County Fair

While strolling through the county fair yesterday and today, I became aware of just how much my mindset has changed over the past several years...

It used to be that looking at the animals was a novelty and the midway, games, and consession stands were the highlights (which is still the case for the kids) of the fair.  This year was different for me.  Looking at the animals, I was more aware of their breeds, uses, quality, and approximate market values.  I found myself being slightly envious, not of the owners of the animals, but of the parents of all the 4-H kids.  Granted, this is only our second year on our "homestead", but I hope that some of our children will take enough interest in self sufficiency and farming to become involved in such an amazing club.  I think a parent's proudest moment is when their child demonstrates the core values that they have been raised with.

Hopefully, if they decide they want to, we will be in a position within the next year or two to enable our kids to pursue any 4-H interests they may choose, if they choose to do so.

Seeing all those amazing creatures also reminded me of how far we have yet to go toward our goal of providing most of our own food.  We want to breed pigs - we still need a new divided fence and 2 pig huts.  We want a milk cow and a meat cow - we would need yet another fence and a 2 stall cow barn.  We will be breeding 3 of our goats this fall - we need a milking parlor build before spring.

A simple solution to most of our livestock barriers would be to build a large new garage for my husband and use our huge pole barn for livestock.  We would simply need to build the fence off the back of it and fit it with stalls for the various animals.  A milking room could easily be built inside also.  Now to figure out how and where to build him a new garage...  and how to pay for it.
On another note:  Today I picked another 3 quarts of green beans from our garden, and the tomatoes are starting to ripen.  I think I'm going to make a batch of dilly beans this weekend.