The Not So Fair Fair...

Our Oregon weather seemed to completely go psycho this year during the Yamhill County Fair. Why? I don't know. But I will tell you this: IT WAS HORRIBLE. Trying to survive 105+ weather inside our house with AC would have been hard enough, but we had to survive it down at the fairgrounds, trying to keep our animals and kids alive! We were armed with squirt bottles and hoses, alternately squirting ourselves and them. A few kiddos lost chickens, which was bad, but we were lucky not to, and our bunnies did OK and rode out the hot days cuddled up next to frozen water bottles. All in all, Jared did great this year. He was disappointed in a Red ribbon for his market fryers, but ended up getting a decent price at the auction. Other than that, he got all blues...and came home with three trophies! One for his Grand Champion Pigeon hen, one for Grand Champion in confirmation for his new rabbit Bernice, and one for Grand Champion in rabbit judging! Awesome! He also got some plaques for his woodworking project as well.

That great Horton smirk!

Bernice the GREAT!

Accepting his Woodworking award.

Mr. Justin had a fun time as well...he made a great poster about dogs, baked some cookies and participated in the Animal Show-n-Tell with my cousin Alex's dog Dixie. That was an experience. As we are entering the building with the dog, Jeremiah reminds me that Dixie is basically a trained bird dog, and I am taking her into a group filled with small children and their pets...namely a few chickens, parakeets, bunnies etc.....YIKES. Needless to say, we stayed in the back, and I asked the leader if we could go last, and if she could make sure that the kids put their "eatables" away! I made Jeremiah walk up there with Dixie because I knew if she saw something and took off, she would take Justin right along with her! It all went well, but boy did her ears perk up!
It's a little hard to see Dixie, but she is the black thing that Julia is holding onto! When asked what Dixie ate, Justin took the microphone and simply stated "birds." Nice son. Nice. As a last hurrah, she asked him if there was anything else he wanted to tell them about Dixie, he looked really serious and said "Yeah, she's a John Deere fan." HILARIOUS. Totally Justin. Leave it to this kid to get a laugh from the crowd without even cracking a smile!

So now we pack up a few things to send off to the State Fair of Jareds. Two of his display boards and his cookies, as well as his woodworking project will go over. Hopefully he will score some more awards!