Friday, July 30, 2010

Farm Wife Tips: Packing for the Pig Barn

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. When your four-year-old gets so exhausted that he pees himself in the barn, you'll be glad to have not only the underwear, but the socks. I bring a complete change of clothing for myself. Every Mom knows from experience that kids rarely get messy without sharing a little of the filth with Mom.

I pack each person's clothing in a Ziploc bag. First, it helps keep the clean clothes safe from the many perils of the pig barn. Second, in-barn clothes changes are usually happening in an emergency situation. It's great to be able to find the whole outfit quickly and easily. Third, the plastic bag can be a safe storage place for the icky dirty clothes.


Last year we ordered at set of tattoos with Husband's cell phone number on them from SafetyTat. These are a GREAT way to keep kids safe, especially at a place as big as the State Fair. We always keep an eye on the kids, but feel better knowing that if the little ones wander off, there is an easy way for the authorities to contact us. [I am not affiliated with SafetyTat. I just like their product.]

One last tip for all visitors to the fair. Unless you like the feeling of excrement between your toes--leave the flip flops at home!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Out My Kitchen Window

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.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Sign of the Farmpocalypse

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.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

“‘Round the Block” offends, er, I mean, offers perspective to a preacher

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.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Rainbow Connection

 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.

Monday, July 5, 2010

'Round the Block: Straight talk from two women just like you who have been there and done that.

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 popper is 10 euro and one extra round of antibiotics. No? Oh. Maybe you should answer that one, Holly.

Holly: Several years ago I went to a pig show in Oklahoma with my husband. I wanted to explore the little town while he was in the barn but our only vehicle was the full-size pick-up truck, so I went antiquing in Duncan with a little blue butt pig in the popper in the back of the truck.

A popper is a bottomless aluminum box that farmers put in the bed of their pick-ups to haul pigs. One farmer we knew learned the hard way that it is important to strap down your popper (insert dirty joke from Megan here); he was cruising down the interstate, heard a bang and saw his popper flying over the median and a very surprised looking pig standing in the back of the truck.


A blue butt is a "bi-racial" (crossbred is the proper term) pig, the product of a white (Yorkshire) mother and a black (Hampshire) father. Or, it can go the other way, like that couple on The Jeffersons. Blue butt pigs have a "blue" or dark roan coloring on their backside. The pigs are prized for their muscling and leanness and are commonly used as show pigs at county and state fairs.

Megan: So our takeaway here is always strap down your popper or risk losing your blue butt. Words to live by, people.

That's probably enough learnin' for one day. Next week's column will answer the preacher's question: Is it always better to look forward .. to never look back? (And dear reverend, I hope I didn't offend with my prostitution reference. Jesus did love the prostitutes. Luke 7:36-50.)

Wanna join us? We are looking for questions to answer. If you need advice, we'll dish some out but we also can just lend our views to the issues of the day, so feel free to just ask us. As Megan so eloquently put it: we are not experts in anything but we do a lot of stuff and love the variety. Participate in the comments anonymously or with your name and a link to your own blog.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

I Have Wasted My Last Nickel on Swim Lessons

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 number of pools. The first time I took Ryan to swimming lessons, he was one-year-old (you do ambitious things like that for your first kid). He was within the age range for the class BUT the teenage instructors didn't seem to realize they were dealing with a baby. The very first lesson they said now we're going to the deep end. I asked why. The kid responded well, they need to get used to the deep end for when they go off the diving board. MY SON IS 12 MONTHS OLD. I went back to the office, got my money back and never went there again.

The second time was at a different pool. The instructor seemed more mature, the class small, but she had some book she followed for the lessons, which had her teaching my kid who could barely put his face in the water a complicated backstroke. Waste. Of. Time.

I could go on about the shivering four-year-olds crying at the edge of the pool, the class of 13,000 kids taught by two guys younger than my socks.... It's been a nightmare. So I am declaring now--and let the PC mommy armies advance--that we are not doing anymore swim lessons.

I want my children to be safe around water and I want them to develop basic dog paddling but the 1500 meters Butterfly is not in our future.

Appointment Pooping

  NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did. I recently became you-better-get-a-colonosco...