chicken romance, and recent shenanigans

Two shows in two weekends is a lot of work.  And while I'll REALLY miss my friends when show season is over, like I said in an earlier post I've got that "aaack I need to stop traveling and get stuff done" feeling.  The weekend of the 9th I was in Ferndale, CA, for a poultry show.  I'd never been to Ferndale before, the show used to be in Eureka, and it was a pleasant change to a quiet little dairy-cow town.  The weekend was so much fun I'm pretty sure that it must have violated some sort of rules.  Good friends, good times.  :-)

And the birds are doing well this year.  To my amazement, I got Best RCCL with one of the BBRed cockerels at that show.

And everyone sang Happy Birthday to me at the banquet.  Awww!  :-)  That may have been my best 29th birthday yet.  ;-)

Indy got a new lady friend when he was in Ferndale.  This is Stella, she's a Thai Asil like him (well, he may be a mix, who knows).  I don't plan on raising these beasts, they are difficult to house, but the two of them are pretty much joined at the hip now and I do plan on selling eggs.

This last weekend was another poultry show down in Fresno, and another omg-so-much-fun couple of days.  One of my BBRed cockerels took Best of Breed, beating out some nice Black pullets.  Yeah!  I took Indy to the show too, because they have a very large and well-respected Game Fowl show there.  He won his weight class, squee!  And yes I'm immature enough to think the plaque is HILARIOUS!  Insert jokes here...  ;-)  I'm sure he's proud.

Here's Jen and I with our boys (I'm in the plaid shirt):

So there is just one more show that I will be attending this season, and that's at the very end of March in Red Bluff, which is only about 45 minutes away.  I am hoping we can get the breeding pens done within the next few weeks so I can bring up the rest of the birds and start setting eggs.  I'm going to give myself a 6-week window in which to hatch eggs... whatever I get is what I get.  But I want to be done by June, and as you know... time flies.

To Reno and back

Oh man, I gotta catch up on blogging!

A couple weekends ago Jen and I went to Reno for a poultry show. First show of the season. I took ten birds, all Black Breasted Red. I'm pleased to have that many good BBReds to be showing this season, and would like to show a good "string" all season, plus probably some of the Brassy Backs as well. We were anticipating some possible bad weather but things turned out just fine, and it was a pretty drive. I had a good time at the show, it was nice to see people!

The birds took Best and Reserve of Breed, though they were the only Rosecombs there, so that's kind of a given. ;-) I don't expect many big wins in my immediate future since I'm not showing Blacks anymore. But, my goal is to get the BBReds good enough that they can win big again! I'm pleased with how they are looking.

Some pics from the drive and from the show:

and the losing streak continues!

I was way up on the northern coast of California over the weekend at another poultry show. Yes, January and February are very busy months for me when it comes to chicken stuff. I really love the show up in Eureka, and always have a great time. I feel like I've fallen in with a whole new crowd in the last few years, and I just want to say I know some wonderful people. I had a blast!! My birds didn't win a darn thing, but one of my bestest buds won the whole darn show, and that's exciting!

There's just one more show to go (for me, anyway) this season, and that's next weekend. I turned on the incubator today. It's going to be a wonky season, but I'm trying to get some chicks hatched out EARLY because if I wait til after I move I think it will be too late and too hot.

A lot of the drive on highway 299 looks like this, and a lot of it has really steep dropoffs and really tight turns. I would not want to make that drive in the dark! I have to say I'm going to miss my old route up 101... guess it'll be 299 from Redding from now on.

Jen and I found bigfoot!

These are the two BBRed cockerels I've been showing this year. Confession, they are both half Brassy Back. That's why they are too dark and stripey. I did that to put some tail length on them. Boy howdy, it worked. Their offspring should be pretty interesting:


BBRed pullet:

Brassy Back pullet:

Black pullet:

Blue Brassy Back pullet (she's rather friendly) ;-)

These are some of my new neighbors that I'll get to know better when I move. That's part of the property where I will be living in a few months. A few months. Holy crap. It's only a matter of time until freak-out mode sets in!

meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Whoops! Kinda forgot to blog there for a bit. Hmm, let's see, what news do I have...

I updated Random Rosecombs. Finally! Yes! For the first time in like 8 years or something. It was outdated and ugly, and now it's bright and shiny and new. I added lots of pics that had only previously been on the blog, and I deleted a ton of stuff. I will endeavor to keep it updated.

