we sell a few of our lambs to young people who want to show them at local county fairs. They're called "club lambs" because the kids are in 4H clubs.  Here are two that have been chosen, and are just waiting for transport. These lambs had only a short ride home, so the utility trailer works fine. A few times we've shipped club lambs home in the back of an SUV. We always sort of wonder how that turns out. =) Some of our kids have benefitted greatly from being in 4H and showing animals. The leaders of our kids' club are just the most wonderful people. It's a huge commitment, to be a 4H leader. Hats off to you, Pat, Linda and Arlan, for your years of hard work and dedication.

Last week was our county fair--a very small one, as county fairs go. I suspect that fairs are a dying breed, and so we participate in several ways just to keep the powers-that-be from looking around and saying "why bother?" We pick garden veggies to enter in the vegetable competition. We enter our handmade items in the open class needlework competition. This year The Farmer entered a skein of handspun yarn. I also entered a skein of handspun yarn, a crocheted scarf, and one of my rugs. And our kids show animals through the 4H program. 4H participants spend 2-6 months (depending on the animal shown) working with their animal, caring for it daily, getting it used to being handled. This teaches them responsibility. Many of the kids form a close bond with their animals. All of the animals are sold at the end of the fair, and there are always a few tears shed as the kids help load their animals on the stock trailers to be brought to auctions or slaughterhouses. You might be tempt...

Fair week is always a blur for us. Twice daily trips to the fairgrounds to feed and check on the animals. Shows. Pizza parties (who says 4-H has to be all work?). An auction, where the kids sell their market animals. All on top of life's normal routine... Here the kids are showing off their lambs--they enter two different types of shows. One is showmanship, which has more to do with how the kids show off their lambs. The other is market class, which focuses on the quality of the lamb itself. Here's a photo of the auction--kind of a "runway" experience for country kids. Smile. Show off your animal. Hope for the best. The animals ultimately end up in "freezer camp," which the kids understand in theory going in. But Saturday morning load-out time makes theory real.

Sometimes bloggers get stuck on what to write about. Occasionally, I'll see an interesting idea over at another blog and want to try it out. This is the case with "Three Word Thursday". The point is to post a photo and try to describe it in three words. Here goes... LOL! Okay. I can't do it in just 3 words. Too many things a-swirlin' around. Here are my top three choices: 1) Lovely Summer Evening 2) Fair 4H Friends and 3) One man working What do you see here? Post it below, in the comment section. If you're a blogger and have a "Three Word Thursday" post, I'd love to check it out!

I'm late in posting a wrap-up because, quite frankly, fair week did me in. Too old for all this busyness... The final "big thing" we are involved with at the fair is the market animal auction. The animals that the kids have been looking after for several months are auctioned off to the highest bidder. They go for slaughter. For meat. The kids have come to understand this basic life principle: For one to live, another must die. Now I understand that there are folks who don't eat meat. And I'm okay with that. But we choose to eat meat, and because we do, I'd like the kids to understand the whole process. (And, incidentally, I didn't invent the whole "for one to live, another must die" principle. You'll see it worked out over and over in nature. I believe it's a principle that is set in place to point us to the truth about Christ's death on our behalf. But that's fodder for another day.) In fact, I'd love it if more people unders...

Yes, I realize that Day Three was actually yesterday. I plead exhaustion--up at 5:00 a.m., out the door at 6:00 a.m., back home for 30 minutes or so in the mid-afternoon, and then home for good about 11:00 p.m.). And actually, you'll only get the first half of Day Three in this post. Stay tuned... Daughter # 3 showed in her first 4H horse show yesterday (her second show ever). She cleaned her horse up the day before and blanketed her so that she would stay tidy. She did stay clean, mostly, but we did need to do some last minute touch-up once we got to the show. Doesn't she look nice? There is a lot of waiting at horse shows, in my very limited experience. Good thing we brought chairs and food and water. Too bad we didn't bring sunblock. Oh-oh! Daughter showed in halter class: Western horsemanship: And trail class (which is like an obstacle course): Lots of fun, and they both did fabulously. We don't think the horse has ever been shown before, and daughter is a beginner,...