Miss R & Cloverbud Creations

Fair this year for Miss R was a bit different.  She has been sick on and off over the past month and we needed to take it easy. But that didn't mean we missed out on taking her exhibits to the fair. 

Miss R is still a Cloverbud which means:
1. She gets to make whatever she wants, there are no project areas for her creations to fit in.

2. She doesn't have to write out the dreaded cards that must accompany all the exhibits, that's a fun killer.

3. She gets to interview all of her projects, not just a few as the 'Big 4-H' kids are limited to. 

     As you can imagine she had a lot of exciting stories to share with each of the precious projects she brought.  I think all in all she brought eleven.
4. She gets to pick the ribbon color she wants.  Her goal this year was to pick ribbons to match the project. I think towards the end, she just picked the color she liked the most. When it was all done, she had a mitt full of ribbons and a big smile to match! 

Here is a peak at a few projects she took this year.  Hopefully it will inspire you with your young children. 



I ordered her a wooden name cut out from Zulily and she decided to make it school colors. Painted it black and we added gold glitter.  Note that the project is still in the plastic bag, that glitter can get everywhere and we thought it was best to contain it at the fair, of course at home is a different story.  

The bowls are probably her favorite project.  I picked up the bowls at the church give away last fall. Last time I was in the big town, we picked up a 16 pack of sharpies. Nothing gets creative & organized kids more excited then a rainbow of sharpies. Miss R was instantly looking for ways to use them. It's easy to pull out the stencils and encourage her to make something special. I think she may give these as gifts to all of her friends for Christmas. 


She did her fair share of foam craft.  I find this is something easy for her to do that I don't have to supervise. This year she made a different snowman for each family member, including our new puppy, Cali. Well now it's official, if you have a foam piece, you're stuck with us.

 As I've said many times, the secret to getting 4-H projects done is working on them throughout the year. Miss R created this beautiful piece at her birthday party this year. It's her modern interpretation of golf. I think my golf game is the inspiration. Notice how the ball is not far off the tee, that's usually how far I hit it. 

A Cloverbud can't show livestock. So in her switch to being an official 4-H'er next year she will get to show. As we were watching her siblings show pigs the morning of the fair,  I said this will be you next year.  She said 'No, I"m not a pig showing girl'.  I said really?  She was quick to follow with 'No, I'm a beef girl.  I want to show heifers'. So, the prayers have began for her to be gifted with a mellow heifer to start her beef showing career out with. 

Memories of a Lifetime... Fair Recap

County Fair has come and gone in a flash.  Left in the wake are wonderful memories, many laughs and another successful year of accomplishments. We squeezed a lot into our small town fair.  It's not like many of you think a county fair is.  We don't have a carnival, we don't have venders that offer fair food or trinkets to buy, we don't have bands that play music.

What we do have is volunteers that make pies to sell as a fundraiser, we have kids that run wild with their friends laughing and enjoying the last drops of summer, we have good clean fun like kids doing gunny sack races.

The kids had an amazing fair. We were all very disappointed when the beef cattle project didn't work out this year. T's heifer was hurt early on and the focus was getting the heifer healthy, not a 4-H project. Miss O's heifer had an attitude and a will that made it impossible for a young girl to safely show the animal. So, for the first time the beef people didn't bring beef cattle to the fair. Let me tell you it was weird! We did have the pigs and it went well this year. No, major fights in the show ring and Miss R won Reserve Champ Market Hog. Best of all, we will have pork in the freezer soon!

I've had great feedback from my I'm NOT a Crazy 4-H Mom piece. Here is an update on our  projects.  I'm so proud of T and all he accomplished!  Our wood pile scavenging came together with a new end table, clothes hanger, and display base for his deer heads.  Thanks to our local carpentry shop the boards were plained and turned out amazing.  He's a creative boy and I really love how he can take his vision and with a bit of help make it happen. He's taking orders for the end tables if you would like one too.


Miss O had an outstanding fair. She spent every waking moment that was allowed at the event. She helped friends show goats,  had fun with a friend at the pet show, learned the value of a good interview and went home with 4 best of show's, 2 trophies and although she is totally exhausted, this may be the highlight of her summer.

