$12 a pound pig!

We’re back from fair.  My 10 year old, red headed daughter’s pig made weight (200 pounds and up) but ended up getting red tagged.  Her pig is the Blue Butt on the right.  The judge was a jerk and told my daughter he didn’t like her pig’s hams so he red tagged the hog which means it can’t be sold at auction.  My daughter was extremely upset, there were a lot of tears but she ended up getting three offers to buy the hog from people that felt sorry for her and disagreed with the judge.  Her pig ended up going for $5 a pound and weighed in at 223. My husband and I both feel that if she had clipped her pig and put some shine on it’s butt that the judge would have allowed her to sell the pig.  We’ve learned our lesson and will be either buying Hampshire’s or clipping the pigs in the future.

My other daughter’s pig (the Hampshire on the left) weighed in at 263 and was auctioned off for $12 a pound.  She got the highest price at the fair because my husband has rich friends that need tax write offs. 

My girls decided they are going to split their money evenly.  After auction fees and paying me back for feed, the girls should have $1,778 EACH to add to their college fund.

My kids also entered a bunch of stuff in the county fair for displays.  Mostly arts and crafts they made through out the year and at 4-H camp.  My red head entered 28 items in the fair and ended up getting 16 blue ribbons (1st place), six red ribbons (2nd place), and two white ribbons (3rd place).  The fair misplaced her check but we have estimated that she’ll be getting about $131 in prizes.

My son entered a “decorate a tee shirt contest” and ended up getting both 1st ($20) and 2nd ($15) place in his age division.  He got a check for $39 for his 4 entries.

My other daughter got a check for $37 dollars.

Being the dork that I am, of course I entered some baked goods.  I got 1st place for my recipe in a jar and 1st place for my banana crumb muffins.  The fair also lost my check but I think I’ll be getting $15 in prizes.  I know I spent way more than that on ingredients.

My oldest daughter didn’t enter anything in the fair this year.  She’s too cool for that.

Next year we plan on coming back with a vengeance.  We plan on building a round pen for the girls to practice showing their pigs and leading them around with a cane.  In the past years we’ve taken the fair pigs for walk every night but last year we had a pig get under some fencing and into the pasture with our horse who happens to hate pigs.  The poor pig was ran down by our horse who tried to kick and stomp it.  Luckily for the pig and my daughter the pig was smart enough to run back under the fence and get away from the horse.  With this last batch of pigs we were too afraid history would repeat itself and our horse would attack them so we didn’t take them out for walks and unfortunately it was obvious that the pigs hadn’t been worked with much.  Next year the girls plan on kicking butt in showmanship.

After five days of walking my butt off at fair I’ve decided I’m going to go for walks every morning after I take the kids to school.  This should help speed up my weight loss.  I walked just over a mile this morning and plan on doing at least one mile 3-4 days a week.  I’m also thinking about doing some more decluttering around my house.  Right now I feel very motivated so I’m going to run with it.  I’ll do small areas here and there mostly in the living room and kitchen.

It feels great being back home!