Monday was a Monday prior to going to another fair so extra special. Monday Toni stayed with grandma, so she started chores before I got home. Kade rode Joss out across the alfalfa field. The boys are getting things ready to go to CBJLS on Wednesday. Toni is warning her clients she will be out of pocket after Wednesday. The men picked up the baled straw in circle 3. I think they said there were 64 bales, pretty good for 30 acres. We received our letter from NILE on who is getting our Nile Merit Heifer. We have not heard from her yet, so I am guessing she has not received her letter. We want to leave it a surprise so we aren’t going to say her name here. But we are excited. We are still hoping Kade is also getting a heifer, fingers crossed!
Tuesday Toni was back online shopping for steers and show heifers. I told her I think we are good on steers. I checked the watch list and there are like 7 steers on it…. I told her she is off the rail. The boys loaded up some supplies for CBJLS. You know, chairs, drinks, etc. My snap Tuesday morning from Traci was she picked up Anna on the side of the road and they were headed to Clarkston to look at steers. I guess she must not have many classes on Tuesday. Dad went to the Needle Spot and picked up our buyers gifts from Suzie. We have Shiney Guy in because he acted like he had junk in his eye, but he seems fine. Toni takes a flag into the old mare pen when she feeds grain because those mares will just flat run over you for the grain. When she set the bucket down Shiney Guy went right up to the bucket and started playing with the flag. She got a funny video of him picking the flag up out of the bucket and dropping it on the ground then stepping on it. The Tank foals are generally pretty nonreactive with lots of personality. Tuesday night Toni and I went out and got some videos of a few of the foals for people. We had to fight off all the 2 and 3 year olds that all want to be in the middle of our business and I had to listen to Toni tell me how she doesn’t really want to sell any of the foals because she loves them all. Clearly we can’t keep them all so reality needs to set in.
Wednesday was weigh in day for CBJLS. Toni and Kade loaded up all the steers, and extra stuff, and took them in and met Kaine, Anna and Jaxsen in there. But before that Toni took Bell, Shiney Guy and Susie, moms little dog, into Sagehill vet with Uncle Skip as her side-kick. Bell and Shiney Guy got dropped off but Susie and Skip got to come home. Toni took them to the Cow Path Bakery for a treat on the way home. Uncle Skip, being diabetic, wanted 2 of everything and had to settle for one item. Toni bought a few goodies for our fair week to keep our energy up. Sheena needed to look at Shiney Guy’s eye, but as we had suspected his eye wasn’t bad. We just felt it was better to be safe than sorry! Once home, Toni and a friend put a cast on Copper’s leg. The cast is just to help support her leg as she heals and it is a fiberglass one that is on the back of the leg so we can still treat the injury. Dad and I picked Shiney guy up that night after chores. Emmett had one of our half clubbies at the Othello Community Fair, and they did great. He was second in his class and made it back to the championship round. Steers all got weighed in at the fair, all made weight. Toni and the kids went to the 4-H club dinner and had a good night with friends. The weather was decently cool so a good start to the fair week.
Thursday was market at CBJLS. The Mike Meads scholarships were awarded before the show and Anna received one. Good job Anna and thank you to Brenda Meads and the Meads crew! Kaine was the only one of our kids showing FFA, he was 2nd in his class and made it back to the championship round. Kade was 2nd in his class with his light weight steer. Jaxsen was 3rd in his class with his home-grown Angus steer, Anna was 1st in class, and Reserve 4H Champion, Cheyenne had a half club from us and he did pretty good, Sophie had a Hereford steer from us and he was 4th in class and Tucker, Sophie’s brother, had a Hereford steer from us and he was 6th in class. All the steers showed great. Within the show there were a few bobbles with some of the smaller kids having minor issues but all of the older kids stepped up and helped where needed. The greatest part of the CBJLS show is the camaraderie, the mentorship, the sense of community. Everyone did a great job. Emmett and Big Red over in Othello were Champion in FFA 1, so they got to go into the Round Robin, and were Reserve champion overall in FFA. We are also proud of Aram for being Reserve Champion Senior showman in the 4-H division. This is Aram’s second year showing steers and he has taken to it incredibly well.
Friday was showmanship at CBJLS. Kaine was grand champion FFA showman and overall supreme champion showman. Kade was reserve champion Sr showman with Anna the runner up. Jaxsen, Julian, Natalie, Tesa and Ady all made it into the final drive for showmanship, in additional to Charlie Casey who had a steer we found for her (we did not raise him). Tesa was grand champion intermediate and Natalie was reserve champion. Brock, we also found a steer for him, was grand champion jr, and friend Clare Cox was reserve champion jr. All the kids did great. Kaine stepped in and helped another young kid with her steer, then Jaxsen’s steer went 2 rounds in pee wee with Kade helping some young kids and Red Velvet aka Lamborghini, Kaine’s very special steer, also did pee wee. Anna also had some kids she helped in pee wee. The round robin was Friday night, the grand champion pig FFA show woman got Kaine and took him to show the pig and sheep. She shows steers, but she practiced on Red Velvet anyway. Red Velvet thought he was being tortured after he then had to go back and show peewee. However, by then he had given up and started ignoring Kaine. Yes, the steer would literally look away from him, giving all of us tortured cute face look but none of us would come save him. Emmett and his Red Velvet were in the round robin in Othello at noon, I hear Emmett did a great job. As a side note Emmett thought he was super funny to re-name Big Red to Red Velvet and copy Kaine’s name. Kaine and Tesa did great that night, Tesa was grand champion intermediate show woman. Super proud of her, she prefers to show pigs but was a good sport and did a great job with her steer. Kaine was a good sport as the emcee and his aunt Toni entertained the round robin crowd (which was quite large) at Kaine’s expense by teasing Kaine about being a chick magnet. Fun was had by all.
Saturday was the sale, both in Othello and Connell, which made both sales be really soft. Luckily, we have a lot of really great people in our community. Diann Lovejoy Farms bought Anna’s steer, Christensen Oil bought Kaines, Bar W (Wes and Beth Wieseler) bought Kades and Ag West bought Jaxsens. Steers were last so we did not sell until around 5:30. Livestock judging was also Saturday morning and guess who got a perfect score?? 5 year old Kayla. The rest of the kids did a great job and Kade was our 4-H club high score with a 192 out of 200. We had a bunch of friends and community members come by on Saturday to see the steers. It is always fun to see the people you only see a few times per year. Saturday night we loaded the steers out and the kids had their big 4-H dance. We were all really tired but the kids love the dance and so they got to stay up late and enjoy themselves.
Sunday morning we woke up decently early to go pick up our stuff at CBJLS and then come home and nap. We are almost thankful that the Othello and Connell fairs were the same time this year. Normally we would pack up at Connell and head over to Othello to set up for another week at another fair, but not this year! There are some real advantages to the fairs being at the same time, like we don’t have to go to one of them. Sunday night we changed Copper’s bandage and looked at her leg. Toni says it is healing pretty well, mom agrees. I think it is gross and try not to look at it at all. Anna had to come over and help for a few minutes. I am not saying that Copper is getting kicky, but she is pretty done with this whole experience. Then we did chores.
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