::summer 2015::

We had such a wonderful summer this year.

 

 We started a pumpkin patch.

 

 We took out goat back and forth to a vet school in Illinois and she got her cast off with no residual issues.

 

We ate lots of wild berries.

Max and Josh made a rocket and fired it off.  Then picked it out of a tree.
 

We got three new kittens that have been hours of entertainment for the kids.  They are names Broccoli, Scrubs, and Jack Sparrow.  A few weeks latter the little grey and white one found its way here and got named Peter Pan.   

 

 Lily did an art camp and made the best teapot.  Its amazing.

 

 County fair was amazing!  All the animals did well.
Emma won Grand Champion pygmy wether with Bo.
Lily won reserve Grand Champion do with Marshmallow – a home grown baby girl

 

Lily won Champion All Other Breeds with her little Babydoll Southdown Ewe, Bernadette.

 

We learned that Q has three front teeth on top instead of two.  This should lead to some pretty fun dentist bills in the future but just adds to his serious cuteness. 

 

I took five chickens to the butcher and the three turkeys are going soon. 

 

The garden didn’t have its best year.  It started VERY strong, but late blight killed off most of my tomatoes.  I have a plan on how to deal with them next year, so I learned from it.

 

 

We got to sneak out on a Schaefer family cabin trip to Kentucky.  The whole crew had a good time. 

 Lily had too much fun decorating her locker for sixth grade.  

Disco ball included. 

 

 Max started second grade and Lily sixth.  

For her birthday this year Lily wanted to take her girl friend to get nails painted and then watch shows at our house.  I was the trusty driver.  

::I tolerate goats::

"I tolerate goats" - a shirt one of the dads at fair was wearing


I love fair so much - SO MUCH.  Seriously, if my husband had one tenth the interest that I do, we would have about four kinds of goats, ducks, sheep, and cattle.  But he doesn't - at all.  As a matter of fact I think it would be fair to say that he is the Grinch of fair.  He hates the time it takes.  He hates the money it takes.  He hates the year round care of the animals.  He hates the last minute rush to finish projects.  I would say we are very blessed to have a marriage that is so compatible in so many ways, but when it comes to fair we have a real divide.  When we have conflict in other parts of our relationship we both give a little to find a compromise.  When it comes to raising animals I think we can safely say that Josh gives a lot.  He allows all these time wasting creatures because...  Well - I don't know exactly why he does it besides to humor me.  Every year when fair roles around he is grumpy and feels neglected.  In all fairness (pun not intended), he is neglected.  But it is FAIR, and fair is magical.  I just can't explain it to someone that didn't grow up doing fair.  There is something fundamentally pure and youthful about 4H.  I have so many great memories about fair as a kid and I want my kids to have the same kind of experiences.  

If I am being totally honest I think we can say that my girls primarily do 4H because they where not really given an option.  Emma was different because she kind of had a two-mom's experience.  Her mother did 4H and did the indoor projects (sewing, foods, etc.), I knew I wanted the girls to do animal projects and encouraged Emma to explore that.  between her mother and myself we always agreed with each other that we wanted Emma to do 4H.  She started with rabbits and did very well, but we knew we wanted something larger.  She moved to goats, where we sucked for several years before we figured it out.  Her mother and I have happily shared the work of Emma's 4H experience and I think it has gone really well.  Emma has one more year and I hope she feels like she doesn't have any regrets.  I have tried to always buy her the best animals that I could afford.  Looking back I made some mistakes with her, I was learning right along with her and I didn't let her have enough control.  I picked her animals for her, I pick their feed and how much, I figure medical care, and I used to do almost all the grooming.  I should have made her learn it all along with me to help her understand her animals better.

When Lily started 4H a few years ago we knew a great deal about Pygmy goats and a little bit about Dairy goats.  I loved watching all the great little sheep and I encouraged her to take on that project as well.  Lily knows more about her animals at her age than Emma did, but in all fairness Lily gets stuck taking care of them more than Emma because Lily lives her all the time.  Lily does like her animals and will go out to do her chores when she is told, but you would never find her training her goats to show with out being reminded.  She just sees them as fun toys, which they are - but she doesn't have a ton of drive to learn animal management or husbandry.  Lily, like her older sister, has a ton of talents and interests, livestock just is not one of them.  

