Five Minute Friday: Full

I've been thinking about this little neglected blog and how there are things I'd like to do with it and things to share, but life has been full "to the max" and left little time for lingering here.

This past week (month!) life was full with 4-H and the county fair. Since we returned to the midwest and live near my parents' beef farm, the children have been able to experience a bit of my childhood, especially showing cattle. We have traveled to several shows with my dad since we moved back, and just culminated the summer show circuit (for us - taking a pass on the state fair this year) with the county fair. It happened to be one of the hottest ever. Lucky us! But the new beef barn was bearable with all the fans running. It was a bit sad that they didn't get to be in the same barns I stalled in as a child, but I think with the heat, it was a good thing.

I was proud of all three of them. Little G just returned from two weeks of back-to-back camps, and managed to control his attitude and still function (though his brain is pretty much gone at this point).

Glueing up his heifer's leg hair before the show

B fractured her arm 5 days before the cow show part started (fortunately she was done with her other projects), and still managed to lead her calves around, show, them, and pretty much everything except carry the pitchfork with manure (it's heavy!).

Styling her heifer's tail before the show, with help from L

It was a draining 4 days or so, but feels good to have accomplished it and done well!

I hope to post more on the fair later!

Down on the farm...Spring edition

Lots of action on the farm these days! How cute are these little ones?Bottle feeding a set of twins (their mom doesn't make enough milk to adequately nourish both of them at this stage).

Yum, yum, yum.Meanwhile, the bystanders get curious. This one is tasting my jeans.Older and wiser, this woman is aware that there are special goodies in there (she is not the twins' mother, but knows that there is food in the stall with them for their mother). In my opinion, the cow above is huge. No body shot to prove my point, but she did want to know about the make and model of my camera.

The two older children are getting to work on their animals that they will be showing this year. Number 3 is beginning to assist with some of the brushing and so forth, but these animals don't quite have the best personality for her to start working with yet beyond that. She begged to do it herself, so when it seemed like safe moment, I let go and backed off.

She said, "Get your head up girl!" (In a very demanding tone!) I asked, "Where did ya' hear that?" She replied, "I've heard everything Grandpa has told them."

Every time I see this photo, I imagine the heifer, Patches, saying, "Now really. Who do you think is in charge here?" It is likely that Patches weighs 14 times what L weighs.But knowing Little L as I do, she is probably more in charge than Patches realizes. Or perhaps she does...notice the obediently held up head. L is demonstrating inappropriate footwear for working around cattle. (In case you were wondering...)

Perspective from where we're at now and other randomness

One of the blogs I follow regularly had a prompt Friday about perspective. As I was uploading these pictures, it occurred to me that these pictures taken from the side of our house show a perspective of our new life here, and remembered the post about it.

The view from our garage last Saturday.

The sunrise a few days later, taken from our doorway.

Later that same day from our dining table.

And the same view as the earlier sunrise.

On a different occasion and location and not especially related to perspective (unless you count looking down the rows, up in the tree, etc.)

Returning from an outing to collect hedge apples, which we are hoping really do what the old wives' tales claim, and repel spiders and annoying insects.

The lowly hedge apple. We had to search the Internet to learn about them after this.

Recent yumminess...

We (because Geoff was really the one who did so) used to make stuff peppers from time to time, but is has probably been more than 10 years since we had them, until last week. We learned of this little bakery in the middle of nowhere and took a drive last Saturday. Geoff said they had the best doughnuts he'd ever had, which is pretty high praise from someone who isn't even a big fan of doughnuts!

Cow show connections Part 1: What is it? And why do people do it?

There are two kinds of cows - dairy and beef. One kind is capable of producing gallons of milk every day, and the other produces pounds of hamburger, steak and so forth. Both kinds are "shown" in competitions such as this, but these are beef cattle. Which leads to another necessary clarification: "cow" is the word used to specify a female who has had a baby, but it is also used as a general term for all the animals. Technically, the animals the kids showed at this event were all steers (neutered male beef animals), and heifers (females who have not had a baby yet).

Showing beef cattle involves a copious amount of hard physical labor (to be described in more detail in future posts), usually in extreme cold or heat, sweating your brains out or freezing your extremities off. After observing a fair amount of this surrounding this particular cow show, my husband (who is basically a city boy and relatively new to this) inquired, "Why do people torture themselves doing this?"

After some thought, my response was, "For the same reason people climb Mount Everest (or train for marathons, or etc., etc., etc.)." Someone could write a whole dissertation for a doctorate in psychology on this topic. I could give it a good start, but at this moment have more pressing things to do, like pack up my entire house. Maybe someday. You're all waiting with baited breath, I know.

(BTW, Little G is the second from the left in the picture above. More pictures to come of this blessed event in the future.)

Wrapping up the fun

We had a great time on our annual trip to see my parents and other friends and family members. These are some random shots from that trip.

Just some of the bounty from the land. Everything on this plate was grown on the premises. Little G cutting the corn out of the beans. This is a slightly dangerous occupation, but he is pretty cautious and got the hang of it an

Working hard

Checking each other out

I started driving one like this when I was about nine years old. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a he or a she, but dental work is in order either way.

A crank-started tractor.

Gpa said the first tractor they ever got (replaced the horses) was one of these models and that it was a rough ride.

Sharpening a pencil by steam engine This dog eats laying down. You'd think she'd had a rough day...

Sunset (between 9 and 10pm)

Out in the pasture with Gpa's cows and calves, scratching them.

One of the new twins born while we were there

The need for speed

Decorated

the decorator These balloons were just going off as we arrived at the fair Little G helping out Gma and Gpa by edging their sidewalk. Enjoying Julie's hammock (and trying to stay in it!).

L watering Julie's flowers Ready to board the plane for the trip home.All tuckered out!

Amongst the Amish

After stating that the kids were getting "lots of experiences with life here" in the previous post, I forgot to include what those experiences were.

Birth: Unfortunately we didn't get to actually witness this, but a cow had twins while we were here. (Cows don't usually have twins, and often have a hard time raising two calves, but this one has done it once before and seems to be managing.) We're still waiting for the kids to actually get to witness a birth. Sometime it will happen, but not this visit.

Death: Another, fortunately rare, experience, is for one of the beef animals to die on the property. Yesterday they got to watch my dad perform a procedure to get the air out of a calf's stomach who was bloated and sick and the vet worked on him some,too. (The vet also performed a procedure on a cow that has to do with reproduction - not sure what all they learned about that - maybe I should ask...) Sadly, their efforts were to no avail as the calf was dead this morning. B went with Grandpa to "deal" with it.

Random: The dog went after a skunk shortly after we arrived here and got sprayed right in the mouth. Despite multiple baths, she still stinks, and it has been a couple of weeks now. We think she may be secreting it since it looked like she might have swallowed a fair bit of the putrid stuff. Poor girl (and poor us).

There are probably not too many county fairs in the country with a horse and buggy parking area, but we were at one of them...

Yes, right there in the middle of the regular parking area.

The last book the kids had to read for school this past year was Plain Girl about a girl who was the only Amish girl at her school. I have not had a chance to read it myself yet, but little G seemed to be learning a bit about the Amish as he read it, so it was perfect timing that the cow show we went to last weekend was right in the heart of Amish country. We passed a horse and buggy on the road on the way to the show, then the kids and I decided to go home by a route that would enable us to encounter some more.

On the way home we saw this rainstorm in the distance:

Um, yeah...I took this picture while driving.