Getting ready.

Well, fair time is almost upon us and we are scurrying around to get ready. We have under two weeks left until we have to camp at the fairgrounds for a week.

The kids wrote their letters to the buyers for both the small animal and the livestock auction yesterday. Let me tell you, they were not happy with having to write 12 letters (6 for each auction), they thought they should be able to type them on the computer.

We just got the last rabbit tattooed on Monday, so they are now all done. We quarantined the sick rabbit and just hope that she didn't expose the other three, and if she did that they won't get sick before fair time. It's bad enough that we have to leave the one home and the girls have to share. I don't know what we would do if any more got sick - someone just wouldn't be able to show I guess.

I am also trying to get things fixed up for transporting the chickens. We have to take them up to the fairgrounds on Saturday to get banded and the cages we got from a neighbor need to be fixed up a little bit. So my goal today is to go see exactly what we need to do to them to get them ready to carry 10 - 12 pound chickens (4 per cage)!

And, last but not least - we are trying to keep one of our pigs from going over weight. They can only weigh between 220 and 300 pounds or they can't be sold through the fair and when we weighed all three of them at the end of May, one weighed 260 already! They gain roughly 2 pounds per day and we still had 21 days til fair so if he stayed true to form, he would be over 300 by the time fair gets here. And we were worried about them not making minimum weight. So, we talked to a few people and asked their advice and were told to put him on a diet and exercise program. He literally has had to have his feed cut, and gets exercised outside the pen at least once a day! Have you ever heard of anything so silly - exercising a pig. LOL! The one good that has come out of this is that my son is getting great practice at being able to control where he wants the pig to walk, which is a great plus for being in the livestock arena doing showmanship and at the auction.

Now if only my daughter could get her horse to mind her as well.....

Until next time.

Denise