Illinois State Fair

If Katie hadn't invited us, we wouldn't have gone this year, but I'm really glad she brought it up. Alice and Robert attended their first State Fair today. Bobby went to work for Hack Day and a number of other important meetings, so he missed out.

When Bobby asked Alice to tell him about the fair, Alice said she got to ride to Springfield in the car behind Katie and surprise her by kicking her seat. Then Alice described what it was like to fall asleep in the car on the way home and wake up when we pulled into the driveway.

Um, yeah. What on earth did she think we did today?

Here are some pictures Katie took, since I failed to pull out my camera even once:

Alice bravely asked to pet this sheep just waiting to be judged in the next round.

This little boy heard Alice ask to pet the sheep and ran off to get his own sheep to show us. Then he chased Robert around trying to get him to pet the sheep, too, "She's really tame!"

Robert petting a turtle.

Alice the Conservation Police Officer...concerned for the future of our natural resources.

A few other highlights from our fair adventure:

• Alice: "I want to play games and win or buy something!" Check. Thank goodness for educational booths with gameshow-like questions and free, temperature-sensitive pencils.

• A friendly, educational vendor calls to Alice: "Hi there, little lady. You want to come in and shoot some arrows?" Alice raises her arms to cover her ears, furrows her brow, and vehemently exclaims, "No!" "Are you sure? I can help you do it." "NOOOOOO!" Alice was scared of pretty much everything in the Conservation World section: rifle shooting, archery, bow fishing, whip demonstrations. I was just trying to figure out why hunting was such an important part of the Illinois Conservation movement.

• An American Chemical Society "chemistry show" that the kids actually sat through. I have no idea why, since even I was eager to escape after the first few minutes. We were on the front row, unfortunately, and the audience was small. I did win a dollar for answering a trivia question, though.

• I actually saw the blue ribbon turnips this year. And peaches. So much delicious-looking produce!

• High diving show cancelled due to a severe thunderstorm rolling in. But the apple cider slushies were truly delicious, and hanging out in the Artisan Building was a surprising treat.

• Alice got her face painted for free, and Katie scored her a couple of "Incredible Egg" tattoos. Just in time, too, since her Nature Day Camp tattoos have finally faded beyond recognition.

• Robert didn't do much beyond riding in the stroller. He liked seeing the pigs and sheep up close, but he was disappointed that the sheep didn't say "baaaa" for him. 

Speaking of Eggs...

We visited Coil Farm (Mansfield, IL) this morning and got a thorough tour of their new egg-laying setup. Over 300 golden buff hybrid hens, free-range, conventional feed and medical treatment. My friend from Mothers and More hooked us up. What fun! I got to ask ALL of my questions and see what it takes to put out 20 dozen eggs a day. The candling is still done by eye, but the grading machine was my favorite (besides the super-happy chickens running about). Their hens are all exactly the same age and they're getting the whole range of egg sizes. The jumbo eggs are usually double-yolked, which isn't very pleasant for the hen to produce. It means her egg-laying cycle "skipped" a day and caught up the next. Poor little hen. Most eggs are medium and large right now, but grading depends on weight, not volume. Some smaller eggs can be pretty dense. Amazing.

They're transitioning into a "rotational grazing" setup, but the fact that they could rebuild the barn, remodel the inside, raise 300+ chicks to maturity, and provide ample free-ranging grass in a matter of months just blows me away. They even managed to keep all of their hens alive through drought and record high temps. What a crazy year to start an egg farm :)

I'm not interested in managing an operation this large, but I love to see my friend doing it. I look forward to watching her experience unfold over the next few years. I love to see the chickens socializing and running around and acting like plain old chickens, too. These are happy chickens. Healthy, vigorous, glossy, curious.

My friend and her father are planning to raise fryers/broilers this fall, too. That's a totally different experience altogether. The best birds for meat tend to be fragile and ugly and aggressive. They grow too large to stand on their own legs in only 6 weeks, way before they're even sexually mature (the layers we visited today are 6 months old, by comparison). It's a joke to call most fryers/broilers free-range because they don't actually move that much. They just eat. And sit. And peck at each other.
Even with organic feed and acres to roam, their life isn't that pleasant. It's an eye-opening experience. Do I care about the quality of life of the animals I eat? Yes, sort of. Enough to raise/purchase happy "dual-purpose" chickens that enjoy 12 weeks of free-range, slower growth before slaughter? I don't know. Gotta think about that one a little more. Once you start raising laying hens, it's not that far of a stretch to raise meat birds...if you want to. Slippery slope ;)

SHE LAID AN EGG!