It must be the time of year for wanting to unclutter things, I'm going through my room and studio again to see what I can either get rid of or throw away or pack up (um, or sell!). I'm obsessed with plastic storage boxes. Five dollars for the big ones at Big Lots! Oh my! I might even have to go back and buy MORE of them!

I went to a poultry show in Fresno on Saturday (remind me to stop doing this as a day trip, ugggh that's too long of a day!). My birds had their feathery little butts thoroughly kicked by some gorgeous competition, but I had a good time anyway (could have done without the food poisoning though, blarg!). My chickeny friends are good people, they mean a lot to me. :-) So that's it for the season for me, a whopping three shows. Kinda sad that I won't see most people for about a year. I don't know yet if I'll attend any fall shows in 2011. Best not to count on that happening...

The birds are in breeding pens now. I'll be hatching Black, BBRed, and Blue is kind of experimental. If someone urgently wants to raise Brassies/Blue Brassies I can ship eggs from them, but otherwise I'm really not planning to hatch any of them. They were pretty disappointing this last year, there is very little interest in them because they're non-standard colors, so... eh. Anyway, they're barely laying yet but I should be turning on the incubator in about two weeks I guess. Oy vey, it's hard to think about that already. The last couple years I haven't done this til June!

Next up in scrimshaw: another bee!

riding in cars with roosters

I went up to Eureka, CA over the weekend. That's about 300 miles northwest along the coast. It's really a beautiful drive, which is a large part of the reason I don't mind driving that far for a poultry show! It also happens to be my favorite show. It's fun, relaxing, people seem more at ease there versus other shows. And I have some darn good friends up there. Huge ginormous thank you to Dan, my "host with the most" (lol!) for letting C.S. and I crash at the house! You are awesome. :-) Late nights on the couch discussing all sorts of interesting things, Mexican hot chocolate on the stove in the morning, a comfy bed with flannel sheets, ahhhh. I like these new traditions!

C.S. carpooled with me and brought a bunch of her son's Polish, and I hereby declare that Polish are horrible to ride in the car with, because they NEVER SHUT UP. I think those roosters crowed the whole time. I was about to go crazy by the time we got home. They are much louder than my birds. I decided it's because they can't really see anything with those ridiculous poofs on their heads, so they must just make noise all the time, in case there's a reason, even though they can't see whether there's a reason or not. My word.

The show was great. A couple of head-scratchers about the judging, but that's typical. One of my Black Rosecomb pullets took Reserve Champion Bantam and Best of Class, so I'm very happy about that. The last several year's worth of decreased interest and LATE hatching have taken a toll on the overall quality. I've got my work cut out to get the males back to where they need to be, but I'm stickin' with it, just limiting the number of colors I'll breed and not showing as much anymore. I've got one more show coming up and then I'm done for the season. I set up breeding pens last week, and will be starting to collect eggs soon.

How bout some pics!

Chicken spa! Ha ha.


This is why you shouldn't feed the ducks. It attracts more ducks. There were about a dozen standing around the car by the time I finished my lunch on the drive up on Friday.

Driving along the Avenue of the Giants on the way home on Sunday.

And this isn't even all that big compared to some of the other trees!

The Eel River (I think?)

I felt the need for another scenic detour, so I took Hwy 16 through the Capay Valley (and I saw a Bald Eagle, woo hoo!). This is a charming place called "Cowboy Camp" near the intersection of 16 and 20. I'd love to ride there. I always see it at a bad time of day for taking photos but it's very pretty.

And look, cowboys! Be still my beating heart! ;-)

The drive to the next show won't be nearly as scenic (Fresno).

poultry show and other things

It's hard to believe I was in Fresno yesterday (~160 miles away), but I was. I got up at 4am and was down there at 7:30am. I'd been considering just driving down there for the heck of it to see friends but figured if I was going to do that I ought to go ahead and show something so I entered three birds. I never even managed to see all the birds at the show, I sort of forgot to make a point to do that, which actually makes some sense because I really was there to see people. And with the exception of a badly-need 2.5 hour nap in the back of the minivan that morning I spent the entire time talking to people, it was great. I missed a few though, there are people I saw in passing once or twice but never got a chance to chat with. That's a bummer. Time flew, my Black cockerel that I like so much won best RCCL, and that made me happy. The show let out around 5:30 or so, I had dinner with a few friends, hit the road, and was back home at 9:30pm. Talk about a whirlwind. I'm glad I went though. I'm not sure when the next one will be or what all it will entail, and I REALLY need to figure out what the heck I am doing with these birds.