Let me clarify, it's ok with me that the girls don't live and die for this stuff.  All I did from the age of 10-24 was show horses.  Nothing else, and I don't feel like that left me very well rounded.  I want the girls to explore a variety of activities to find out what they love on their own.  I feel like the small herd of goats and 1-2 sheep that I keep gives us the the chance to have some fun together with out things getting to crazy.  Josh's lack of interest really keeps me pretty inline which in turn leads to me not pushing the girls so far that they want to quit.  Its all a symbiotic relationship that somehow equals a really good balance. (I think - Josh may disagree with that.)  If you asked the girls what they like about summer I think both of them would have fair on their list.  They both love to compete and they both understand the joyful magic of fair.      

With all that said, whats on the agenda for next year?
Emma - this will be her last year.  She has discussed doing a new indoor project, which I hope she does.  She will have her two pygmy wethers to show and her Nubian doe.  I wish I could afford to buy her something really special for her last year but the expense would be extreme and may be more than I can ask of her father.
Lily - She will have her babydoll lamb to show as a yearling then I hope to trade it back to its breeder for another lamb for the next season.  Eventually I would like to breed these little guys as a hobby but through much debate Josh has made me promise to put that on the back burner till I graduate and get established in my new job.  Lily will have her pygmy doe that we all love and then her Nubian doe.  

Loose agenda for 2017
Max's first year and the first year we will have bred the Nubian does.  
Max - Emma's old Nubian and any babies that Nubian has, one of Emma's old pygmy wethers, and one babydoll lamb (maybe, I might make him wait a year on sheep)
Lillian - Her Nubian and it's babies, the other one of Emma's old pygmy wethers, Lily's pygmy doe, and one babydoll lamb

ps- I would rather that Josh embrace the magic of Disney than the magic of fair.  Just for the record.   

::fair 2014::

Champion junior pygmy wether

I don't make much secret about the fact that I love 4H.

I love the concept, the honest root of the whole idea.  

Learn stuff and grow every year.  

Be nice and play fair.

Hold yourself to a certain standard of behavior and self accountability.   

Work hard and get acknowledge for that work.  

Reality - I work with the goats more than I should.  I stress and fret about cakes that need decorated.  I constantly remind myself - let them do it!  Back off.  Even if they fail the failure is part of the learning experience.  

Two reasons I struggle to back off -

      1.  I want to win.  The competitive crazy person that lives in the part of brain that used to show horses comes out sometimes and wants a blue freaking ribbon.  It makes me talk myself into driving five hours to pick up a goat that is going to win.  It talks me into email breeders and begging them to sell me a winner.  It talks me into spending way too much money on the highest quality I can afford.  I have convinced myself that investing in quality stock is the way to go.  It costs the same to feed a piece of crap as it does to feed quality, but if we are being honest I buy quality because I want to win.   

     2.  I don't want them to fail.  I want them to be happy.  They like to win too!  Emma could not really give much of a rats ass about her goats most of the year.  She doesn't dislike them, but she worked with them less than 15 times total before fair.  She is just a busy teenager with other things to do.  I kept telling myself I wasn't going to pick up her slack.  If her projects where not ready then they just wouldn't be ready.  But I still went out and worked that dairy goat all the time.  I just couldn't let them fail.  I wanted Emma to be happy with her blue ribbon.  Which she was.  

We primarily show pygmy goats.  We always have.  I just love the short little fatties.  They are so cute.  Almost like cartoons - with all the round fatness.   This year we tried two different breeds of goats just to expand our knowledge. 

Lily showed a fainting goat.  You can see it here about peeing on her foot!  It didn't get her, but it cracked me up.  I like fainting goats.  They are hilarious!  They seriously faint - look it up on YouTube.  With all that said - our county does not have a division for fainting goats.  They show in the meat goat category with huge fat meat goats.  It's not a comparing apples to apples.  We will sell this doe this year and buy a wether for next year.  Something cute and hilarious that Lily can show for one year and can then come be a pet on the farm.  Just fainting away periodically to make me laugh. 

 

 Now here comes my little dairy goat.  Mine Mine Mine.  I pretend that she is Emma's but this is really my baby.  We have a class at our fair where they take the highest placing meat, dairy, and pygmy doe and wether and show them against each other to pick the Supreme Champion.  We have made it to this class one time with a wether we own.  Usually the class is won by a dairy goat or a meat goat.  Pygmy goats rarely win, but it has happened.  So last year Emma and I talked about what breed of dairy we might want to show to try and have a shot at Grand Supreme.   We decided on Nubian.  They are so graceful and elegant.  After lots of research I found a champion breeder that was willing to sell me a baby.  It's actually really difficult to get a doe bred this well.  Wait lists and deposits and long road trips.  Seriously.  I have problems - ok?  We already talked about that.  And this doe defines my crazy exactly.  But - isn't she gorgeous?  I love her.  I work with her all the time.  I groom her constantly.  I enjoy her company.  She is a wonderful little pet.  She and Emma took first in her class, then champion junior Nubian.  They didn't make Grand Champion (the step below supreme) this year, but I feel like this is our best chance in a long time.  And she is going to be providing milk for this family eventually :) 

Then Emma and Lily ended up showing against each other with their two junior pygmy does.  Lily got champion with her Delilah and Emma got reserve champion with Darcy.  Both does shows lots of potential and I am hoping we can keep both for next year.  

