In the midst of moving recovery, Phil got a call on Monday at noon and was asked to be a hog judge at another county fair held this week not too far away. Amanda said he could think about it. He asked when the show was and she said, “Tuesday.” LOL! (Don’t think long!)
We talked about it a bit over lunch.
He asked if he should be thinking about it. (He has never judged a show before.)
I said, “No.” He nearly gasped in shock.
“So I shouldn’t think about it?”
I replied, “You should quit thinking about it and just do it.”
🙂
So he called her back and said yes. She answered his questions that night.
We met after my swim Tuesday evening, left one car there, and drove together to the fair. It was only another 20 mins or so. I had wanted to see this fair in case I’d want to enter sewing & quilting things next year. Another good reason to go.
We were quite impressed with the fairgrounds and they have a lot of nice buildings & a big swine building. Once we found where Phil would report for duty, we walked around a bit.
We went through the 4-H building and they have great tables to display the entries. A good amount of sewing entries pleased me. JP looked at the computer entries and … well… he wasn’t impressed there. He hoped there would be some competion there. (He can’t enter in another county anyway. Just curious.)
I found the sewing/craft/quilt building. They must have a lot less categories for sewing related entries but the ones there had several quilts entered. I enjoyed seeing them. This fair displays everything so nicely and it is then covered in good clear plastic. Novel idea to keep fair dust off of the nice things!! 😉
There were 3 ladies at the information table so I interrupted their conversation to ask about entry deadlines and if that info was on their website. Yes it is but they also had a list for me to sign up to have the fair book mailed to me next year. Yeah! Here’s hoping I follow through!
Meanwhile, JP was getting hungry….
Then we went to the swine building. Nearing 7 p.m., the judges met each other. There are 3 judges and they decide amongst themselves who the winners will be.
This was a new kind of judging/show that we had never heard of before. The pigs had just been brought on the grounds that afternoon and there had been no other hog shows yet. To enter this show, the entry fee was $20 per pig. You could enter as many as you wanted.
There were only 2 classes: barrows & gilts. (for the city folk that means: castrated males & females that have not birthed any pigs)
All the pigs in each class are in the ring at one time. That was a lot in comparison to our fair! I think the barrow class had a good 14 – 16 and the gilt class had 12 pigs.
It is called the Jackpot show because the winner gets 60% of the pot of entry fees and the 2nd place gets the other 40%. The 3 judges were all local hog farmers so know what a good market hog looks like.
We like this concept!
As the judges looked at the hogs, they would point out one to send back. The helpers around the ring had panels for moving the pigs back to the walkways and to separate them if need be.
Finally they narrowed it down to 2 pigs and one judge gave a short bit of commentary on why they picked these two and which one was the champion.
After the show, we talked with some friends from church (their daughter called Phil for this show) and then Phil & I got sandwiches for our supper. We headed back to the extra car and JP came home while Phil & I got some groceries.
A fun night and I think we’ll be back next year. 😉
This night’s entry fee was free if you brought non-perishables for the local rescue mission so we donated there. I thought that was a super idea!
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and sew on... 