Blurry, but a sunrise nonetheless, just for proof I was awake early:

You know how some people always manage to blink when they are photographed? Well so does this bird. I took 4 photos and this slightly blurry and not well posed one is the only one where he isn't blinking!

It rained all day today. This afternoon I went down to the Woodbridge Ecological Preserve with GM to see the sandhill cranes. They are starting to migrate out, and today was the last day of the guided tours and I've been meaning to do that all season so I figured let's just go anyway. The weather kinda sucked and was not conducive to good photography, but it was neat to see all the cranes fly in at sunset. Next year I need to make a point to do that earlier in the season and on a day when there's more light. The pics are way gritty, but these are the best of them:

Two sandhill cranes:

Three snow geese and two greater white-fronted geese:


And last but not least, a little cuteness! All together now, awwww!

Eighteen down...

I have washed 18 chickens in the last two days. Actually, technically not, because 4 of them were still clean from last time around. But still, they count toward the final tally. At this rate I may actually finish on Monday, that would be nice! Of course there will be a lot of touchup work to do on Friday...

I've been looking at the BBRed cockerels and trying to figure out which ones to keep for breeding pens this (will be hopefully selling the rest next weekend.) It's so tough, none of them is perfect. Some have better type but poor color, some have better color but poor type. I'm sort of feeling like I need to keep the ones with the best type, since "type makes the breed and color makes the variety, and type always must come first." I do get pretty hung up on color though, since it's darn near impossible to get it right. So when I have a bird with proper neck color, it's almost easy to overlook that his tail feathers aren't long enough, or he has red spots on his chest (should be solid black). Maybe I should just eeny meeny miney moe them...

I finished up drawing for the night last night at 12:15 and then headed off to bed. Olin was asleep on my bed, and I was feeling generous so I decided I'd let him sleep inside (knowing it meant I'd have to get up around 5 to let him out... but I always have faith in my ability to go back to sleep. If I've never mentioned that I'm not a morning person, I am NOT a morning person). Anyway, around 12:45 he left my room, and about 5 minutes later I heard it--the Sound of Impending Doom. When you hear it, it's too late. I launched out of bed in movie-like slow motion, the voice in my head shouting "noooooooooooo!!!!!!" But it was too late. Four, count em four piles of cat barf in the hallway. Do cats ever barf on linoleum? He could have walked just a foot and a half down the hallway and had a vast expanse of easily cleanable floor in the laundry room, but no... I had to be out there in my pj's scrubbing cat puke out of the carpet at 12:45am. I love my cats, but I hate cat puke.

So then this morning I stumbled out to the kitchen (was it early? Nooo, just takes me a while to wake up!) and what did I encounter? No, thankfully not more cat puke, but a very substantial trail of ants traipsing across the kitchen floor from the grate under to oven, to the cat food dishes. Gross. I was pretty sure I could hear them all gleefully singing the "hi ho hi ho" song as they went off to work, but those were not the words going through my head. I blasted some ant poison around the room and wiped up all the little carcasses. There are always strays though, running around the floor in a "oh crap oh crap!" panic. I'm not a big fan of ants.

In other news, those drawings I said I was going to finish the other night are more or less done, I just need to sign them and make sure I don't need to tweak anything. I've noticed that my drawing style has actually changed a fair amount between now and the start of the Standard project. Evolution, I guess. I think it's improved, but I'm noticing that just the way I handle the materials is different, things like more frequent use of graphite to "outline" things. This pair of illustrations are white birds. I think white is the most difficult color to draw, trying to get the shadows believable. With other colors, the drawing it much more saturated and the lines are pretty sharp, but white tends to look soft and blurry, so without even really thinking about it I've been putting a bit of a line around certain edges. I think it looks good. Dang I can't wait to show all those drawings on my website!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! (I am still in shock).

Well, as you may know, I went to Hollister this weekend for a poultry show. I took 11 birds down there, with pretty high hopes for one particular Black Rosecomb pullet. The vinyl cage liners worked out well, and nobody munched any tail feathers this weekend.

