Fair News

Summer has unofficially ended; the Schaghticoke Fair has come and gone.  That's our county Fair, and 4-H project year wrap-up.  Madison entered a slew of vegetables from the garden this year and took away 8 blue ribbons out of 10 entries.  (She needs to work on presentation...hear that, Martha?)

And the chickens didn't do too badly, either!  Here she is standing with her Reserve Champion, Blueberry, who is a Splash (Blue) Cochin.  Blueberry didn't want to cooperate for the photo, so she is hiding behind Madison's head.  (She also didn't want to cooperate on salon day, so she won with dirty feet.  Go figure.)

There was showmanship:

And plenty of showing the chickens to the public:

If you are wondering why I am holding the chicken, just take a peek at my right leg - once there's poop, I become the holder and she does the introductions...(sigh)

That's Spring, one of my favorites.  She is a Rhode Island Red from two years before, when she was part of the day-old baby chick display that the kids get to divvy up once the Fair is over.  This year our family set up the entire chick display, so all the babies are ours. (Pictures in a day or so...)

For Madison, one of the Fair highlights was the guy with the reptiles - 

 But for me...well, I'm simple.  I like the Fair food (who doesn't?), and the simplicity of one blue ribbon.  Yep, Mommy won a blue ribbon.  

(Fellow Ravelers, those are my Mystery Socks from my projects page...)

Of course, it is only one ribbon, compared to the dozens that Madison racked up, but I handle that situation like the mature, non-competitive,  supportive adult that I am...

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)

Fair Clean-up

For those of you bloggers who have never known the pleasure of 4-H, or for those who don't live in an area that still features the County Fair, we're here to tell you: it's that time again! And we're getting psyched..

The entire year's work gets summed up at the Fair. For us it's the Schaghticoke Fair. Which is the County Fair for Rensselaer County. (Forgive the ridiculous spellings...it's what we get for living in an area settle by Dutch and already populated with Native Americans). And two weeks in advance of the opening, the 4-H kids and parents descend on the grounds to get the barns and displays ready; to clean, sweep, label, plan, plot, eat (of course) and even workshop.

We are an independent club, meaning Madison pretty much just does her thing, and we latch onto as much activity and meetings as we can manage, and her social calendar demands. Not surprising, as we live in a pretty isolated corner of the county (just not that many kids!) and her interest is pretty narrow (just not that many kids interested in poultry!) In fact, fellow blogger Lauren has a son who appears to be just as ga-ga over poultry as Madison, but he's the only other one I know of...

So drumming up help to clean the Poultry cages and barns is sometimes a little tough. There are a half dozen kids who do poultry in addition to other animals, but that's it, so the work party is kinda small...(Further reason not to lock up the help, no matter how young!) I had nothing to do with this...the kid in yellow is her big brother...

We washed dozens of cages, dishes, swept floors, painted display boards (we did this part two weeks ago) and of course, talked "bird"...

Here is the 4-H side of the barn (pre-chicken):
And the open class side: (I still don't know why it is that the 4-H kids clean the whole barn, even if they only use half....hmmm...)

But she will have, (fingers crossed here - we just lost Speedy the Rooster to the foxes, and I don't want them to get the "fever for the flavor"...if you know what I mean) 9 entries: 5 in 4-H, and 4 in Open Class.

Then she's got veggies galore, and the shirt she made in the MakeIt/TakeIt Workshop after dinner...

And not to be outdone, Mommy is entering knitted socks in the County Fair this year. Yee-haw! All I need now is a gingham blouse...I have the overalls, but alas, no pigtails.

This n' That

Saturday we went to my alma mater, far above Cayuga's waters, and had a 4-H Fun day. Woo-hoo!

I am planning a dastardly, motherly, not-too subtle attack on my daughter's plans to go to college anywhere other than here by starting early, and showing her all the neat things on campus (excluding the establishments that feature malt beverages, of course) so we lept at the opportunity to visit the vet school and do cool animal things...
Here the kids are attending a seminar on Communicating With Your Dog. (One might surmise by the fact that the dog is facing away from the kids that they failed this course, but the Schnauzer was so damn fast he followed the chosen command and got back to his mistress for the reward snack faster than I could snap the camera...)

This was followed by Rescue Dogs, and Canine Agility, and Travelling with Your Dog, and more stuff I've forgotten...

All in all, a very nice start to my plan. She had a ball.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, every animal that had a cage escaped it, every animal that has a fence found a way around it, and every animal that has any propensity whatsoever to bite, did so to some tender part of my husband. Needless to say, he was not thrilled with farm life when we returned.

Chief chomper:

The bantam rooster, Speedy. (A Mille Fleur/Splash Cochin cross, for anyone who's interested...)


He is 1 and 1/2 pounds, (thinks he's 40 pounds), and latches on to the leg of anyone else but me like a crazed terrier. I'm not sure what he's defending, but he sure acts like its something good.

For me, he lives in with the Pygoras, and comes on walks with us twice a day. Ambling along as nice as you please, grazing just like they do. Chirping the whole time. And the goats seem to accept him as part of the herd. He was an incubating "experiment", when (without much thought as to the outcome), we let our daughter incubate a fertilized egg.

We are trying to be a little more thoughtful this time...


Our Red Cochin hen, Sandy, went broody on us and was actually stealing eggs to sit on. So we got a hold of two Ameracauna eggs (we have an Ameracauna rooster) and gave her those. Along with two Buff Brahma Bantam eggs, which we are only guessing are fertile...

I had to give her a maternity ward of sorts, away from other pestering hens, and here she sits on Day 17. Or 18, we're a little unsure...

Now the "ward" is complete with private room, a view, fresh food and water via daily room service, and must be pretty good digs in the chicken world, 'cause when I went out this morning, two other hens are holed up in the laying boxes, refusing to move, and squawking something about, "Just what does a hen have to do to get some service in here?"

Next post: We have plants!

Fair Frenzy

Schaghticoke Fair!

Well, you could never tell Madison had been waiting all summer for the Fair from this picture...but I think this was more of a reaction to Dad popping pictures - what a scowl!

Anyway, the 4-H theme was Colonial Times, so we dressed up...

There, that's much better! Here she is posing with her bantam cockerel she raised from an egg - Speedy. She got 6 blue ribbons in all for the chickens, and one red. The green ribbon is for Shooting Sports Laser Shoot (who knew she'd be a natural with the .22? Scary...)

She had lots of veggies in the projects display...and won lots of blue ribbons there, too! The best part was the feedback and tips from the Master Gardeners to help her plan for next year.

Her sunflower seed head was huge - biggest of those submitted!

Much of her produce was some of what she markets to Price Chopper. Our little entrepeneur has surpassed the $50 mark...

Connie, from our club, and Madison are here being judged on poultry showmanship. Madison is working with Speedy, and Connie is working with Summer. Both of them did very well.

Finally, after Set up Day, and almost a week straight of going to the Fair everyday for something or other, we come to the final evening...time to break everything down...

But it wouldn't be the Fair if we didn't come home with baby chicks...so here are this year's crop: two Easter Eggers, and a Rhode Island Red. That's (l to r) Zippee, Spring, and Design.