4-H or We just aren't farm people

I'm in agreement with Lisa at
thejoyofsix
about what one of the H's in 4-H stands for! LOL

Last year we were part of a 4-H club that only did livestock. Three of my children got rabbit kits and wanted to show them. There were very few members showing rabbits, no teen leaders and almost no support or education of any kind. We had several friends that were members of this club. Despite the absence of any assistance, J. and I. took second place in showmanship for their age groups. This year we joined a different club in our area. This club has a very active rabbit group, which has its pros and cons. There were many more opportunities for learning and mentorship, and this group also visits a nursing home regularly as a service component. Unfortunately, this group does not do much work on non-livestock projects either, like knitting, sewing, growing vegetables, woodworking, cooking, etc.

To be truthful, however, learning everything there is to know about rabbits is somewhat boring, and IMO, rather pointless. I shuttled them to multiple practice sessions and rabbit group meetings that they didn't want to attend, because they didn't know anyone. Showmanship consists of posing your rabbit in a certain way and then examining all parts of its body. You are demonstrating that you have memorized this routine and that you have practiced with your rabbit enough that it is used to being handled and will behave somewhat cooperatively. After you perform the physical examination of your rabbit, then the judge asks you a question or two about rabbits (feeding, breeding, illnesses, fur types, body types, etc.) to determine your level of knowledge. The rabbit examination is done in silence and the judge asks the questions so quietly that no one else can hear, so other competitors aren't overhearing a question they may be asked. This makes for an absolutely scintillating event for the audience. Even when your own child is performing, it's boring, and to watch kids of all ages do it over and over for 4 hours makes me want to beg for mercy.

In the afternoon, there is breed competition, where the rabbits are examined to determine which are the best specimens of their breeds. What is the purpose of owning the "best" rabbit? Since rabbits can produce a litter every six weeks, they are not like racehorses. Breeders do track geneaology, although I'm not sure why, since in a year's time hundreds of offspring could have been born to any rabbit. I have trouble taking a lot of this seriously.

I's rabbit died during the winter, and she didn't enjoy caring for it and didn't really want to participate in 4-H again so we didn't get her another one. Shortly before fair, L's rabbit developed sore hocks, fur mites and a runny nose, which would disqualify it from participating. He could have used J's rabbit to compete with, but he decided he'd rather not participate at all. This left only J participating in the fair this year. The Friday night before the week of the fair, the she had to go to set up the barn. Monday night of fair week she had to bring the rabbit to officially check it in. Wednesday was the competition, which lasted from 9am-5pm. On any day that she wasn't at the fairgrounds, she had to ask someone to feed her rabbit for her. The fairgrounds are a half hour drive away from our house. Friday night at the end of fair week, she had to go bring the rabbit home (they MUST stay until the end of fair) and help with barn cleanup. Several times, I got her a ride out to the fairgrounds with another family that pass right by our house. They are very nice and completely trustworthy but she didn't want to ride with them, so a lot of whining ensued.

Amazingly, despite all of this, J. took first place in showmanship in her age group! She received a large trophy for this and was then qualified to participate in a championship round, where the champions of each age group competed against one another.

By the end of the week, neither J. or I wanted anything to do with 4-H. We were exhausted.

I have concluded that there are farming and non-farming families. To continue on in 4-H we would need to be ready to take rabbits to the next level, raising more of them, breeding, etc. or move on to a larger animal. Most of the families who are really active with livestock don't play sports 3 days a week, take music lessons, etc. We don't really have the time or inclination to immerse ourselves in animal care any more deeply than we have already. I actually had an interesting conversation with a really nice woman from another club, who volunteered that she has 5 kids ranging from age 3 to highschool. Her family is seriously into cattle, showing not only at 4-H but at fairs around the country. At this point, her oldest son has a business buying, selling and breeding cattle. This woman agreed with me, that it wasn't possible to participate in other activities that were very time consuming and raise animals. It is also much more "doable" because it is the entire family's hobby. I asked her what would happen if one child wanted to pursue another activity. She turned that question over to her teen daughter, who was standing nearby. The daughter told me that she could be in any activity she wanted, but that it would be hard to be in something else and that she wanted to do what the rest of her family was doing.

