What a fun weekend. Off we went to MSU for the Great Lakes Spring Holstein Show. Neighbor Melissa was kind enough to drive the truck and trailer for us. I followed with the car loaded down with all the important stuff like food and drinks.
We settled the heifers into their weekend home after Suzanna gave each of them a bath. After they dried off, Suzanna and I started clipping. What a job!!! I think we had enough hair to make another heifer by the time we were done. What a surprise to walk out of the Pavilion that night into a snow storm. There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground. Not much fun to drive in!!!
Friday morning, when we arrived at the barn, Thomas got very worried. He was the first one in the barn and couldn't see any of our heifers when he walked through the door. Not to worry, neighbor Melissa's son, JW had come up early for the Jr. Holstein fund raiser and since he had nothing else to do, took on the job of cleaning up the nighttime mess and washing our heifers. He had the first one done by the time we got there, so Suzanna helped him with the other two and morning chores were done. How nice to have the extra help!! Friday was also the cow sale that Rhoda should have sold in. I watched a lot of cattle sell while holding an unofficial show moms committee meeting. There are a lot of nice ladies to hang out with at these events and Friday was no exception. The kids attended the Junior Holstein meeting that evening and we headed off to the hotel soon after, since morning comes early on show morning.
JW came through again, as he stayed the night and got up really early, rode to the barn with another family and had the heifers washed early so they could dry and get their "tops blown up". This is an art learned over many years, and one we intend to master before the kids are finished with their show years. In the meantime, we rely on people with more practice than us and Saturday was no exception. Mr. VanRhee was happy to help out and carefully trimmed all but a little hair off the top line of each heifer. Then he used a "livestock" hair dryer to blow the hair up and then uses a product called Clear Magic, stuff with the holding power of industrial strength hair spray, to keep the hair where he wants it to be.
First up was showmanship. Fancy was the chosen animal, but Suzanna had her doubts about how she would behave. While practicing with her Friday afternoon, it didn't go well. It went bad enough in fact, that Suzanna was in tears over the way the heifer was behaving. Well, a switch went off in the heifer's head as they entered the ring Saturday morning, because she couldn't have behaved better in class. She set her feet like she was suppose to and even switched her feet when the judge switched sides. Suzanna came out of the class in first place. The smile on her face was huge. It was a great moment for Suzanna.
From there, she showed her two younger heifers and we were in the typical Hillsdale County position....at the bottom of the class. Then she showed Fancy again and was first with her. So we started and finished on good notes. We even had Frank Robinson, "The Bovine Beautician" get a picture of Fancy when it was all done.
We packed up our stuff, loaded everything up and headed for home. Everyone, including the heifers were tired, but I think we all had a great time. Now this morning reality really hit, as we were up and at 'em at the usual time. Spring break is over and in just 7 short weeks we will be done with school for the year. I suspect time will fly by.
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