I ended up clerking all day Saturday (follow the judge around with a clipboard and write down all the placings and awards, it's interesting sometimes, dreadfully boring sometimes, and really quite tiring to be standing all day). So anyway, I was trying to sneak a peek over at the RCCL class while clerking for the Featherleg class, and from where I was standing in the building a few rows away, I couldn't read the coop tags all that well, but I could see that my fabulous pullet only placed 2nd, having been beaten by one of her sisters. Okay, so that's fine, and it looked to me like the winning pullet's coop tag said "BB" which means "Best of Breed." When I got a little farther down the aisle with the clerking job, I could see that the tag actually said "RB" which means "Reserve of Breed" (second best). Well no problem, I had a couple males in the show too, and they were caged a few rows to my left where I couldn't see them, so I figured that Best of Breed went to one of the Black males. The other clerk took the Reserve female up to Champion Row so that the judge could pick the Best and Reserve of Class, and I didn't think too much more about it...

But then as I worked my way farther down the aisle, I could see that one of my BBRed males was not in his cage, and I got pretty worried. I couldn't leave what I was doing, so I asked a friend to scout around see if he saw my BBRed somewhere (thought maybe he'd been taken for a photo or something, since they are interesting birds). He came back and said "he's on Champion row with the other RCCL birds." Hmmm, this just wasn't clicking for me. I then thought I must have read the Black female's coop tag wrong, it must really have said "BB" and so maybe the BBRed male got "RB." That made sense, so I didn't worry about it.

So, eventually I finished up clerking for the Featherleg class, and wandered over to the Champion Row, and a few minutes later the other clerk (for the other judge, who had judged the RCCL Class) came by and said to me "you got Best with the BBRed and Reserve with the Black." I think my super intelligent response was something along the lines of "huh?" How could that be? Was he talking about Best of Breed? Okay, maybe he meant Best of Breed, it could happen...

I was still just not quite believing all this, so I went back to the original cages and read the coop tags. "Reserve RCCL" (Reserve of Class) on the Black pullet. Huh. I walked over to the BBRed cockerel, and saw "Best RCCL" (Best of Class). Holy crap!!! Oh my word! Good golly! I read it a few more times just to be sure. Yup!!! That's huge, absolutely an amazing thing. I have gotten Rerserve of Breed before, but NEVER a Class award, so I was totally beside myself. It was a pretty good size class, and most definitely competitive!!

As the infomercials say though "But Wait!" The story doesn't end there.

Champion Row gets judged Sunday morning. So my two birds were up there, and I put a little effort into smoothing out feathers and making the BBRed male look as good as possible, though I pretty well knew that a BBRed Rosecomb (come on now, we're talking about one of those "odd color" birds) really could not compete with the other birds up there, and there were sure some beauties.

It's nervewracking to watch, even though knew I didn't have anything to be nervous about. But they kept going back to the Rosecomb and looking at him again. They even pulled out a Bantam Standard book and read through that (BBRed is standard only in the American Bantam Association, not the American Poultry Association). So by this time I'm thinking "oh my stars, they are actually considering this bird" and was just about to keel over from the mere thought of it. I mean, they were putting some serious thought into this!

And then one of the show superintendants stepped up to annouce the winners... "Best Large Fowl...Aseel, Reserve Large Fowl...Hamburg, Best Bantam...Old English Game, Reserve Bantam...Rosecomb." Aaaaaaaaaaaa, oh my gosh!!!! I think my eyes probably just about bugged out of my head, and the man continued on "Best in Show....Old English Game, Reserve of Show...Rosecomb."

OH. MY. GOSH!!!!

My jaw dropped, I was speechless, people were shaking my hand and everybody was hugging me. I was just absolutely shocked.

It is a big deal to win an award like that no matter what you are showing. It's very prestigious to win, it's very competitive, and in the past I have had some big wins (Best in Show, and others) with Black Rosecombs. But for this to go to a BBRed Rosecomb, I can't even begin to explain how much that means.... I started making BBRed Rosecombs "from scratch" (Black RC X BBRed Old English) in 1993. After 13 years of breeding, culling, cursing, and loving this color, a MAJOR win has now happened. All that work is so worth it. They are competitive. I am thrilled to pieces. This just means the world to me.

Cross your fingers!

So I was ready to finish up washing birds this morning, and went out to the coop to gather up the 4 black pullets. There is one in particular out there that is just really outstanding, but I'd decided that I would wait and have her make her "show debut" at PPBA, rather than taking her with me this weekend. That's just out of concern, I don't want her to get scuffed up or damage any feathers before "the big one." So I was looking at the other black pullets, choosing which 4 I thought were best, and suddenly the gorgeous pullet hopped up onto the perch right in front of my face, and I swear she looked me right in the eyes, and if a chicken could convey "excuse me, but you ARE taking me to the show this weekend" that exactly what she said. So yeah, she's going. They don't normally do that to me, so I really can't ignore that. She is traveling alone in a large box, going into a vinyl-lined cage, and moving into her own suite at the conditioning coop when she gets home so that she stays pristine for PPBA. I need to name her, this is a special bird....hmmmm............