 

Lily showed her little Marshmallow Fluff.  This goat is so special to me.  She is the only pygmy goat I own that I bred and raised.  From a super fancy buck I owned for a few months and a doe my kids used to show.  She is a spoiled little brat from a year where five other babies died and one doe died.  It was such a tough farmer year that she got too much attention.  Thank the lord she is actually a really good looking little doe.  She gets to live out her life with me forever, but its nice that she wins too.  She was a blue ribbon in her class, which was wonderful since this is her yearling year which is usually not a great year for my goats.  They look like awkward teenagers that year. 

 

The theme was superhero's this year.  So Max had a cape he wore around the whole time.  My goats are used to dealing with his crazy, so they just went with it.  

Emma also showed her senior wether Bo.  He is a really high quality animal but I didn't let him in with the babies to eat himself into show weight in time.  He looked good but not good enough and got a fourth.  Next year he will be back and bringing the heat.   

A big storm rolled in causing the goat show to be delayed.  Max provided entertainment while we all waited in the barn for it to blow over.

Then it was time to show sheep.  Lily really loves to show sheep.  She loves her little sheep, Annabelle and together they are very focused in the ring.  

 And got rewarded for it!

They won first for yearling All Other Breeds.  But they where the only one.

Then they won Champion for All Other Breeds.  

Annabelle was the only babydoll sheep in the group.

Which is a shame.  I think she really does have wonderful confirmation and could give lots of other babydoll's something to compete against.  

I can't wait till the day comes that I have about 10 mama's just like her breeding in my field.  

But I had to give that up for grad school.

Annabelle will be going back to her breeder in the fall to have babies.

They can only show sheep for two years, so we traded Annabelle for a spring lamb.  

The breeder we got her from is so wonderful, she will be well cared for.

But I will miss her pretty face.  

We also traded her with an understanding that if the breeder ever sells her we get first refusals. 

For indoor projects Lily got all blues.

The indoor projects are different.  

If you do the project well you get a blue. 

If you mostly followed the rules but missed some stuff you get a red.

If you did the project better than well you get in Honor Group.  

If you did it the best in your age group you get Champion or Reserve Champion.

If you did it the best in the entire fair you get Grand Champion or Reserve Grand Champion.  

So - on sewing she got a blue on construction and on modeling. 

She made the skirt with my mother.  

This is the purse she made for her Recycling Project.   

It was really good and she put a lot of work into it.

This is the cake she made.

You ice a foam cake form with royal icing.  It dries like cement.  Then we take it to my dad and he sands it down with a belt sander to make it smooth.  

We traced the letters and owl on to the cake from clip art.

Then she filled it in with stars.  

She got blue and honor group with this cake. 

For woodworking she made this game with my father.  My Dad is a master woodworker and she loves learning from him about how to make these things.  He really makes her do the whole thing her self and I love the idea of the two of them working on this.  

She got a blue on it.  

::our new nubian::

We got a Nubian junior doe this year.  We have never had anything but small goats before.  This little girl is amazing!!  So sweet and kind.  I think she may quickly become my favorite.  She is calm and so easy to train.  We adore her. She is for Emma to show and she named her Genivieve.

This is what most of our pictures look like.

Starting to teach her to stand and lead.  Front leg good, back legs in progress. 

::mini road trip - fainting goat::

 

We have three 4H project goats to pick up in the next several weeks. 

 

I decided that since it is no fun to sit in the car for half a day with all the kiddos we would make it into an adventure.

We love road trips, so we started calling these our "mini road trips".  I get on trip advisor and make a rough plan about where the goat is and what we could find to do along the way.  Just a few minutes to investigate. 

Our fainter goat was the first to be picked up and she was near Seymour, IN. 

 

We found a tiny diner that was packed with a very local Sunday crowd. 

 

Max had them all eating out of his hand with his cuteness. 

 

And then we arrived to get our little girl, Ariel. 

She is really the cutest little fainter in the land. 