 Miss R had to pace herself this year since of her sickness setback. She wasn't able to do extended activities. She filled her fair time with many memories. All of which is going to be in my next post. Believe me it deserves it own post...

My absolute favorite memory of this years fair, is this picture.  Dad sharing some solid advice with his son before going into the show ring.  That my friends is what it is all about.  Those tiny moments of sharing wisdom that stick with you for a life time.

Midnight Ride to the E.R.

I knew that Cowboy wasn't waking me up at 4:30 am to visit about my day.  This time of year I don't get to see Cowboy much, he's night calving so when he's in the house during the day- he sleeps.

Nope at 4:30 am the conversation will start like this: "Can You Come Help Me?"  Which can mean one of two things:
1) I need help outside with a cow calving
2) I'm bleeding

Unfortunately for me it was #2 last night.

Cowboy had went out to night check around 3:30 am and was helping a new mom 'with the finer points of motherhood' as he put it. Somehow in the process of holding the calf up close to her for it to nurse she showed him.  He got kicked in the head and tore his lip open.

Now a conversation I've had many times in my tenure with Cowboy is the "Should I go to the Emergency Room?" Which usually means if we are having that conversation the answer is YES! But second and third opinions are always welcomed.

Cowboy had woke me up for that opinion.  Now something you need to know about me is that I don't like blood.  Up until I met Cowboy I had only been to the emergency room once in my life- and it was to take some people who wreaked a pickup down the road from the ranch.  In the first two years I was dating Cowboy I went to the emergency room 3 times! Once right before we got married (that's another post).

Although I don't like blood I can usually hold myself together until we make it to the Emergency Room. Each time I have taken him in the staff and Doctor always ask me if I'm ok before tending to him! I must be a sight because he is the one usually bleeding.

It only took one glance with sleep still in my eyes at the cut for me to know an Emergency Room visit was his next stop.  We're so fortunate in our little community on the prairie to have an amazing hospital with staff that stitched him right up! He was in and out in a little over an hour.

He was home and dressed to go back outside to try again with the new mother before 6 am.  No rest for the tired or hurt when baby calves need to eat.

Let's hope that's our only visit to the E.R. this calving season. But, I fear we are just getting started...

Our Favorite Animal

Last week Miss O had her school open house. The kids showed off their work and skills they had accumulated so far this year. One of the things the kids did was to draw a picture of their favorite pet and write something about what it does. In the Hadrick house we don't have pets. I'm an anti pet mom- let's face it I can bearly handle 3 kids let alone throwing an animal into the mix. My Cowboy and I agree and we're fine without a pet. But it's times like this that I feel for my kids because everyone else has a pet to talk about. But I was proud of Miss O she did what any good young cowgirl would do and drew this picture of "Baldy" her bucket calf and wrote a darn good supporting sentence with her picture.

She added important details like his white head - note that's why his name is 'baldy' since he has a white head and his white belly. She loved taking care of baldy last spring and summer. Every day she helped feed him and take care of his water needs. She felt an amazing sense of pride with this animal and I think it's really great how she loves to work on our farm and take care of animals.

I'm not sure if you know it or not but the Department of Labor has proposed rules regarding Child Labor laws that would restrict children under the age of 16 from working on a farm and ranch. The things that children will not be able to do is shocking for example kids will not be able to work with animals over 6 months of age- which would include 4-H show animals. They also could not build fence or operate any type of equipment from tractors to power tools.  I think how this will effect my family and our community. Our kids have pride working with us on the farm I don't want it to be illegal for me to have them help work cattle or harvest crops.  This will also effect our community- what are the kids who live in town and come out to spend summers working on ranches in our area going to do? So my call to action: Let the people in Washington DC know how this will effect you. I know I know - who contacts their legislators...you should. I want Miss O to be able to tell people her favorite animal is a cow because she is able to go out and work with them everyday.

For those of you still upset that we don't have a pet. Don't tell the kids but we're considering a dog more and more...you know something that we can hunt with.