Just a few things

1. Martin is finally feeling better. I’m taking him back to Purdue this week for a recheck ultrasound of his heart and kidneys. We’re expecting good news. After all, he picked a fight with Pretzel and then cuddled on my lap last night.

2012 Taste From Indiana Farms

Last week I spent 3 days at the Indiana State Fair working the Taste From Indiana Farms event. This event is put on by the Women’s Leadership Committee of the Indiana Farm Bureau every year.

The Indiana Farm Bureau has 10 districts. Each year, every district is assigned a different commodity. This year, my district had fruit. I found an orchard in our area, and loaded up the back of my truck with 120 pounds of apples – enough to give a sample to each of the almost 5,000 people we expected to see over the next 3 days.

2012 Gibson County Fair

Last week was our county fair, and as always it was a crazy week! Farmer Doc is on the Fair Board, and he spends the entire week on the grounds. Like last year, the board asked me to take pictures of some of the events, so I spent a bunch of time at the fair, too.

The fair opened Sunday night with hog wrestling. It had rained earlier that day (yay!) so the crowd wasn’t that great, but the mud was just right!

Taste of Indiana Farms

One of the fun things I got to do at the Indiana State Fair in August was to run the Farm Bureau Taste of Indiana Farms booth for the southwest part of Indiana.

Each part of the state (“districts,” in Farm Bureau talk) had a commodity to feature. We had pork. Yum!

I worked with Dewig’s Meats so we had some great barbecued pulled pork to give away to everyone who came through the three-day event. We had some great volunteers from our district, including my husband. Hubby Doc had a blast talking to almost 5000 people over three days!!

There was free popcorn in the front of the building, and lots more free food in the back of the building.Everybody had a blast, even the kids!This is not just a Farm Bureau event! The Indiana Watermelon queen was there, giving out watermelon slices. And the Indiana Honey Queen was there, passing out honey samples.

(We tried to get them to have a Queen showdown, to see who was the “Top Queen,” but they wouldn’t go for it. Such well-behaved young ladies!)

Did I mention that Indiana Pork gave us temporary pig tattoos to give out? Everybody wanted a pig tattoo, even me! (I may have put on more than one…)

Yes, you could say I got into the spirit of things and collected some flair over the couple of days…Mark your calendars – we’ve already got the dates scheduled for next year! Come visit us in the Farm Bureau building at the Indiana State Fair on August 14-16, 2012. I’ll be organizing fruit for next year, so come on by and learn what kind of fruit Indiana grows. I bet you’ll be surprised! There will be free popcorn, free food, and more flair than you can shake a stick at! What else is there?

Oh, and the whole rest of the fair. You’ll probably want to see that also.

Week of travel

At least this time, Hubby Doc and I were together on our travels!

Last week was a pretty busy week for us. We left Monday evening to head up to Indianapolis so we could be at the Indiana State Fair first thing Tuesday morning. We arrived after the tragedy of the stage collapsing before the concert on Saturday night, but the mood was still a little subdued on the grounds.

We were working in the Farm Bureau building at the Taste of Indiana Farms event for three days on the state fairgrounds.

Hubby Doc got to talk to new people for three straight days. He hated it. Or maybe he loved it. Is he smiling?

Friday morning, after our fair responsibilities were done, we packed up and headed to Grand Rivers, Kentucky for the weekend. Monday was our two-year wedding anniversary, and we wanted to have a weekend away that wasn’t tied to work in some way or another.

Grand Rivers is this really tiny village in Western Kentucky, nestled between Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake. Just south of Grand Rivers is the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.

We had a very low-key, relaxing weekend. We had no schedule, and no itinerary. It was awesome. We saw a show at the Badgett Playhouse, and spent a bunch of time in the LBL Park.

We slept in on Sunday, drove over to Paducah, KY and spent some more time in the LBL Park before we started a lazy drive back home.

More details to come on all of this later this week. I’m still trying to catch up from the week of being gone! My computer also liked the vacation, and he is whining about having to go back to work this week, too.

Of course, Hubby Doc left this morning for Chicago, and I’m headed to Indianapolis again on Friday… so back on the merry-go-round!

County fair, check!

Our county fair wrapped up on Saturday. Hubby Doc just loves the fair. He is on the fair board, and takes a week of vacation so he can work at the fair all week.

I do not have the same love for the fair. I didn’t grow up around it, I was never in 4-H, and frankly, most of the time I just don’t get it.

This year, I took the plunge and volunteered to be one of the photographers for the many events at the fair. I was hot and sweaty all week (and tired!), but I got some great photos!

Now, I didn’t get around to all the events (we have a lot going on!), but here’s the highlights of the ones I did get…

This was the second year we had an adult pedal tractor pull. Here is Hubby Doc competing. I also pulled, and won the girls’ class. But the pictures were… shall we say… unflattering. So I will not post them. Not even if you beg.

Of course, lots and lots of animals. Some goats hanging out waiting their turns…A cow getting all gussied up for her show… And a horse trying very hard not to mess up his pretty hair.

We also had some dog agility classes this year. There was agility for big dogs…

And for little dogs…

Next year, I want to start a cat agility class. I will enter Martin.

Or maybe not…

We had some go-kart racing.(Seriously, how did I get that picture? Wow!)