I feel like I've been slacking at blogging.

January is one of those months that is very frazzling. That's probably not a word, but that's okay.

I'm doing major preparation already for the art booth at PPBA, and I can't believe I'm doing this already. Means I'm procrastinating on other things (what, business taxes? oooh) but on the bright side I have quite a lot of things ready to sell now. There's still the matter of getting it all organized, labeled, and packed, but that's what the day before the show is for, right?? I'm really quite happy with how the tiles turned out, and I think I may even like them better than the full-color ones I did last year. I bought some nice little frames at Michaels last week (they were on sale) and I was thinking tonight about what I could use them for, like maybe I should do some drawings on paper or something, but then I decided I have taken some really pretty closeups of feathers, so I think I'll get a couple of those photos developed and frame them, and then have them in the art booth. My feather photo card has been pretty popular, so perhaps feather photos themselves might have an audience!

I washed eight chickens today for the Hollister show this weekend, and have four more to wash tomorrow. I went to a plastic supply store in Sacramento yesterday (my word, was that just yesterday??) and bought a couple yards of clear vinyl sheeting (think grandma's table cloth cover). I cut that down to size, and with a couple of small clips it makes a darn good tail-protector for the bantam cages that are used at shows (since invariably my best pullet takes great delight in poking her tail through the wire so it's not only messed up at the show, but quite often permanently damaged). Arg, I hate that. I don't know if there's any way to get them not to do that. Some of them don't, it's like some are very conscious of their own space, and some really aren't. And it almost never happens with the non-black birds. I'm not sure if they just don't do it, or if they are harder feathered and not affected. Whatever the case, I have enough to line all the cages for the black pullets now, and at the risk of looking like I'm trying to set up some kind of biohazard containment area with all this plastic sheeting, it may just solve the problem. Plus it was about 1/5 the cost of getting the same amount of plexiglas. Money talks!

And on a completely unrelated topic... I think whatever natural or unnatural force creates crop-circles is also responsible for the snarls that happen in horses' manes. Shylah had a real whopper of a tangle in there that I finally combed out today (broke 3 teeth on the comb! Okay, so it's a plastic comb that's at least 20 years old...but hey...). It's not like it just gets tangled. Hey, I know about tangles, my hair is rather long... but horse hair does these intricate things where it wraps around and gets little strands intertwined, and I just can't figure out how that happens. I mean, it looks like someone weaves it into this knot, I wouldn't be surprised to find Celtic knots in there (and no doubt some gripping beasts! Oops, sorry, art history joke.)

Okay, that's probably about enough of my long-windedness for today.

Art Show, Poultry Show, and the Tire Curse

What a weekend! I'm still tired!

I left here Thursday late afternoon for the Auburn Art Walk. I had a few more things to set up (note cards, prints) and then I had to stick around for the 6-9pm reception. It didn't exactly go all that well (is there a theme to this lately??). Of course, I've never done that show before so I didn't know what to expect, but it sure didn't seem like that many people came through the shop, and most were just socializing or looking. Once again, thank goodness for note cards, although it didn't come close to covering expenses. The setup looks nice and I like the store a lot, but it was toward one end of the street where most of the shops were, and I think a lot of people just didn't venture that far, and I don't really expect much in the way of follow-up sales. The work is supposed to hang through mid December. Here are some pics from the show though:



Friday morning I took off with a carload of chickens for Paso Robles, which is about 4 hours away. The Central Coast Feather Fanciers is the first open show of the season, and one that I always enjoy. Well, then again I enjoy all of them! About a week ago, I'd taken my car in to get what I thought was the balance looked at. Turned out it had a bubble in one tire (how long had I been driving around with a bubble?!?! Ack!). It still had a little shake going on around 50, I don't think they had rebalanced it all that well after replacing the tire, but it's few and far between that anyone can really balance that car so I figured I could deal with this little vibration at least until this week, since I won't be so busy now. But the whole way down there on Friday it seemed to get worse, and after I got off I-5 and onto smaller highways (41 and 46, not exactly a lot of towns!) it was getting a bit scary. The shaking was a lot worse, and I just had all these visions of careening off the road, or the wheels falling off, blowing up, etc. By the time I was on 46 nearing Paso Robles, I could feel it bumping at slow speeds. Ah yes, I know that feeling, another bubble...