I don't think we'll be participating in 4-H next year unless I can find a club that emphasizes the non-livestock aspects of 4-H.

Meme

Another Meme


Got this one from Kathy at Our Life

10 years ago:
Living in the first home we owned in Tempe, AZ. I was 5 months pregnant with L, our 3rd child. Things were fairly smooth and uneventful--no moves or home renovations going on.

5 years ago:
Spent half the summer visiting family and friends and Michigan, wishing we could move back, grieving for Daryl's father, who died on May 5. We had 5 kids, ages newborn to 8 years old.

1 year ago:
5 months pregnant with A, still suprised! Getting ready to go on vacation--a week on the shore of Lake Huron On the Georgian Bay in "Cottage Country" Ontario, Canada. About to begin this blog.

Yesterday (Friday):
Took 4 kids to Rainbow Creations, a ceramics shop where we chose an item to paint, painted it, and left it there to be glazed and fired. It was really fun. I don't usually enjoy arts and crafts very much, but it was great to be creative. Came home and visited with my friend that had babysat K. and A. while we were gone. Celebrated the official beginning of our vacation (first week is "vacation at home") with Mojitos for the grownups and a variety of appetizer/finger foods for dinner: chicken wings, tempura shrimp, french fries, orange chicken and pierogies.

Today:
Finished a baking project begun 2 years ago! I had mixed the dry ingredients for a quadruple recipe of blueberry coffeecake and was short some of the liquid ingredients. Put it in a large tupperware in the freezer (so the flour bugs wouldn't get in it) and there it has sat until today. I could only finish this project during blueberry season, when they are cheap enough to purchase in huge quantities (I needed 12 cups!)
Took the girls and joined Costco warehouse club. I was a member in AZ and liked it, but there wasn't one nearby until last December, when this one opened (still a 25 minute drive away). A recent newspaper article about what an ethical corporation they are (they pay their employees extremely well and give them excellent benefits and never mark up merchandise more than 15%) while still being highly profitable, much to the analysts' dismay, inspired me to join. Enjoyed shopping, lunching on all the free samples, and didn't stray much from my list, which is easy to do there with impulse purchases.
Came home and had dinner with Grandma and 2 cousins who came to visit, bringing a birthday cake for me!

Tomorrow:
Make croissant french toast for breakfast, attend mass, walk with a friend.

snacks I enjoy:
cheese (especially goat and sheep's milk cheeses) with wine, fruit, sweet breads/coffecake/muffins with coffee, yogurt with granola and dried fruit, fruit smoothies/blended coffee drinks.

5 things I would do with a $100,000,000:
Put away money for children's college expenses; complete renovations on our house, including building a garage and barn; buy a home in Northern Michigan on Lake Michigan; help relatives in need; donate to charities

5 locations I’d like to run away to:
Paris; Boulder, CO; Ithaca, NY; New Zealand; Nova Scotia.

5 bad habits I have:
Wasting time, talking on the phone too long, procrastinating, being late, fantasizing about the next baby.

5 things I like doing:
spending time with my dh and kids, cooking, playing the flute, socializing with good friends, reading a good book.

5 things I would never wear:
cowboy hat, platform shoes, bikini, thong underwear, anything braless.

5 TV shows I like:
Six Feet Under, Desperate Housewives, What Not to Wear, Babies: Special Delivery, Seinfeld reruns.

5 biggest joys at the moment:
Having this large, fantastic family; watching my kids interact with each other and develop relationships; seeing how my older children adore the little ones; living in a beautiful setting and a place I feel at home; nursing my babies

5 favorite toys:
computer, books, Vitamixer, air conditioner, notebook and pen

I'm Baaaack!

Not that I went anywhere, technically, unless going insane counts!

To recap and summarize some of the events that have left me too busy to blog:

*Driving kids to swim team and back each morning.

*Driving D. to basketball camp and back each afternoon for a week.

