Guy Reads

Guy (that's my nickname for my husband) doesn't bother with too many pages of the newspaper that don't contain box scores. I do what I can to keep him abreast of pressing agricultural issues, which means it's time for another installment of Guy Reads, the exciting segment where I share with you the news items I clip out of the paper for my husband.

From CNN: In European news of the are you kidding me nature, locals are selling space in their haylofts for tourists -

In Germany and its European neighbors Austria and Switzerland, a long weekend in a converted barn - sleeping on a bed of freshly raked hay -- is fast becoming the 'staycation' of choice.

Yes, hotels with beds made out of hay are the newest rage. The article says people are booking these primitive accommodations for honeymoons--so they can take a literal roll in the hay, I guess.

Readers of this blog know by now that no American farmer would even let you SIT on their valuable hay, let alone roll in it.

Thanks to USA Today, surprising news that most of us are lactose intolerant. Humans are the only species whose adults consume milk--and we're glad they do.

I include this article so husband can be aware of a scientific study that affects our family's particular line of agriculture. Also because it includes this tasty turn of phrase, "undigested sugars end up in the colon, where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating, nausea, flatulence and diarrhea."

If I wasn't before, I'm certainly more leery now of sharing a hay bed with a European.

County Fair Preview

Every year I get ambitious and make multiple non-pig entries at the county fair. This year, for the first time, we actually practiced the kids' decorated cupcakes--although we went through three bags of Oreos before getting to it.

Here is Justin's planned entry. I hope you can tell that it's an owl. Let me just say that I shopped for two weeks, looking at every check-out I visited before finding a box of Runts for the candy banana used as the beak.

Morgan placed each one of these jelly bean "kernels" on this ear-of-corn cupcake. The pat of butter is a Starburst. The corn holders are real. I grated a little Oreo crumbs on the top to simulate pepper.

I must confess that these are not original creations. We got a great deal of help from a fun cupcake book, Hello, Cupcake! (I am not affiliated with them, just like the book)

With a week until fair entries are due, I hope I haven't given away too much. I will keep my scarecrow under wraps until the fair starts but here's a hint--it took eight bottles of bleach and eight sets of lips to complete.

Most Popular Dayton Media on Twitter

I took my popular Dayton Media Twitter list and did a little analysis this week to determine the most frequently followed Dayton journalists on Twitter.

1. Dayton Daily News - Hal McCoy - 1375 followers


2. WHIO TV7 - 1281 followers


3. Dayton Daily News - 1244 followers


4. WDTN TV2 - 1217 followers


5. Dayton Daily News - Ohio Politics - 865 followers


6. Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Wine - 861 followers


7. WDTN TV2 - Kennan Oliphant - 645 followers


8. Dayton Daily News - Kim Margolis - 606 followers


9. Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Food - 601 followers


10. WHIO TV7 - Rich Wirdzek - 550 followers

*Followers as of Aug. 20, 2009.

A few observations on this list:

• Congratulations to @HalMcCoy_Reds, Dayton's most popular journalist on Twitter. Unfortunately, Hal has been given his walking papers, so perhaps he won't be Tweeting for the paper for long.


• Jeff Booth of WRGT/WKEF TV easily made the top ten, but I took him out of contention because his Twitter account is largely personal.


• Kennan Oliphant is the most prolific individual media Twitter account with 3,564 updates.


• Mark Fisher, columnist for the Dayton Daily News, should be recognized for holding TWO of the top ten most popular media Twitter accounts in Dayton.
  

To see how all the media on my Dayton Twitter list fared, see my spreadsheet.

Tip of the hat to Ed Bennett for this idea--his applied to hospitals on Twitter.

And That's When the Fight Started...

Today, local radio DJs were inviting people to call in and share their stories of domestic bliss that end with the phrase, and that's when the fight started... One poor woman called in to say she was very pregnant with her daughter and she borrowed a red dress from a friend. When her husband saw her in it he yelled, Hey Kool-Aid! And that's when the fight started...

I was very tempted to call in but like so many of the stories I want to tell about my home life, my most recent and that's how the fight started story requires agricultural definitions, explanation of rural culture and possibly a quick refresher on the birds and the bees.

Let's go back to the beginning... (harp music, harp music, harp music, waaaaves)

Husband showed up to a farmer meeting a few years ago and was put in charge of procuring awards for the Champion and Reserve Champion Yorkshire gilts at the Ohio State Fair. A position, I am finding out, that has the same term of office as U.S. Supreme Court Justice--forever.

So now husband is in charge of ordering the annual awards. The first year I stayed out of it. The kids who won with their prize Yorkshire pigs got a check in the mail after the show was over.

The subsequent years I got involved and we ordered embroidered lawn chairs (they still got a check), which are a very popular way for kids to brag about their accomplishment when they bring the chair to the barn at the next show.

This year, after scoping out the award chairs kids were bringing to the shows, I got crazy and decided to order a chair with a pig embroidered on it.


Yorkshire pigs are all-white (pink) pigs that have ears that stand up. Note that other breeds of all-white pigs have floppy ears that hang down--this will be important in a second. Gilts are female pigs that have not been bred--or at least that's what is implied by their purity rings.

