Wonderful fatigue!

You know how it is when you are tired and run down but you don't really feel like you have done anything to have earned that tiredness? Well, today is not that day!

It is the first day of the County Fair here, and our crew is busy! There was working at the horse barn, getting tack stalls set up and decorating done. Then it was off to show all their projects that they have all done over the last year - these are tangible things such as photography, artwork (drawing in our case), jewelry making, collections, models, etc. That needed to be done in a timely fashion, because then we had to send a couple of the kids back to the house to pick up the guinea pigs and cats that were entered for the showing in the late afternoon! A few hours of that, while we also worked in the 4H food stand rotating through (different family members at different times) for most of the afternoon and evening. Steve took the two oldest to their soccer game just as cat judging began. It went on until nearly nine (the cat judging, not the soccer game). And then it was load up the cats and guinea pigs and think about dinner. (The kids do not like to eat a full meal before a soccer game as they feel it affects their performance, so we end up with really late dinners.)

The overall results were quite good for the first day of fair - a couple red ribbons (second place) and a ton of blue ribbons (first place) and even one Best in Show! One of Kiley's cats took best in show and she was thrilled. It was a close run for Merit, and Faith was just barely beat out for that with her little kitty. She took it very well and was very pleased with her blue and the recommendation by the judge that she show her cat at an upcoming show, and that she would do quite well.

Tomorrow is entry day for chickens and rabbits - so we will be washing rabbits, trimming nails, cleaning ears and brushing them out. The chickens will then be washed - heard of "mad as a wet hen"? Yep, they mean it.

Chickens hate to be washed, plus, their ears are just holes in the sides of their heads and you don't want to get water in their ears - rumor has it they can get really sick. So, picture this: four black five gallon pails all lined up in a row. One with soapy water, one with "bluing" which is to make the white birds very bright white (honestly, it isn't bleach or anything like that, just another shampoo), then the next two are rinse pails.

You take the chicken first in line, hold it by the neck/head and feet and gently dunk it in the water, holding its head above the water, and dunk it up and down, and swish it side to side. Maybe do a bit of spot scrubbing if you have any extra hands. Then you do the same in the respective other buckets.

Needless to say, said chicken is not really happy at all about this. It can get quite interesting.

Then said chicken, now very angry, is put into a carrier/cage to dry and for transport to the fairgrounds. Again, not a happy chicken.

Multiply this by eighteen (or nineteen, I keep losing count - the kids know and I have the registration paperwork). I will make sure Steve has the camera tomorrow so we can try to put something visual behind this story.

As long as we have lots of time, and all of us have a good sense of humor, it is actually pretty funny. Maybe what is most funny is that we even do this at all. I was dumbfounded our first year when they told us to wash the chickens before we brought them in to show. Do what? How do you do that? Ugh.

So, we are praying for a lovely day tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the start of this post. We are tired. Tired in a good way. Tired because we did a lot on a day that was the beginning of a fun but very busy. It is a week of lots of labor, the culmination of the work of the entire year for 4H kids. And parents. We are tired and know that today it is well earned.

Upstairs it is very quiet. Generally it is a bit noisy for a little while after we send everyone to bed - the kind where mom and dad call up stairs for everyone to go to sleep. "Guys, we said go to bed - what part of "go to bed" would cause all the thumping/giggling/etc we are hearing??". But tonight, it didn't last more than a few minutes and it is absolutely silent now! I would guess that all five are sound asleep.

So what am I doing up?

Writing this.

Guess I should go to sleep too. I know that it will only take moments.
Goodnight. May you all sleep the sleep of those who have earned it, the sweetest kind! However you earned it.
God Bless!