This weekend was the last poultry show of the season for me. There are a couple more a little later in the year but my birds aren't really in show shape and I don't have any super great ones anyway so I'm calling it quits for the season. I left Friday afternoon for Fresno, about 2.5 hours south. It's a pretty boring drive, but at least it's not all that far. It was cold and rainy almost all weekend. The birds did well, better than the last two shows. I took Best of Breed with a BBRed cockerel and Reserve of Breed with a Black pullet. They did not win any class awards, but considering their feather condition at this point none of them would have deserved that anyway. So I'm pleased with how it went, and some of my friends did very well this weekend and I'm happy for them too.
Normally shows last all weekend, with championship judging Sunday morning. This was a one-day show though, and I needed to pinch pennies so I drove home Saturday night. That's not my most favorite thing. It was late, dark, rainy, and I was really tired. I normally will stay til Sunday anyway, it's much nicer that way. I did at least get to go out to dinner beforehand with DW, CS, and AS though, and that was fun. :-)
So just to set some of you silly people straight, NO I am NOT getting out of chickens. I did cut back over the last few months and sold half the flock, I'm down to 40 of them. It's nice (but I'd be okay with even fewer). As much as I love the birds and the shows and perhaps most of all "my chicken people" I have to admit I'm kinda relieved to see the season end. This is hard for me to admit and put in writing (but I want to be able to look back on this some day) but I think I am just ever so slightly starting to burn out. I think that started several years ago during the Newcastle quarantine thing, and it definitely increased in the last year for reasons I'm not going to get into (let's just say politics). So yes I'm cutting back, but I think I need to do that so that I don't actually end up burning out. I don't want that, so I need to preserve a little sanity. Thinking about the National in October brings a glimmer of enthusiasm, as does wanting to raise some nice youngsters and beat certain people, but it's just not the same anymore. That's hard for me. I will hatch chicks, but not many. Maybe 100. Probably less. I do plan to sell eggs. If anyone's itching to get birds from me I'd really encourage you to just buy eggs. I am not shipping birds, I cull like crazy, and I hardly every sell the birds that everyone wants anyway. Don't worry, let me just take it easy with the chicken stuff for a while, and hopefully I'll come back with some showstoppers and be ready to rock and roll. I will not make it to the Eureka show this summer (schedule conflict) and I'm sad about that, I do enjoy going up there. Not sure yet about State Fair, so my next show will be in October.
At the moment, I have other fish to fry...
I have not been able to do horse stuff in the last week, it's been raining and the world has turned to mud and puddles again. Should be a decent week though so hopefully it'll dry out some, I'd really like to get back out there and put Shylah to work.
The microscope should arrive on Thursday. I'm going nuts waiting for it.
We had a fun time, too! I ended up stopping along the way to rest my eyes - I got tired after that big dinner and dessert :-). I grabbed some coffee and made it home in one piece, as did the birds. The rain wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - BTW, did you hear the Arabic music on the FM station 90.3 near Turlock? I was radio-channel surfing and it was good stuff! It ended though when I reached Modesto and the channel became some mexican-music station.
ReplyDelete--CS
No, I didn't. Bummer! Since I was driving the minivan I listened to CDs the whole time.
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