Let's play a game now. Pretend you are a serious pig farmer. What's wrong with this picture. (Jeopardy music, Jeopardy music)

The pig is actually white. This photo doesn't do it justice. That part I got right. One big problem is that this pig has a wee-wee underneath. He's a boy.

Also, look at those ears. THEY ARE POINTING DOWN. THE CHAIR IS RUINED. HOW COULD WE GIVE OUT THIS ATROCITY?

And that's when the fight started.

In my defense, I ordered the pig sight unseen from Friendly Suburban-Dwelling stitchery ladies who only knew that I specifically asked for a white pig that was NOT a cartoon. I figured discussions with them over the phone of Yorkshire breed characteristics and gender indicators would really be too much. It's a representation, not a photo.

I had also forgotten to have them sew Yorkshire gilt on there so what we had was a chair that said: Jr. Show Champion
[image of male pig not of the Yorkshire persuasion]
Ohio State Fair

I fell on my sword and offered my resignation as Special Assistant to the Farmer Who has to Acquire Awards for the Ohio State Fair Yorkshire Show. Fearing that he may lose a valuable contributor to many of his agricultural endeavors, he got in the car and drove the chairs back to the stitchery ladies to add the missing words.

And that's when the fight ended.

Bonding Over the Fake Cow

Once again the worlds of PR, agriculture and motherhood come together!

After I tweeted and blogged about the fake cow in the Agriculture & Horticulture building at the Ohio State Fair and all the great exhibits provied by the Oho Farm Bureau, I received this @ reply.


They had a previously unidentified photo of my kids riding pedal tractors in the Farm Bureau Booth! Kudos to Ohio Farm Bureau for using social media to sow the seeds of loyalty among its membership. What a great case study for any association.

Click on the photo.

Experiencing the Fair

I set the bar pretty high with my last Multi-Media Pig Show Report, so I decided to switch things up at bit at the Ohio State Fair. Posing as non-farm civilians, the kids and I left the barn and infiltrated many fair attractions. Husband stayed behind so as not to arouse suspicion among the other farmers that we were out actually enjoying the sights.


Nothing says Oh my God, my tits are rubber and I only produce water like the look on this fake cow's face. Ryan, Justin and Morgan couldn't get enough of this. I had to drag them away from the water-producing cow so we could move on to other attractions. It only seems fair that kids who have never seen a cow in their life should take precedent over kids who have 40 cows milking outside their back door twice a day, 365 days a year.


Thanks to a very friendly Division of Wildlife officer, Justin was able to catch this fish at the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources park inside the fairgrounds. We passed on taking the fish home with us. I'm not sure what a plastic bag filled with dead fish would be like on our third day at the fair.

We passed through the sheep barn and feeling very touristy I snapped this photo of some very interesting sheep. They all assured me that they had nothing against goats and in fact had some goat friends.

All three kids enjoyed playing putt-putt in the cattle barn surrounded by educational displays of the protein content of beef and interesting kabob recipes.

We arrived home in time to do laundry and turn around and send the boys back to the fair with their grandparents a day later to show another trailer load of pigs. I'm sure their grandfather, last-man-in-the-barn-Don, will keep them focused on the business at hand. Fortunately, there will be other relatives around who can take them to ride pedal tractors or see baby chicks or get tractor tattoos from the USDA. I just hope that poor cow and her rubber udders are ready.

Is There a Pig Farmer in the House?

pigs
Originally uploaded by Flamestitch

How often are any of us called out in public to perform our special occupational skills? Do people stop at the mall and scream out, IS THERE ANYONE HERE WHO CAN COMBINE SYNERGIES OR OPTIMIZE INDUSTRY-LEADING SOLUTIONS?

No, unless you are a physician, your day-to-day work abilities are very unlikely to be tapped in a public crisis.

So imagine my surprise this past weekend at the Ohio State Fair when the ability to rouse a lactating sow would come into play in a crowd situation.

Inside the hog barn at the State Fair is a nice air-conditioned store called the Pork Schop. Staffed by a team of dedicated volunteers, the shop sells anything and everything with pigs on it. The area features a play place for kids, and, in a separate pen, a real live sow and a litter of pigs.

Morgan and I were enjoying some down time at the kids area next to the growing crowd of non-farmers and children checking out the cute little pigs. When one piglet started squealing I didn't pay attention. There are always pigs squealing somewhere in a hog barn.

The squealing stopped and people started turning away. I heard one woman say I can't watch this. Figuring the sow was doing something gross, like peeing on unsuspecting urbanites, I kept shopping and Morgan kept playing.

Finally, someone said to one of the volunteers that a little pig was getting squashed. In moments, these women, who fortunately were retired farm wives, sprang from behind their table of figurines, opened the gate and began fearlessly smacking the 400 lb sow to make her get up.

One retired farm wife pushed and one kept smacking until they were able to pull the piglet out from under its mother. His little ears were purple from lack of blood flow but he was breathing.

The heroics of the volunteers was the talk of the Pork Schop for days. Husband said I should have jumped in to get involved but I am holding out for a crisis that meets my unique skill set.

So if anyone ever has a crisis that involves breastfeeding a baby in the hog barn while prepping the COO by phone for a media interview--then I'm your woman.

Image from Flickr.