Chicama Run Family Farm

This past week we were "at fair."  Though a lot of people shook their heads in understanding - I'm not sure what people think it means.  Some were shocked we weren't open, some thought it was for 1 day, others just looked at us clueless so I thought I would type up a brief description for you.

First - 4-H starts in October so the kids are already planning what they are doing.  Every month they attend 1 meeting per club (our kids did swine, poultry, sheep & goat - so that is 4 meetings per month).  Aside from going to the meetings (which are educational and fun all at the same time) - each club does fundraisers during the year to help pay for things such as prizes, plus they all do community service!

Second - it's time to pick out your animals.  Now my kids do a class called "bred & owned" - so they start having baby goats being born in December/January, which means they are breeding their female goats now (August).  However, many animals aren't picked up until April or May.

Now the animals are on the farm and the kids get up before school to go feed and water all of them.  When they get home from school they go right out and feed and water them again.  On weekends, pens need to be cleaned out and extra barn chores may be thrown in.

Starting in summer, in addition to just feeding and watering, they now start walking with their animals (goats & sheep) and training them so they show well at the fair.  Every week we start weighing the animals - making adjustments in feeding schedules as needed.  It's stressful not knowing if your animal will "make weight" - because if it doesn't then you can't auction it off and you will have to find someone to buy your animals through a private sale at a fraction of the cost you could auction it off for!

The Loudoun County Fair runs for 1 week - Sunday through Saturday. Usually the week before we spend a day on the fairgrounds setting up pens and cleaning up the fairgrounds. On Sunday we bring in all the animals and set them up in their temporary home.  We also need to bring in all OUR stuff we may need for the week.

Monday - weigh in of sheep & goats.  If your animals doesn't make it, you need to figure out what you are going to do.  Monday night,  our kids showed dairy goats.  They had to have them ready and walk them in the pen and have them each judged.  We didn't leave until almost 10pm Monday night. Tuesday 6:30am we are back at the fairgrounds taking care of the animals - hog weigh in is at 7am. While the pigs are being weighed in, at 11 the kids show their meat goats.  Now one didn't make "grade" even though it made weight so it cannot be sold in the auction.  All the work put into this animals since January is finished and there is nothing you can do but go on.  The goat show ends, but is followed by Sheep Showmanship at 2 where the animal is not being judged but the kid is being judged on how they present the animal and knowledge of their animals.  Wait - we aren't done!  6pm we now have to do Swine Showmanship!!  So the pigs were washed on Monday and they are now ready to enter the ring.  There is no real training for the pigs - and with this heat they are miserable and don't want to behave at all.  We make it back home by 11pm only to head back to the fairgrounds at 6:30am to get ready for the Swine Market show which will determine how they will place in the auction (the better your hog does, the higher up in the auction it will go).  That goes on until 12 or 1pm.

In-between all these shows, the kids have "trash-duty" or "ice-cream shack duty" or even help out with a club dinner.  Everyday a specific club is scheduled to empty all the trash cans and put in new liners.  For the ice cream shack, they need to help serve ice cream and then for the club dinner they are to help serve it and clean up!

Back to showing (remember we are only on Wednesday).....the sheep market show starts at 6pm and runs until 8:30 - so we feed everyone and head home early knowing we have to be back early to get the cages ready for the poultry show on Thursday.  Thursday morning we sleep in and don't show up until 7:30 to get everything ready.  The poultry show starts at 9am and luckily we don't have to actually show our bird until later that day - they are judged in the cages. 4pm starts the poultry showmanship and they kids get ready.  Since we only brought meat birds this year, they borrow a bird from a friend to do this.  The oldest start and go through the showmanship process, then quickly change and go up to help with the Sheep club dinner.  We don't get home until around 11 because it's Rodeo night and the kids want to see it.

Friday is semi-relaxing, but now reality is setting in and school sports need to be handled - so we finish the morning chores and head over to the high school to pick up football gear.  Then we come home for a couple of hours to wash clothes and get ready for the market.  We head back up to the fair grounds around 1 so they can get ready to auction off their animals starting at 6:30.  We look at the program and start planning who can help who move animals up to the ring.  Our family is auctioning off a total of 14 lots of animals - 3 goats, 4 lambs, 3 hogs (1 didn't make weight), 4 sets of 2 chickens.  The auction keeps us moving as a lot of the kids go in back to back - but we finish around 10 and breathe a sigh of relief.

Saturday is a fun day for the kids.  Everything is sold - we handle who is coming home and who has been sold in private sales.  The kids play and also help out for that night's dinner.  You can actually feel the difference in the tension of the fair.  We head home at 8:30.

Sunday - we head back over to pick up animals that are coming home and to load up all our stuff then come home and relax.

In a few days we might be back in full swing and back to normal - who knows.  I know most of the kids are still sleeping but 1 is already at football practice.....they are all already planning and discussing how to change things for next years fair.