4-H for Life!

This afternoon we had a 4-H meeting here at our house so I decided to make something a little extra special for the kids (and let's be honest - what adult doesn't enjoy a pig or sheep cupcake as well?) 

Already we were meeting today to begin to discuss the upcoming 4-H season. Which shows we were going to do, where we were going to get our show animals from, how we were going to need to select new officers for the new year, etc. 4-H is a year-round thing and our boys love doing it (most of the time!). I started to reflect back on this last year of 4-H and thought I'd share a few pictures that show some of the things the boys had to do.

There are several meetings before the kids get their animals. Presentations on different breeds, the names of the different body parts, learning how to make rope halters, learning parlimentary procedure for the running of meetings as well as feed to weight gain ratio for the various animals. Then the spring comes and that is when you get your pigs and sheep. Pigs are around April for the Umatilla County Fair and we get the sheep in May. 

Caleb's sheep was already fairly large when we first picked him up. Not very tame though and the first few weeks that we have the animals, the boys just have to spend time in the animal's pen, reading to them and letting the animals get used to their new environment and their presence. 

The boys have to work with their animals daily by walking them. Owen drives his pig with a pig whip. He can only tap on the pig's jowls to make it go right or left or he can tap on the pig's side to make it walk forward. Their is no whipping involved - I promise!
Caleb walks his sheep with a halter and without. He must learn how to show it with just his hands so he starts to practice that early on.
About 6 weeks before the fair, our 4-H group started to meet weekly at our house to practice showing. Mark had built a corral over the winter and boy did it come in handy! Everyone piled around to watch.

Sheep kids would go first and our 4-H leader Nick (who also judges a ton of shows every year) would tell them what he wanted them to do.

Caleb practiced lifting his sheep's neck to show a good clean line as well as making sure the lamb's feet were straight. The back of the lamb also needs to be nice and flat, not hunched up. 

 Pigs would go next and they would have to practice driving their pig around the ring, always keeping the pig between them and the judge (making a ham sandwich!). Nick would move around the arena so that the kids would have to make the pigs walk towards him from all different angles. The trick was to get your pig close to the judge but not too close! Also, you always had to watch out for the other pigs and their drivers. Plus, keep your eyes on the judge - head up Owen!

 Caleb's sheep suffered an injury that we didn't know about when we purchased it. Because of this injury, Caleb learned a lot though. He learned how to give his lamb medicine orally.

How to wrap and bandage an open wound.

Even how to give a penicillan shot in the neck (Grandpa Terry helped him learn this one).

 At the actual fair, there is a ton of work to do. For the parents as well as the kids.

The kids have to clean pens daily, feed twice a day, check water constantly, as well as keep their animals as clean as possible. Right before showing, the boys would wash their animals in the cleaning stalls.

One day of the fair, the kids had judging to do as well. They were put into groups and they looked at 4 species of animals - goats, sheep, pigs, beef - and they had to judge them based on their conformation. Out of over 100 kids, Caleb scored 10th and Owen scored 20th for their age division. That's really good!

Show time for Owen went really well. He placed first in his class but as we were all watching him show, the judge looked in our direction and then went up to Owen. Those of us in the stands could see her ask him something and then we all watched as he looked at me and said "My mom". What?! What did I do?
The judge then went and got the microphone and said that while it was a great group of showman there was one who stood out. The only thing is that she noticed he kept looking into the stands and when she asked him who he was looking at, he said "My mom". Aahh! How sweet! Except I do want him to win, so stop looking at me Owen! Look at these pictures though - his eyes are on the judge the whole time!

Well, maybe I am sitting right behind the judge in this one...

Tootie and Owen were quite the team but Owen didn't make it to the last round. He finished 3rd in the run-offs which is still awesome but he is really thinking he's going to win it next year!

Saying good-bye was the hardest part. 

Owen wanted one last picture with Tootie so he could remember what a good pig she had been. 

Caleb also had a great year showing with his lamb, Hank the Tank. Hank was a smaller built lamb but a good one. 

All his hard work paid off and Caleb was also asked to come back for the run-off. He did not win sheep showmanship but it was still exciting to be called back!

Each of the boys finished the show with 2 blue ribbons (which is good) and they had a great time at the fair.

Our club cleaned house with awards, including Pig Herdsmanship, which is the banner Owen is holding.

