Bringing Home the Bacon

My friend and fellow blogger, SoyBoyMama , is running a weekly series of Tuesday tidbits where she shares great ideas, like a simple way to keep kids puzzles from getting mixed together. Since I'm forever stealing her memes , I have a few tips to share too. Farm wife style. Tomorrow we are heading out to the Ohio State Fair for three days of pig showing. As a veteran fairgoer and mother, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to ensure a fun and safe trip. First, you never know what you'll encounter at the fair. Actually, you do: dust, messy food, sweat and manure. I carefully choose the bag I bring to the fair. It needs to be able to withstand spilled water (or pig pee if you're really unlucky) and wipe down easily if it gets dirty. I use this large bag I was fortunate enough to get for free a few years ago. It has survived several fairs and even a few nibbles from the pigs. Inside I pack a head-to-toe replacement set of clothes for each member of the family. Trust me. Wh

What do you see out your kitchen window? Last week I looked out my window to find three calves (plural of baby cow) eating the weeds from my flower bed. As you can see, Morgan and I sprang into action--to ensure the scene was documented for this blog. I never know what I'm going to see out my kitchen window. But I know this.... it will NEVER be someone else's kitchen window.

Every issue of Sports Illustrated has a brief quote titled Sign of the Apocolypse, a humorous but true sports news item that makes you wonder--have we gone too far? In that spirit, I present another installment of Sign of the Farmpocalypse, because I just can't make this stuff up. The Midwest Dairy Association has created a new Facebook app that allows you to create your own "Butter Cow" display, with you as the star.

Friend and fellow blogger Megan at SoyBoyMama has been keeping me on task this week with a new Round the Block posting  hosted over on her site. Go check it out! Don't forget to read our previous Round the Block columns here and here .

 Am I alone in this or am I correct that every choir in the 80s was obligated to own the sheet music to Rainbow Connection ? When I saw this beautiful rainbow over the corn field last week, I immediately heard the opening bars to the Muppet Movie and saw Kermit sitting in his swamp. Of course, my pop culture challenged and musically agnostic Husband knew nothing of it. Along with E.T .,  Back to the Future , Ghost Busters and Goonies , I'm adding the Muppet Movie to the list of movies I want my kids to see. If nothing else, they'll know what I'm talking about when I say phone home and who ya gonna call. Maybe next rainbow, we'll sing it together: Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me.

Bloggers Megan of Soy Boy Mama and Holly of Bringing Home the Bacon have survived growing up in the '80s, college, graduate school, married life, motherhood and the corporate jungle. They know from experience that the best way to (surprise!) birth children 18 months apart is to mock your friend who had kids 20 months apart. Karma is a b*tch. Holly : Our first column was such a huge success that we already have questions coming in. One, from a preacher looking for help on his sermon (I'm not joking about that) and another on Megan's site, oddly enough, wanting to get the definitions of some farm terms. Should we tackle them? Megan : Bring it. Since the request -- "I am extremely intrigued and just dying to know the difference between a blue butt and popper. Please explain." -- was submitted on my site and since I have actually walked the streets of Amsterdam's Red Light District, I'll answer that one first. The difference between a blue butt and a po

My children will never be lifeguards. Like their parents and grandparents before them, my children are destined not to be swimmers. How bad is their swimming genealogy? My mother graduated from college only because her counselor found a way to waive what was at that time a mandatory swimming credit. Likewise, my father-in-law barely made it through college without drowning in the university pool. Interesting side note: He went to Ohio State, which didn't allow clothing in the pool--so yes, he had to pass his all-male swimming class in the nude. ( I am NOT making this up ; these requirements still exist.) I have tried to help my children become real swimmers. As a kid I spent a LOT of time at the lake and developed some basic swimming skills but don't have any fancy strokes to share. Unfortunately, their father sinks like a stone, so I should have known our kids were not destined to take on Michael Phelps. Over the past few years I have tried a number of swimming lessons at a