We played volleyball in the mud (and by “we,” I most certainly do not mean “me.”)And because we didn’t get enough mud on volleyball night, we also wrestled pigs in the mud. And we had a demo derby, with plenty of crash-bang-smoke-fire. Everyone (apparently) loves a good demo derby.The final night of the fair was the Lee Brice concert. I missed that because my good friend Kristi got married the same night at Turkey Run State Park. Wedding… country concert… wedding… country concert. Yep, it wasn’t much of a choice for me. Wedding!All that fun and excitement, and the fair only got rained out one night! One more Gibson County Fair down… and a whole year until the next one!

State Fair Ticket winner!

Congratulations…  Crystal!

Please email me with your address to claim your prize!

We had a blast at the fair, and I’ll have lots of photos to post over the next few days.  Once I get all 400 off my fancy camera, that is!

Special thanks for the Indiana Soybean Alliance for the State Fair Tickets (mine and the giveaway set), and to Indiana Dairy, Indiana Pork, and Indiana Beef for feeding us yesterday!

It’s Indiana State Fair Day!

Today’s the day!

Thanks to the Indiana Soybean Alliance, my hubby and I and some of my bloggy friends are headed to the Indiana State Fair today with some complimentary tickets.

We’ll get some behind the scenes views of what goes on at the fair, and have some yummy fair food.  (Nothing like a day at the fair to make you decide that TOMORROW is the day to start watching what you eat!)

I’ll be Twittering about the goings-on, so be sure to watch the Twitter feed here.  Or, better yet, just go ahead and follow me on Twitter!  Later this week I’ll be blogging about what we did in a little more detail than the Twitter adventures.

If you haven’t entered yet, don’t forget to enter for the Indiana State Fair Ticket Giveaway here, and at my GOODe friend’s sites!  You can enter until midnight tonight (Eastern time), and I’ll announce the winner at noon on Tuesday.  (And, yes, if you entered at the WordPress site, you’re still entered.)

It’s State Fair Time!

Are you ready for some State Fair fun?






Some GOODe friends and I are getting ready for Family Fair Days with GOODEness Gracious 'N Friends at the Indiana State Fair! We will be visiting the State Fair and giving you some behind the scenes looks at awesome State Fair activities sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance!

To kick things off right today, the Indiana Soybean Alliance has given me and all of my friends  4 Indiana State Fair tickets each to giveaway on our blogs to our readers!

So here is how you enter:

• The winner of 4 Indiana State Fair Tickets (courtesy of the Indiana Soybean Alliance) will be chosen at random on August 10.  I will post the winner at noon.
• Each person is eligible for 3 entries: 1 entry for following this blog, 1 entry for commenting, and 1 entry for becoming a fan of Alarm Clock Wars on Facebook.
• GOODEness Gracious is offering an extra entry for becoming a fan of GOODEness Gracious on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Goodenessgracious
• Please leave a separate comment below for each entry. (If you are already a blog follower or Facebook fan, please just post a separate comment saying so :)
• Hop on over to all of the following blogs for multiple chances to win!
  
  
  
  • 2 Maids a Milking
  • 3 Kids and Lots of Pigs
  • A Latte with Ott, A
  • Beyer Beware
  • Fence Row to Fence Row
  • Frugalista Farmlife
  • Gal in the Middle
  • Going Jane
  • GOODEness Gracious
  • Life is a Highway and Mine’s Surrounded By Corn
  • Off the Cuff and Indypendent

Pedal Tractors

It is fair time in this part of Indiana, and boy are we in it!  Our fair started on July 4th, and was hot, and wonderful.  The surrounding counties are also in full swing.

Around here, fairs mean 4H, food, and fun (more for some of us than others).  Hubby is on our county fair board, which means that he spends an extraordinary amount of time at the county fair (translation – more hours than it is open).  And we eat most (for him, all) of our meals at the fair during the week.

But there is a new addition to the Southwestern Indiana County Fairs this year – the Adult Pedal Tractor Pull!

Most likely you have seen (or at least heard of) tractor pulls.  It’s where a guy on a big loud tractor (or truck) is attached to a big sled that generates more and more friction with more distance traveled.  So the farther you go, the harder it is to pull.  And the guy who pulls the farthest, wins!

Our county fair has had a children’s pedal tractor pull for years.  There’s a mini pedal tractor (remember Big Wheels?  It’s that, but it’s a tractor) attached to a mini sled.  And the kid who pulls (pedals) the farthest wins. 

This year, the Southwestern Indiana Young Farmers Group managed to get their hands on an adult-sized pedal tractor with a sled.  (We’re borrowing it right now, but are hatching a plan to build our own.) 

The Gibson County and Posey County Fairs have both featured a new event – the Adult Pedal Tractor Pull!

John pulled in both the GC and the PC events.

He didn’t win, but he was a serious contender in the Gibson County event!

I did not pull in the Gibson County pull, but I sure did in the Posey County pull!

  

Don’t make fun of the unflattering pictures – those things are heavy!

And, hey, I won my event!  We had a $2.00 charge to play; 50% payout to the winner, and the rest was donated to Farmers Feed Us.  All of 6 women competed, but $6 bought me dinner at the fair that night!

You can see pictures of the Gibson County Adult Pedal Pull (and so much more!) on Facebook – search for Gibson County Fair.