On Friday we let them go out together and ride the rides. Jaiden and Jaxon had come to visit us at the fair and Jaiden stayed and rode rides with the boys until midnight.

Here are Jaiden and Jaxon with Tootie. It was great seeing them and I loved the fact that they wanted to come check out the boys' animals.

Here's to 4-H! I may not love it when it's time to load pigs into the trailer or when it's time to shovel pig manure or doctor a lamb that has maggots or when I get an enormous feed bill but...it's all worth it! The life skills and work ethic it's teaching my kids is awesome and that's just to name a few things that they've learned. They are also earning money for college, learning where the meat they eat can come from, how hard it is to take care of animals and how to produce a good product. They have to volunteer their time, fund raise, and give speeches to community members. I wish more kids participated in this great program!

Meet the "Farm-ily"

Living on a farm means that life is busy. There are lots of animals and that means lots of feeding, watering, and cleaning up of said animals. The number of animals we have on our farm is always in a state of flux. Heading into winter we start to downsize around here because feeding and caring for tons of animals over the winter is not a lot of fun. Right now there are no pigs or sheep here at the Golter farm and that is a good thing. Let's meet the animals that are here though! We'll start with the bovine and work our way through some others. 

Meet Po: Po is our little bull calf and he has the markings of a Panda and while I wanted to name him Kung Fu, the family finally agreed on Po. He is fairly nice right now but I bet by the time we sell him in the spring those hormones of his will have kicked in a little bit and he might not be quite as pleasant to be around. 

Meet Po'Mamma: This is, of course, Po's Mamma (rhymes with Yo'Mamma!) and she is still trying to figure things out on our farm. She has a little bit of 'tude and the other day she was stalking me while I was out fixing a fence. I told her the last cow who did that ended up as hamburger and she did back off a bit but not without first giving me a look that said she'd see about that. She's pregnant though so it could just be the hormones that are making her ornery - I remember that feeling!

Meet Cookie: Cookie has a full white belt around her belly and since we are a house that loves Oreos, Cookie was the logical name choice. Right now she's of the double-stuffed variety as she too, is pregnant!

Meet Momma: Momma is our oldest cow and she is Cookie's mom. She is also knocked up and expecting in the spring which is just fine with her. She loves having babies and taking care of them. Her and Cookie have a mother-daughter relationship that is the envy of many.

Meet Rory: Rory is our youngest heifer. She was our only calf born this spring and she is named after one of my beloved characters from Gilmore Girls. This spring I'm hoping to add a Luke and Lorelei to the mix. Mark wants a Negan but I've told him no way! (I hope you have no idea who Negan is as I am currently boycotting that show based on the idiocy they showed in killing off my favorite character!)

Meet the Girls (aka The Chickens): I currently have a gaggle of chickens, probably around 15 or 16. We get new ones each spring and they die from time to time (drown in the water trough, get eaten by foxes, just drop dead) so it's hard to always keep count. We also currently have a turkey. We had two tom turkeys as well (Christmas and Thanksgiving) but they took a walk with Mark behind the chicken coop a while ago. 

Meet Easter: Easter is the nicest bird but alas, the dumbest as well. She gets lost if she turns in a circle too quickly. She likes hanging out with the other girls though even when they are not always very nice to her. And she practically purrs when you give her a pet. 

 Meet Uno, Dos, and Tres: These are the 3 little chicks that we have right now. They are in a separate place from our other chickens currently so that they don't get picked on. These are the first chicks that we hatched from eggs. They are a little camera shy! The reason we have these little ones is because of ...

The Pecker: Now before you say anything, in my defense he came by his name honestly. In the spring we had purchased 6 new little chicks and before long there was one that stood out because it was always trying to peck at your toes when you wore flip-flops. I started to say to the boys "Watch out! That one's the Pecker". So we started saying things like "Here comes the Pecker!" "The Pecker just pecked me!". And then The Pecker grew one of these and I started to realize that calling it The Pecker was a bad idea.