I was somewhat of a nervous wreck by the time I got there, I didn't stick around long to socialize, I just wanted to go sit down and let my brain air out.

Early Saturday morning, after getting the birds cleaned up, I bumped on over to a local tire shop just down the street from the fairgrounds, hoping there wasn't anything serious going on. The guys were super nice, took my car right in and had a look. Sure enough, it was a bubble. That now makes 5 bubbles and 13 flats on that car in the 10 years that I have been driving it. Could it be cheap tires? I think it's a curse. Anyhow, half hour and one new tire later, all was well with the world, and I must say those guys did a super job on balancing, it hasn't been that smooth for YEARS.

The rest of Saturday was spent looking at birds, schmoozing, watching the Welsh Pony show, and napping in the back seat of my car (hey, I was tired!). As always the RCCL (Rose Comb Clean Legged) class was judged last. I really hadn't expected to do more than Best of Breed at this show, since I hadn't had time to coop train the birds at all and they were a bunch of wild women. But amazingly I got Best RCCL, and that Black Rosecomb pullet moved to Champion Row. I wish I'd had time to work with these birds more. If handled, they calm down and relax at shows, and will "show" (spread tail, look alert, flirt) when approached. Otherwise, they tend to back into the corner and ruin their tails, or walk around looking pinchy-tailed the whole time.

Championship judging was Sunday morning. I get really nervous when I have a bird up on Champion Row. Other than cleaning the bird up beforehand, there's nothing I can do but stand around with my hands in my pockets and all my fingers crossed and think "pick the Rosecomb!"

Best in Show went to a very cute White Call duck, and Reserve of Show to an Egyptian goose...same owners on both.. Congratulations guys!! :-) Reserve Bantam was a Dutch. But since the American Poultry Association considers a duck to be waterfowl and not a bantam, the judges had to pick a "Reserve Bantam A.P.A" and that went to my bird. Yay!! So that's like 3rd best bantam. Works for me!

Unfortunately, looks like I won't be attending another poultry show until early January. The one I normally go to in November has been cancelled, and I don't attend the ones in southern CA because they are just too far away. However, I may reconsider that next year, because October to January is a long time to wait, and I usually have a lot of good looking birds in November.

I also don't have any art shows til January, and that's a good thing. I need a break from those. Time to duct tape my butt to the chair and spend the rest of the year drawing chickens.

Holy metallic mammal, Batman!

Well, this morning started off pretty interesting! I got to State Fair (which is now done, I hadn't been there since Saturday) around 7:15 this morning to pick up my birds, and the lady in charge of the building said "I have a surprise for you." I was thinking "oh no, she's sending me home with a bunch of chicks or something."

Turns out that for some reason the coop cards had been mislabeled during judging. So it was not the White Call Duck that won Best in Show, it was the Black Rosecomb. MY Black Rosecomb!!! Wow!!! Victory Dance!!! :-) I'm totally thrilled, this is my first ever Best in Show at State Fair, the first golden bear I've won with a chicken (I have others from other competitions).

I do feel bad for the owner of the duck... He took it pretty well though...no doubt better than I would have.

I gotta say these bears have changed over the years. They must have been on a diet. Although the same size as the old ones (I last won one in 1997) the old bears are a meaty 6 pounds and the new bears are a svelte 3.5 pounds. Hmmm.

All's Fair

Well, I think it's fair to say I've had enough of the Fair for the year. It was pretty fair weather today though. Ha ha.

Okay, so I'm deliriously tired. I was all set to go to bed at a decent hour last night but found my room being taken over by ants. Ugh! So I threw everything in the washing machine, sprayed ant poison, shut the door, and slept on the couch. And then got up at 4:30am, after about 4 hours of sleep, to take birds to the fair.

I won Champion Bantam! Yay! That's the best I've ever done at State Fair, but I should mention that entry numbers get even more pathetic every year and there weren't a heck of a lot of bantams anyway. I'll just say it. There were a total of 48 birds there, total. Pathetic!

I went over to the food exhibit and found my cookies. Got a 1st place on both, yay! And I watched lots of horses.

Well, now that the room seems to be sort of swaying back and forth, that's a good indication I need some sleep. Time to hit the couch again...my room still smells like ant spray...