The County Fair

Raise your hand if you like bacon, ham, pork chops, or pulled pork BBQ. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

My Ryan is doing Ag this year and we have pretty much decided he is raising a pig. Now we are city folk turned country so we know absolutely NOTHING about raising most any animal besides dogs, birds, or lizards. So as my dad would say, "It'll be an adventure!" Yes! An adventure it will be for us Tarvers.

So we thought we'd hit the County Fair to see what all the hubub is about. Of course there were steers, goats, sheep, and of course...PIGS! (I will try to refrain from calling any of the following pigs after a certain cute piglet in a certain movie that made plenty of people cry but I can't promise anything).

People...these pigs were HUGE!!! Can you see that the pig is almost to this kid's hips? Ryan's Ag teacher is what the locals around here call a "pig man". He knows all about pigs. And I must say "his" pigs were usually winners. They were good lookin' pigs! I know nothing about pigs and I could usually spot out the ones he helped raise they were that good lookin'.

Would you look at the rear on that pig? Good eatin'. Can I just point out for a second that if you have never seen live pigs...they are filthy animals!!! This is the only rear shot I could post because of...well...because the animal is clean in the picture. Can we just leave it at that? Oh! And sorry I showed a pig's butt on here...

We are now trying to decided on what type of pig we are going to raise. I'm not even sure of the significance at this point but there are so many different types.

It's BABE!!! Okay see???? I'm sorry...I just couldn't help myself. And just look at those pink boots to match!!! Goodness!!

After the pig show, they had a Frog Jump contest. They take flour and make a circle and set the frogs in the middle. The first one out of the circle is the winner. I was so syked about the Frog Jump and let me tell you...it was over in like 3 seconds. I'm not kidding! Thank goodness they did 2 different ones because I blinked and missed the first one!!!

You can barely see where I marked the little froggy. The kids were pretty excited.

Then the turtle race. Now I don't know who got started on the whole "turtles are the slowest animal on earth" lie but these guys are fast! Not as fast as the frogs but fast!

Then we went to see the other contests. There were entries for EVERYTHING. Canning, crops, art, photos, quilts, and...SCRAPBOOKING! Nobody entered for the scrapbooking but guess what I'm entering next year? Not because I'm any good but it's a sure win! No one else entered!!! Hahaaa!! Look at the size of that melon! Seriously???? It's huge folks! That is a normal size wagon...not a kiddie size.

This gorgeous quilt! There are no words. I can't imagine how long it took to make this.

Garden produce. Yum! I wish we could have tasted them.

Gourds and squash....awesome!!!

So...harvesty!

Peanuts!!! I didn't even know they grew those up here. I just knew there was a lot of wheat and cotton. I want to grow peanuts!!!

And speaking of cotton! I have never seen "raw" cotton before. It gets everywhere and probably one of the culprits of my son's asthma flare ups lately.

Isn't it neat? Anyway. The county fair was fun and we are looking forward to the slightly larger Spring County Fair. We didn't make the State Fair but my Ryan did. He got to march in it! Maybe next year we'll make the trip!

Friday Night Lights

First off, please don't stop checking the blog from time to time. There are lots of adventures going on but no time to post. I keep waiting for things to slow down but now I'm thinking with a girl in college and 3 boys in school activities, I might be waiting until I'm in the grave before things "slow down". Not that I'm complaining. Busy is good. Busy is healthy. Busy is...tiring.

Friday Night Lights. Of course when we lived in the Big City we had high school football games. My girl was in flags and my Brandon was in percussion so football games and half times shows were part of our lives. Our weekends were planned according to what time they had to be there and what time they had to be picked up and where they were going afterwards and what time they would be back.

Here in the country is pretty much the same. Oh, except for...well...a few differences.


In the country, the stadiums are THE place to be on a Friday night. Pretty much shop closes down so the towns folk can catch the game. The game is super important and the kids are under ALOT of pressure. The whole town's counting on them. And when you go to the game, you see everyone you know in the town.

The color guard is a little smaller than we're used to. But when you come from a school with close to 4000 students and a band with 300 students, and move to a school of less than 300 students and a band of about 30 students there's going to be some staggering differences! Just to put this in perspective: the town we are living in currently has roughly 200 people and the band we were in when we lived in the Big City had 300 members! Capiche? Some schools around here don't even have a band so we feel lucky we have one!! The school we played last night didn't have a band and I was thankful we have one. Can you imagine a high school football game with NO BAND????

