Salinas Valley Fair!

Have you ever been to a fair? I mean, a REAL fair?

Yesterday was truly a brand-new experience for me. I have been to the Ventura County Fair several times. I've seen all the swine and steer and stuff... but I never really understood the

whole "process" till yesterday.

I have about 20 students in my class - 10 of whom have been raising animals for 4-H. Yesterday, at the Salinas Valley Fair in King City, my kids all got to "show" their animals for (oh gosh, I've already forgotten the word... but it's for the meat/fat and overall look of the animal) and today they're showing for "showmanship" - how well their animal obeys them, etc. I learned more about pigs and lambs and cows than I think I've ever wanted to know!

Did you know...

- (at this fair) there are six different categories that the pigs can be classified into? Pink, Pink with Spots, Pink and Black, Black, Brown, and Red... I never knew there were RED pigs.

- when the 4-H-ers present their lambs, they have the animals lean against them? The owner pushes against the sheep and the sheep pushes back, so that the "muscle" of the hind legs is showing for the judges to see... it looked so weird!

- there's a sort of 'pressure point' on the rear-ends of pigs and lambs (not sure about cows...) that if you press on it, the animal will automatically move their legs so you can situate them how you want them to stand.

- some people make clothes for their lambs, before they show them, so that they don't get dirty.

- if a pig is underweight, something that is commonly done is feed them soda or Kool-Aid?!?

- baby powder is used on pink pigs to make them look better and baby oil is used on black pigs to make them shinier!

- When the pigs are judged, the 4-H owners have to prod their pigs with a stick while they steer their pigs toward the one judge, who stands in the middle of the arena... The kids also have to try and keep eye-contact with the judge the whole time - a few of the kids looked like they were all crazy-eyed and never blinked while staring down the judge :)

A few of the sights of yesterday's experience!

There was so much for me to learn!

I also didn't know that there are A LOT of different categories (besides animals) that 4-H members can enter! There's also Produce, Welding, Photography, Scrapbooking, Cookie Baking, Weirdest-Looking Pie Baking, Floral Arranging, Vase Making, and the list goes on and on and on!

One of my 8th graders took Best-In-Show for a drawing she made and two of my 7th graders took Best-In-Show for a photo and a scrapbook page! (I'd like to think they took some of my tips on composition of a photo, using the macro lens, etc. for photography, and finding a "color scheme" ) One of my 8th graders also won Weight Champion (aka 1st place) for her pig!

It was a whole lot of fun, seeing the kids "in their element" and showing off all of their hard work that they've put into these animals and artistry. I KNOW that it seems silly that we took off 2 days from school for the fair... but if you think about it, if I had 10 kids out to be with their animals, I wouldn't be able to teach anything anyway. And I'm not jumping on the "let's not do schoolwork after STAR testing" bandwagon, but I will say that I think the fair is a good thing, and that as long as they don't come back completely forgetting everything we did last week, I'd have to say I'm an advocate for this whole "pig" thing :)