She is first fainting goat for us and I have to say that I just really like her. 

 

Look at the awesome set up she had for her goaties. 

And look at all the colors!

I could not get over how cute they are. 

I may need 10.

Then we loaded our little baby girl into her dog crate and headed out.

Lily took my camera and took this picture of Max. 

 

And this one of Q. 

 

The kids where a little disappointed that the local Seymour bakery was closed. 

So I found a historic Ice Cream shop for the way home. 

I was located in Columbus, IN. 

 

And these kids LOVED it. 

The staff was so sweet and told us to check out the free indoor park across the street. 

 

 

Then we left the ice cream shop and headed across the street.

 

And there we found an amazing indoor free park. 

These kids could not have had more fun than they did. 

They ran around and got all that ice cream energy out. 

 

 

 

Then we headed home to get our little baby tucked in.

 

 

Such a pretty little girl.  She is fitting right in. 

 

::fair 2013::

 Here we are trying to get our projects in to be judged. 

The stroller had to carry the glass table.

Indoor projects are scored like this -

Blue = you did the project as it was supposed to be done

Red = you were close

Yellow = you were not very close

participation = you sucked, but try again

If you get a blue you can advance from there

You can get Honor Group = you did the project better than it required

Champion = you were the best in your age group

Grand Champion = you were the best in all the project

 Lily got a blue and honor group on her modeling of her skirt.

All that acting paid off.

 Blue on her skirt construction.

Blue and Honor Group on her collections project.

 

HER CAKE GOT BLUE - HONOR GROUP - CHAMPION

AND!!!  She got picked to go to State Fair

 

Her lady bug got Blue

 

And she loved doing it.

Woodworking got a blue.  

 

Her recycling project got a blue

And her Dad made her a stand for it.  

  

Electrical got a blue.

 

My Emma got blues for both her pictures and Honor Group for her color picture.

 

Then she got a blue and honor group on her glass table.

She got Blue - Honor Group - Champion - GRAND CHAMPION on her pickled pineapple.

She did all her indoor projects with her Mother and they did a wonderful job. 

 Then it was animal time.

Emma showed for her first year in Senior Showmanship.

She ROCKED IT!

That girl fought hard and she was pulled out of about 30 for the top five.  That judged worked them over, the class was 35 mins long, but she held on hard.  I was so proud of her for being in the top five.  It's kind of hard for a 5ft 10in girl to do showmanship on a pygmy but she made it look good. 

Then my Lily went in for showmanship and she choked.  She walked in with 25 other kids and lost her focus.  She struggled.  But she is just a little baby beginner and she learned a lot - and showed when she went in the next day for sheep.

Look at that face!!!  
She busted her little tush.  
She brought the heat.  
And she made the first cut down to 10 in her first showmanship class, and that thing was packed.  
She didn't make top five, but I was thrilled with her focus. 

 

Then it was time for her lamb to be judged...

 

Champion!!!!

It really doesn't matter that it was out of two.  

Let's skip that part.

Let's just focus on that happy face.

She loves showing sheep and I can't wait to get a few more.

Princess Annabelle was very popular at the show.

Everyone in the sheep club was so nice to us.  

 

The next day was Pygmy time!

Emma won Junior Wether with her little guy.

 

Meanwhile across the fair Lily got disqualified for a too heavy rabbit.

She shrugged  and said - can we go back to the goat barn?

We are done with that project.  

It's not for us.

So we did.

And she rocked it out with her little doe.

Second place and then Reserve Junior Pygmy Doe.

Very nice.

Emma's little doe got fourth - which was just fine.
  

 

Then the Beast Bo went in and cleaned up.

He won his wether class.

Then went back and won Grand Champion Pygmy Wether!

We have been trying for years to get that illusive prize.

We had to go in at the very end of the show against the Grand Champion Boer Goat and the Grand Champion Dairy Goat for Supreme Champion.

We didn't win but it was still a wonderful experience.  

I hope we make it back soon. 

 Last of all was the Poultry Show.

All you do to show waterfowl is put them in their cage and keep them alive all week till they are judged.

They judge them in their cage.

And those babies showed them how pretty they are.

The male got blue-honor group- champion medium duck - grand champion waterfowl.

The female got blue-honor group-reserve champion medium duck - reserve grand champion waterfowl.

Basically - they were the two best ducks at fair.

Who knew?

I just thought they were pretty to watch play in their kiddie pool.

The males have a curly tail feather and are brighter green

 

This was our best fair ever.  How are we ever going to top it?

Don't worry - I already have some ideas :)