We had award day for the kids in the small animal barn!  They received their showmanship and skill-a-thon awards.  Elizabeth had her 4-H Rabbit Show (if you are keeping track, this is show 3 for the rabbits).  Elizabeth's rabbits did their best showing in this show.  The judge took her time and was really posing the rabbits.  Of course the rabbit we were going to cull placed first in class and Elizabeth again wants to keep her.  WET1 has been a barn farvorite but she has attitude and sometimes she will show herself off and sometimes she just wants to be a lop.  Unfortunately some of Elizabeth's rabbits rubbed their faces off on their pens during the heat a couple days before fair.  

Lydia ran to Dairy Skill-a-thon froom the awards pictures and did an amazing job even though she thought she did "horrible", She placed 3rd in Dairy Skill-a-thon.  It looked like this girl has been living on a dairy farm all her life when in reality our first heifers are about to calve.  She is exctied about the fair again and has found a new passion to match her birds.  

Then it was a quick tear down by 1:30PM and we sent Hank down the road by 3:00PM.  Tearing down 4 barns is a lot and moving out is a lot.  Hank and Lydia tore down the dairy barn while I tore down the beef barn and hauled it to the end of the barn.  When the trailer came around to the beef barn, Lydia and I headed over to start collecting birds from the poultry barn.  Once the brids were collected and loaded everyone remembered that the mat was still in the dairy barn.  The girls and I told Hank we would handle it and he headed out.  Even when you get home the trailer needs to be unloaded.  

The girls and I went and finished looking at the rest of the buildings we didn't get a chance to walk through before the showing frenzy started on Friday. We are so lucky to be able to stay at a house in town with Hank's cousin so we headed over there to finish loading everything up.  We stopped and grabbed some food and headed out of town.  We had to grab a trailer and 4 Wheeler on the way home at the repair shop and made it home as the sun was setting on the day.  It was a beautiful ending to the South Dakota State Fair.  

We arrived at the gate of the South Dakota State Fair at 5:45AM and brought Elizabeth's heifer in to be rinsed.  Then to the shoot it went to get dried, glued, filled, and painted. (If you are a first time 4-H family check out the beef page for more information on this).  We also fed Janice the cow and Elizabeth the 4-H member before Elziabeth changed her clothes and was ready for the show ring.  

Meanwhile, Hank and Lydia were in the Dairy Barn getting ready for the Dairy Show.  Thankfully my brother, Jake, who is a great dairy showman was able to hel them prepare for the show.  

I went over and checked on Willow and Lydia but quickly realized the girls would be going in the ring at almost the exact same time.  I ran back to the beef barn, thankfully next door but a huge building and requested help from Maggie, our 4-H summer assistant to stand with Elizabeth.  Then back to the dairy barn to catch Lydia walking in the ring.  I took a couple photos and then ran back to the beef barn to get Elizabeth in the ring at the right time.  She did great however Janice was a little more spritely today and decided for the first time ever she would hop around in the ring.  Elizabeth held on tight and held it together.  She placed in the middle of the class and for our family that is a great place to be.  Wins aren't always about the trophy or banner.

Back to the pig barn to watch and help Bradley and Sam with the pigs for his show.  Unfortunately when the time finally came the pigs were going in the same time as Lydia for Dairy Showmanship.  

Lydia made it worth everyones time to run over and see her by winning Reserved (2nd) place junior in the 4-H show!!!! Awesome for her first time showing dairy on this big of a stage.  

While all this crazy was happening Elizabeth went and participated in Rabbit Showmanship without mom and dad's help and also performed amazingly!!!!  She received Reserve (2nd) Junior Showman with her rabbits out of 50+ kids!!!!  We are so proud of her.  

Then at 5PM the 2nd Rabbit Show of the week took place!  The Jackpot Show!

Today the storm continued... Elizabeth I got up at headed to town for her first competitive cheer competition.  It was great and she learned where she needed to work harder.  They performed at 11AM and we were back on the road by 11:15AM for the 2 1/2 hour drive back to Huron so she could show rabbits at 2PM.  

Hank and Lydia did morning chores and then Lydia went to Poultry Skill-a-thon before we arrived back at the fair. 

Lydia headed over to the Dairy Barn for Dairy Showmanship.  This was something new that most people in the barn had not seen before and it took a long time.  But we made it through and Lydia performed pretty well for being in the State Fair ring for the first time.

We started preparing animals for their big show day tomorrow.  

Friday was the Open Beef Show for Elizabeth.  We were all happy with her results as she moved up a couple places compared to the rest of the summer.   She has improved in her showing so much this year but we are still learning even after 7 years. 

Then we headed over to the dairy barn to watch my 5 year old nephew show his first diary heifer calf.  It was so much fun to see him learn the ins and outs of the show ring.  

Then the storm hit!!!!  Elizabeth and I hurried to the pickup to get back to Gregory for cheer practice at 3:30PM.  From practice, straight to the football game to be the mascot and home to bed for an early morning.  

After we left Lydia participated in Poultry Showmanship and the Poultry Show.  All of her birds received purple ribbons this year which was greata!!!!  She also receeived a purple ribbon in Poultry Showmanship.

Today we spent the morning helping my brother and nephew show pigs.  The had a very successful day and are looking forward to the rest of the week. 

We are moved into the barns!  We are located in the Dairy Barn, Beef Barn, Poultry and Rabbits Barns.  The girls took the day to walk around and look in a few buildings and collect some feebies throughout the fair grounds.  They also competed in the livestock skill-a-thon.  

We got up with the sun this morning and headed to the South Dakota State Fair in Huron, SD.  We unloaded Janice the Angus heifer, Willow the Jersey heifer, (which we are crossing our fingers is still a heifer when we get home), 18 rabbits and 8 birds.  Up with the sun tomorrow for a full day of tending to animals with livestock skill-a-thon at 5PM.   

The tame plums have gone past prime however the wild plums are just thinking about getting ripe.  I hopethey will wait until I get home from fair so we can make some jelly. The trailer and the suitcases are almost packed and we leave at 7AM tomorrow.  

The girls are ready for their 9 month vacation... school!  There is always a lot of work to do in the summer and they look forward to some down time at school.  They were both ready to go this year.  However, they will only be there 3 days until we leave for the South Dakota State Fair.  We are supposed to have nive weather and hopefully not a lot of wind.  

We had a great day with grandma school shopping. We filled the back of the Jeep full of clothes and school supplies and headed home.  It is a 3 hour drive to a major shopping hub. We were lucky dad did the chores so we could slip away today. Hope everyone reading is ready for the school year.  We have State Fair right after school starts.  We call those first couple days their vacation.  

The girls attended Best of th West today and had a great time.  This is a regional show for all of the kids who get grand champion at their county fair to participate at a higher level.  The girls are usually competitive with their small animals if they win the county and yesterday did not disappoint.  Lydia was able to pull out a 3rd overall poultry at the show. She also showed her market goat which we are still learning.  Her goat didn't place but she held in their and improved her goat showmanship skills.