Fair Results

About time I get around to this, but life has been so busy lately that every time I sit down to start, I literally fall asleep in the chair. Sad, no?

The Schaghticoke Fair has come and went, and well, the big news is Madison and her chickens...

Her little Buff Brahma Bantam hen, Buff, took the grand prize. Best Bird in the entire Open Class and Show. Beat out every other chicken, and more impressively, beat out the Big Three. The Big Three refers to these older gentlemen that are the epitome in poultry culture around here, and they have been trading this honor back and forth for over ten years. It's come to be expected, by they and us alike, that one of them will raise the prize winning chicken and walk away with the honors. So it was rather jaw-dropping when the 10-year-old marches in and walks away with the top slot. For them, anyway. We were too busy grinning.

Of course, there were a lot of the usual blue ribbons in the 4-H barn, for her veggies, and this one for a tie-dyed shirt (thank you Uncle Richard!):

And even though all the ribbons were nice, the thing she loved the most was the chicken trophy she won for showmanship. Which, for the inexperienced, is when the kids have to take a chicken, and before a judge and the throngs of folks traversing the Poulty Barn, handle the bird, showing various features, answer questions about poultry raising and poutry trivia, and of course, keep the featured bird from taking off and freaking out the crowd as it runs around looking for any means of escape, or shitting on your clean pants. This year, Madison managed all of it. Not so lucky for some of the other kids....but that's what keeps the audience coming back!

Just so her little head didn't get too swollen out of whack, I paraded her through the Arts and Crafts Barn and Mommy's blue ribbon for hand-knit socks. Balance in all things, right? I took her through about 14 times. She reminded me each time that I had won only one ribbon. She has a chicken trophy. (Sigh)