Thank You Lonnie Wolfe for buying Sam's Ham!

Sam also sold his HAM and was the lucky 'victim' of a bidding war between Lonnie Wolfe of CPS and I think Shelton's. He was totally thrilled to get $450 for his ham, just $10 under the Grand Champion. Great night for the boys and a great way to end the fair. Now we just look forward to showing steers at State Fair and having a little fun before School starts.
From Tulip~
KH
PS~noterthat Sam is sort of smiling.............

Thank You Boyd Harris for buying Cody's Ham!

The serious ham seller, Cody, at the Audrain Fair Ham and Livestock Sale. Cody was thrilled to sell his Ham for $400 dollars!! THANK YOU BOYD!!!! This is such a great tool for the boys to save some money for the future. We buy the hams for around $25 a piece and the boys do the work which all of it doesn't add up to much more than about a half days' work. But as the mean parents that we are, we make them put ALL the money into their savings. Their savings accounts are full of Ham Sale and Show Steer checks, birthday money and the rare occurance that we manage to get some extra floated their way. We keep telling them to study hard and make good grades, hopefully some scholarships will also help pay for college.
From Tulip~
KH

I wish this was our bottom ground

Here's a picture of the lower half of our hayfield across from Susie Everharts' farm. This is not our bottom, our bottom is totally covered in water at the moment. Our neighbors to the east, the Schmidts are 'home bound' Spoke with Matt their oldest (our adopted 5th child) and he said their driveway was waist deep when they quit walking, probably deeper he wasn't sure just how deep. Their lake is considerably larger too........ lots of water in SW Monroe County. We have a levee along part of our bottom that protects on field and DAvid estimated that the water was two feet higher than the levee, so those beans are probably not going to 'happen' this year. I know that its practically impossible for us to go north right now, we would have to go all the way out to Sunnydale and back up Hwy 151 or maybe over to Hwy 15, but we thought that we heard it was even under water. I guess I am glad we can get out to the south.
From Tulip~
KH

Rain Rain GO AWAY!!!

Here's what Longbranch Creek looked like about 8:30 this evening. This is the view from south of the bridge. I wish my picture was more clear and really wish I had thought of taking the picture this afternoon. I think it has receded some. (looked like about 10 or 15 feet of road had been covered with water, comparing from this afternoon) You still can't pull into the driveway into our 'bottom' hay field/pasture. This afternoon when David and I drove down to look, we could see the water that is on the north side of the bridge, which makes me estimate it was around 1/2 mile wide on the north side and probably close to that on the south side/ our side. David dumped the rain gauge yesterday afternoon about 2pm with 2.17 inches in it and this morning with 6.65inches in it. (Yes Tony we are keeping our little rain log! :) I guess we should be thankful not to have gotten what our friends up in the Kirksville area received. But we have certainly gotten made up from last years' drought by now, haven't we?
From Tulip~
KH

Cody can work the stick too

Here's Cody with Bubba in the HEAVY WEIGHT class, of course. Bubba is generally pretty content to stand there and have his tummy scratched and that's what they did, until the judge placed them. These two were also in the middle of their class. We had a pretty good night. Now we have almost three weeks off till they show at State Fair, the Market Steer show there is Aug 12th. Our vacation, if you can call it that. For anyone else who will be attending, we will get there sometime Saturday, the 9th and be there through the 13th, look for us in the cattle barns. (if we're napping don't wake us up! LOL!!!)

Sam and Buddy at Monroe County fair

Sam is working hard, setting Buddy's feet up and doing a great job we thought. The judge seemed to like him as well, they ended up in about the middle of his class. Glad to see that this judge handled the animals some and wasn't influenced so much by the hair and 'fancy fitting' Buddy weighed 1270 tonight.

And if you wondered what Sam does

Sam is the 'stick man' no not the drummer, but he works the show sticks scratching lightly on the steers stomachs which they like, and it keeps them happy and content while David and Cody fit/groom/primp them. You know I mentioned in another post alot of cattle show pictures are pictures of 'butts' well here's three for you! I think the 'Wrangler' butt in the middle is the cutest!!

Bubba gets all 'beautified' also

Here's another shot of Cody primping Bubba this time before he went into the show ring, BTW, he weighed 1490 today and the 'squeeze chute' scale, didn't have much squeezing to do, it was Bubba who had to squeeze to get in!

Paris Cattle Show

I love to watch my guys get the cattle ready. The 'perfectionist' side comes out in everyone, so behind the camera is about the safest place for me. I think this is 'Buddy' getting his back leg 'primped'.

Seth at the Fair, part three

Sometimes, a guy just needs a power nap to help get them through the day. We went from the other picture of waiting for Sam to go into the ring, to going around and watching the Angus portion on the breeding show, to him falling asleep sitting beside me before the three or so classes of Angus heifers got done. So I carried him around to one of our chairs. There was more breeze there and he slept for probably an hour or more. The calves would walk right by him and he never had a clue. I guess this shot 'showcases' the shorts and boots look better. :)

Seth at the fair, part two

I totally love this picture. It's my favorite picture of the day. Does absolutely nothing to tell the story of what we doing, where we were at. And it was one of those, oh just for the heck of it shots, I love those, especially when they turn out this cool!!! We were waiting for Sam to go into the show ring, and instead of Seth darting around in amongst the catlle, he and I were standing up by the barn, and he always likes his picture taken, so then he can see it on the screen. I think it may be one of those ones, I blow up as a big one to hang on the wall. You'll notice the clothing change, he was glad to get out of the hot mesh polo shirt, and switched to shorts, but left the boots on. Not everyone can pull off that look like he can.