The name has stuck though and he is turning out to be not so bad. He did try to establish some dominance when he first learned how to crow. He looked for the smallest human on our place (Owen) and he began to stalk him and then full on chase him. One day, Mark and I were watering some trees along the creek bank and Owen came running and yelling with The Pecker in hot pursuit right behind him. As Owen ran past Mark, Mark scooped him up and in the same move, spun and launched The Pecker into the air with a well-placed kick. He splashed into the creek and I thought "Well, that's the end of The Pecker". I went over to the bank to see if I could see him floating and there he was, looking up at me from the side of the bank where he was clinging, promising to never do anything like that again. I scooped him out of the water with the shovel and he is now very well-behaved. And he gives Mark a wide berth whenever he spies him. 

Meet Crosby: This is our one and only farm cat right now. I'm honestly a little surprised he's lasted this long with that white coloring but he's doing well. He is a champion mouser and will often bring us little surprises to the back porch. 

Meet Mercy and Kizzie: Last but certainly not least, the two dogs. Kizzie is annoying but so was Mercy until she turned 2 so I'm holding out hope that Kizzie will settle down some. They are good dogs though and scare away all kinds of things - people, skunks, foxes, the neighbors we don't like. They're awesome!

 Phew! That's a lot of animals! Just wait until springtime - things really get hopping around here!

Hello from the other side...

Hello, its me.

I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet
To go over everything...

I sound just like Adele when I sing those opening lines of her song!

Well, I actually write just like Adele when I type those opening lines of her song!

I feel her pain, her heartache, her need to reconnect. I do. She must be a blogger! One who got caught up in life, love, and living on a farm. It's the chickens I tell ya - the gals take up much more time than they let on when they are cute, fluffy little chicks.

But I'm ready now. Ready to try this again. Of course I'm not officially going to announce anything for a few more weeks yet, just to be on the safe side. Mark will be my first and only reader for a while and he'll let me know in no uncertain terms if I'm up to snuff or not.

My first post is just going to start with the most recent pictures on my camera and I figure we can build from there!

Fall equals football season in Owen's life. Football and Hunting actually but I'm going to narrow this post down to just the football. He was on the Gold 5th and 6th grade team this year (as a 5th grader) and somehow this guy, who was the smallest on the team, was the starting center on the offensive line and the starting middle line-backer on the defense. He pretty much played all the time. Awesome for him. Not so awesome for my nerves.

His team ended up going 9-0 and so they were able to play in the Requa Bowl, which is like the Superbowl for the 5th and 6th graders. They got to play in the Round-Up grounds, under the lights, with announcers, and they even got to use the big score board vs. the little one that you have to wheel out to the field. Plus, Owen was convinced the concession stand would even be open. That means the big time for sure!

In previous games, Owen would put a black line under his eyes to intimidate the other teams. Then some of his own teammates began to copy him so he had to up his game. He began to paint circles around his eyes (a rather raccoonish affect but he dug it) but for this final event he wanted the big guns. He asked me to paint his face like someone called Latimer that his coach told him about. I googled this Latimer and was not impressed but Owen sure was. Since I am not the artistic one in the family, I told Owen he needed his dad for this mission.

Mark, of course, did a great job. Very methodical, very organized, very artistic. And very scary!

Caleb and I watched the drama unfold and I offered pointers from time to time that Mark ignored (Was less skull like too much to ask?)

Final product - one scary kid!

At least it was easy for me to pick him out of a crowd. 

Until they all put their helmets on that is. Then I just had to look for the smallest body out there - the one hiking the ball each play for our team. Can you spot him? White, dirty helmet? Holding the ball? His head is the lowest as he is trying to look between his legs to spot his quarterback. 

While this game was going on, Caleb had ditched Mark and I. During the season he had kept score, done the chains, kept track of the downs, and now for this final one - he wiped down our football every time we were on defense. He ended up getting soaked himself and coming back up to the stands to try and steal my blanket. Fat chance kid! But I did let him at least have a corner to cuddle with - being the loving mother that I am. 

Back to the game! There's Owen getting ready to tackle someone! Or it could be Owen getting ready to be ran past by someone. That happened from time to time too. 

Here's Owen ... doing something. I think he's trying to make sure he covers all the areas the ball could possibly be going to but I'm never really sure. I just cheer loudly and hoot and holler when Owen does pretty much anything. 

I like to make sure he knows I'm there. 

When all was said and done, Owen's team won. 26 - 0. It was a great game, the kids ended up really muddy, the had an undefeated season, and they had so many pictures taken of them after the game that they declared themselves "Facebook Famous". 

Great football season! 

And now, it's time for wrestling.