The first egg! Our ladies were acting weird yesterday. One of the australorps was spending a lot of time scratching around up in the coop and Penny was freaking out down below. Penny was screaming like she was being attacked, then the whole cluster was noisily cluck-cluck-clucking. They usually just moan and whine. Alice and I let them out of the pen for a little walk, thinking they were nervous about something. Anyway, the one chicken stayed in the coop and Penny and the other two went for a tasty walkabout eating grass and chasing bugs. They were remarkably well-behaved this time. Alice was able to gently corral them wherever she wanted them to go, even back into the pen. We're calling her the chicken whisperer, now. She beams with pride at the new title.

The chickens' instincts have them look for a secluded, dark space to lay their eggs. I'm glad the coop passes the instinct test. It would be gross to have them laying eggs randomly on the pen floor. A chicken's first eggs are irregularly-timed and itty-bitty. I think the technical term for this size is actually "pee-wee." The eggs will get bigger and more regular as the hen gets older. One egg every 25-27 hours. 

It's funny that the baby chicks were purchased on Bobby's birthday and they started laying the day after my birthday. About five months.

(Un)Happy Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I did absolutely nothing to celebrate it. That was the worst birthday ever. I had planned it that way, actually, thinking that birthdays weren't that important to me and that I hated to draw attention to myself, blah blah blah. Well, I woke up that morning grumpy, did everything I would normally have done on a Monday, and had slumped into a true depression by bedtime. I was on the verge of tears. I had stopped caring about anything. Even the well-wishes of friends and family had seemed a mockery. I didn't answer the phone...sorry, Julia, but I was in too dark of a mood to want anything but an early bedtime.

I don't like that feeling.

So, I learned something about myself this birthday. I don't want much. I just want the day to be somehow different from all the rest. I don't need a public party or more attention from people (heavens no!), but a cake would be nice. On the actual day. We did invite Katie and Alex over on Saturday night for my birthday dinner and the game of Life. It was awesome! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I simply should have scheduled it for Monday instead :)

Despite the fog of disappointment, there were two bright moments in the day that I would like to remember:

First, making s'mores by candlelight at Marie's house. My kids were terrified of the flames, but we all enjoyed the gourmet touch of using Symphony bars instead of Hershey's. Oh, mama! I loved the simple elegance and fun of doing something familiar in a new way. Just plain delightful.

Second, watching Robert stomp through mud puddles with reckless abandon. We came home from Marie's house and had some time before Bobby came home from work. It had rained off and on during the day and there were several large, oozy, irresistible mud puddles at the bottom of our driveway. I pulled up a lawn chair and just watched that boy play for 30 minutes...jumping, sliding, running, tiptoeing, scooping, and slipping until his clothes were a mess and I couldn't wait another moment before preparing dinner (Alice was inside the house perusing a new stash of books she had just borrowed from Marie. She changed her clothes and got in on the last few minutes of the romping, but only played long enough to barely warrant a bath with Robert.)

We bathed the kids, ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and couldn't think of anything new or different or fun to do for the rest of the evening. Absolutely ZERO planning had gone into that day and suddenly I realized that was a bad idea. That won't happen again.

Since then, however, I've been in a delightful mood. We had freakishly good fruit smoothies for breakfast featuring strawberries from our own garden. I had a long chat with my good friend Rachel. We finally got a letter telling us Alice's Kindergarten teacher assignment (Ms. Howery! Huzzah!). My friend, Marianne, made me a gingerbread cake with lemon curd topping and my little family lit a candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. That was one excellent day. A great way to pull a crappy birthday from the fire :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well this week has been nice.  The weather was a lot cooler, and we got to spend the first part of the week on vacation.  We went to St. Louis on Monday.  We did the zoo monday.  The weather was hot, but not bad.  The zoo was packed.  We got to see a lot of fun things.  Then we went to the Hotel.  We ate dinner at the hotel and then went out for ice cream.  After ice cream we went for a swim in the hotel pool.  Both Alice and Robert had a really good time swimming.  Alice got brave enough that she did 12 bobs, where she put her face in the water.  She did was so proud of herself.  The next day we went to the temple and then drove home.  It was a very long day.