*Driving L. to soccer camp and back each day for a week.

*Driving I. to gymnastics and back once a week.

*Driving J. and L. to various 4-H events and back.

*Weekend long annual family reunion of D's extended family, held at his brother's house. Great fun, but exhausting.

*D's niece visits for 3 days after family reunion.

*Extremely HOT weather. D. wants to know how I survived in Arizona if the heat bothers me so much. I pointed out to him that I had AIR CONDITIONING--really GOOD a/c, in fact. We had a/c installed earlier this month.

*Daughter J. has been experiencing insomnia, difficulty breathing and chest pain. This results in numerous visits to doctors and specialists, who conclude that she is absolutely fine. This is a fairly common behavior/complaint in prepubescent girls. The pain may be real, but has no physical cause that they can determine. She is very dramatic and has kept us up late nightly, waking us to tell us that she cannot sleep.

*Good friend visits over 4th of July weekend. Loads of fun, but again, tiring.

*Baby that still wakes 2-4 times per night to nurse, occasionally won't go back to sleep for an hour or so.

*D. was out of town about 50% of June.

*Laptop died (making it harder to blog since I'm chained to the desk).

*BATS, BATS, and more BATS
In the past month, we have had 1 in the house, 1 in the basement, 1 baby drowned in our pool, another baby on the pool deck, and 1 sandwiched between the circuit board and the metal housing of our NEW a/c fan motor. The first 2 were just irritating, chasing them around at night. The drowned one was no problem.

The one on the pool deck, however, was touched by a visiting child who didn't see it (it was on the black handle of a toy) and it bit her. Bit is actually an overstatement--it didn't break the skin and left a mark only visible if you really looked hard for it. I thought nothing of it, told her not to touch it again. When she told her mother about the incident later, her mother, who incidentally is a friend of mine, and has had some experience with this, called the doctor. He insisted that she bring the child in immediately to begin rabies shots and have the bat tested if possible. Thankfully, the bat, which was too young to fly, was still on the pool deck. It tested negative so poor K. only had to have one shot. It turns out that rabies is transmittable from ANY contact with a bat, and the protocol for giving shots varies by county in the state of Michigan. Stringent recommendations which seem like overkill, like the ones in my county, are due to a high prevalence of rabies in the bat population. My friend was actually told by hospital personnel that if you wake up and a bat has been flying around in your house (happens monthly at my house) everyone in the house should begin the shots while you have the bat tested, if you can catch it. Sounded strange to me, since these aren't vampire bats, but rather insect eating bats that wouldn't be interested in biting or bothering humans, but apparently rabid bats can act strangely and rabies is absolutely fatal without treatment within a certain amount of time.

The last bat cost us hundreds of dollars in air conditioning repairs.

We then spent more money hiring a pest control expert to come out, determine where the bats are entering our house and seal it up, leaving one exit that is set up as a one way door so they can't re-enter. Also known as the world's most expensive caulk job.

*RETREAT!! A work retreat for D. that families are invited to attend, at a beautiful resort in northern Michigan. Meals are provided, so it meant no planning, shopping for, cooking or cleaning up after meals for me! Also no housework, since maids clean the rooms. It included a small "water park" consisting of a beautiful pool with a zero depth entry, slides and fountains and basketball hoops; a 32 foot climbing wall; very nice golf course; lovely landscaping everywhere. We got "wowed" many times by D's colleagues from around the country for the size of our family, but in general people were very nice. We also received many compliments on our kids, who really behaved absolutely perfectly all of the many times they were out in public during the 4 days we spent there (we went a day early). After we checked out on Saturday, we went to a Lake Michigan beach and spent the day, driving home very late. It was a much needed renewal for me. I had become very frazzled. Although the summer is theoretically less busy for me, it sure didn't feel that way. I got way behind on things that needed attention, like cleaning the fridge and paying the bills, yet still had no time for myself and spent very little quality time with my kids doing things like reading books and playing games. It was taking all my effort just to tread water--no forward progress. Hopefully things will be better the rest of the summer.