Here's my Ryan. He's in 8th grade and because of the number of students, 8th graders are part of the high school band. I think if it gets low enough, they will pull the stronger players from 7th!!! Can you imagine 2nd year players with Seniors???

Here they are on the field playing the Star Spangled Banner. Cymbals Rule!!!!

He's having a good time. A fun thing the town does after football games is they offer a "5th Quarter". This is where a restaurant sponsors the kids and opens up after the games and allows the players, cheerleaders, and band to eat free!!! The local banks help sponsor that too!

Brandon plays percussion too but is not able to be in band this semester. He moved in the middle of the school year last year and didn't take the state history class and has to retake a semester of Algebra so he didn't have room for his band elective. But he goes and hangs out with them for a bit and will be back next semester!

The concessions are a bit different too. They offer burgers that someone is grilling behind the stand! Seriously!!! The grill is going and making every one's mouths water and you can't help but step up and buy a $3.50 burger!!! They also let the band members mingle and go buy food from the concession stand too which was a BIG NO NO in the Big City!

My boys aren't playing football yet but people scratch their heads and ask with bewilderment, "Not playing football? Why would they not play football?" Hahahaa. Not to worry though! They are in Wrestling, Track, Band, and Agriculture so we're not THAT scorned! Besides, I've heard my boys talking about maybe playing next year so they might catch the football bug yet!

Guess we'll see.

Traveling

We just got back from a long Labor Day Weekend. We packed up and left Friday morning, picked up my girl from her college, and headed to the Big City where we moved from. After an uneventful trip (my favorite) we made it to our destination 10 hours later. You see, we had to travel pretty slow and follow all the speed laws because with it being a holiday weekend, the law enforcers were out in full force! I counted 44 total there and back...and that was what I saw! I'm sure there were plenty more I missed. I know what you're thinking....you're thinking that I am so aware of what's going on around me right? Well...really, everyone was sleeping pretty much the whole way and I don't have a stinkin radio in my car!! Some punk decided he wanted it more than me and stole in from my car. So here I sit a year later without a stereo! I needed something to occupy my time okay?? And there were plenty of em to count!

So anyway, after dropping off everyone who had plans that evening, I spent the evening with my parents. It was nice to see them. It was a wonderful visit, a sweet wedding and we had a great time with my family! I really miss them. The whole reason we travelled to the Big City was because my sister was getting married. So with only a few days in there we also planned to go see my husband's family. So after the wedding, the next morning we packed it up again and spent another 5 1/2 hours heading north. Our 17 yr old nephew had just returned home from basic training, (not camp) from the National Guard so the whole family got together to celebrate his return!!

As I write this post I realized I didn't take many pictures. Well, I sorta forgot my camera card (long story) but my sweet husband replaced it. Still didn't get as many pictures as I should have. I guess I was so busy I didn't have much time or opportunity to take many. I should be shot!!! Not really!!! It was a very fast paced weekend with lots of traveling. So fast in fact, we didn't get to see many of our friends. And for that I am sorry! It may be awhile before we make it down again but we will try to fit in more people next time!

Here are all the cousins playing a game. This is what we do when we get together: play games, visit, eat, play more games. It can get brutal at times. I did take more pictures than this but Dennis' aunt was threatening to sue anyone who put her on the internet...so....I thought I'd leave her out. Sadly, she was in most of my pictures!!! Hahaaa! Oh well!

I also got like, 3 pictures of my sister before the wedding but she would most likely kill me if I posted them so I decided I'd leave them off and go with the safety of my life. Besides, my words are just as entertaining as my right? Right? Hello????

Anyway, we had a great trip and got home safely. We managed to avoid driving in all the bad weather around the state.

But we certainly didn't miss it before we left. A storm blew in Thursday night shortly home. By then the wind was blowing around 65 mph-- I'm not kidding-- and it was hailing and raining and lightning and thundering...well...it was just a mess, so I called him to tell him to stay at the hospital until it blew over but he was already half way home in the middle of it! He made a short comment on having to go find his bumper and while I laughed nervously and told him to be careful, he said, "You think I'm kidding but I'm not!!! My bumper just flew past me!!!" He got home safely but without his bumper!

He did go back and find it after the storm let up under a bridge!! So we were all safe thankfully!!

And then we saw this! Thank you Lord!