Seth at the Fair, part one

no good picture of Seth showing, although he showed, till the judge talked to him and then it was a good thing big brother also had ahold of Barbie, because he retreated to safety of behind Mom's leg. But he still got a little trophy. Here he sits on the show box, with both his and Jenna's trophies from the small animal show.

Jenna and Little Bit

Here's Jenna (mini-Maggie after our friend Maggie Brunner, who loves to show cattle ALMOST as much as Jenna!) with Little Bit she showed the little calf because she wasn't as broke to lead as Barbie is that way Seth could take Barbie and have a little better luck handling her. You will notice hands very full of the rope, the SHOW STICK, and the TROPHY!! And even though it was in the 90's the cowgirls wore those hot jeans all day long!

Audrain updates, mid-fair

Well we are sort of 'mid-fair' at this point. For the events we participate in, WE are about two thirds the way through.
Friday was full of the hustle and bustle of finishing up projects, and rounding up everything needed to check our exhibits into the building Friday evening. We had 4 hams and an assortment of posters. Our club, F and L Hustlers, was in charge of the check in process, so Cody Sam and I had to be there before 3 (which we didn't quite accomplish, but close) Seth and Jenna stayed with our neighbor, Janie Schmidt and then Matt, her grandson/our adopted 5th child watched them later in the evening.
The check in was hectic and long and stressful. Will make me remember next year to be very courteous and appreciative to whichever club is in charge in coming years!
Our personal results:
Cody's hams both received reds with scores 82 and 83 points (had to have an 85 to get blue)
Sam's hams both received blues with scores of 86 and 87 points (The Grand champion ham had a score of 92, so I didn't think that was too bad overall) The Grand Champion Ham was exhibited by a girl in our club, Erica Cornett, congrats to her!
Other building exhibits were, for Cody, posters about things he's learned in his projects. He made a poster that labelled all the parts of a hole on a golf course, he did one for beef that gave a diagram of a side beef and showed where the different retail cuts came from and gave best preparation methods for each cut. He made beef stew, took a sample and made a poster with the recipe and pictures we took of him preparing it.
Sam did a poster showing different equipment used in welding, made a beef poster outlining the origins of the Angus Breed of cattle, and also did a beef recipe. Both boys got all blues with their posters. Two of Cody's are going on to the State Fair. It's just so different than when I was in 4H, I lived in town so of course wasn't in beef and was a girl and didn't take welding, etc....... all the things that my boys take. I did things like clothing and foods, which had obvious building exhibits with your finished projects. You have to be a little more creative with some of their projects. Since you can't exactly bring your steer to building, although he's a wonderful example of your years' work, you just have to come up with other ways to show the things that you're learning. We've done beef foods, they made cookbooks last year for both beef and for ham, since they are in the cured hams project as well, we've made up little educational booklets. Kind of makes me think that my skirts, aprons, etc and batches of cookies and all that were pretty easy..............
Okay so Friday evening spent at the fair, with on short side trip by David and I back to Centralia to pay last respects to our friends the Benoit and Rohl families and express our sadness at the loss of our dear Angie. Her loss will be felt by so many. Defintely an example from the song about the good dying young. We will miss your smiling face and bubbly personality for a very long time.
Left the fairgrounds about 10 pm Friday night and was back on them before 8 am Saturday morning. We didn't leave till almost 11pm last night. Yesterday was the Audrain Fair Cattle Show. We took 2 steers, a heifer and 2 bottle calves. Seth and Jenna showed their babies yesterday morning and got 'trophies' the boys had mixed results, Sam ended up with the Reserve Champion Angus Heifer, not a bad place to be. But the judge didn't like either of our steers. Buddy who was showed by Sam, was too tall and lanky in his opinion and because of his frame size wasn't finished, which we kind of knew. Then with the weirdest comments I have ever heard, Bubba, who weighed in at 1475, 30 pounds heavier than anything else; didn't do well either, but I thought he would say that he was overfinished, he didn't. He mentioned how he could use more muscling.................okay. Whatever. This guy was very influenced by appearances and was easily impressed by fancy grooming. Didn't put his hands on many of the calves and if he had I think we would have faired better, but one mans opinion. And life goes, the boys will still get a nice price for the calves and gives us an opportunity to help them save some money. (We buy the calves and feed the calves and the boys get the check, but we do make them put it in savings!)
Back to fair............. we'll make a little 'field trip' to the Monroe County fair which is also going on Tuesday for their cattle show. Then Wednesday is our Fairs' closing events. The Ham and Livestock Sale. Both boys have Hams to sell. Then Audrain Fair will come to a close for another year. I have been kind of sad, I feel like summer is over, we have about two weeks between county fairs and State Fair, we exhibit there, come home and go back to school 5 days later. Just seems like summer has went fast. I know Gladys and I were talking about that this evening. Summer has seemed to be screwed up with farming being so messed up. The last several years the men have had crops planted pretty early and there's been more free time, 'to have summer' this year we've just kept waiting and it never really got here, so to speak......
Anyway, will 'enjoy' my day off from Fairs tomorrow, playing catch up on laundry and housework. Probably bake some cookies and get ready for the 'next round' on Tuesday.
Up to my eyeballs from Tulip~
KH