Summer Fairs and Fall Harvests

I actually started this blog a few weeks ago, but since we have such horrible internet, it kept freezing when I would try to upload pictures, even though I had reduced the size and quality. So I gave up. Sorry. But now I am determined to get it done and it seems to be working as long as I only blog weekday mornings and put the pictures on the absolute lowest quality and size. So here we go…

One of the things I love about Iowa is the culture of farming. As we start our own hobby farm, it is fun to expose our kids to this farming culture and watch them get excited. In August, we went to the Iowa State Fair. I have to admit that I kind of liked the Big E on the East Coast a little better. It was smaller and more intimate and they had better "entertainment" in the form of a circus and acrobats and such. The Iowa State Fair was just so big and most of the entertainment was in the form of various competitions not always involving the most talented of people but there were some definite highlights. Also, because so many animals are judged at the fair, they only do one breed of each type of animal per day. So the day we happened to go, only the Suffolk sheep were there when we really wanted to see all of the different sheep as we made our decision of what to raise next year.

Oh well, we made our decision anyway. We have a starter flock of 5 Katahdin ewe lambs and 1 ram ordered. We'll pick them up next April so now we are trying to get all of our perimeter fencing redone before it snows. But back to the fairs...

The kids loved looking at the huge tractors on display.

Time to cool down.

All aboard!

There was a "grape stomp" for kids, but there were too many kids so we made do with squeezing the grapes in a press. The resulting grape juice was tasty and now I'm looking forward to when our grape vines start producing.

There was a building that was all about baby animals. They had babies of all different types and the kids loved it!

A couple of sheep had just given birth to lambs and they had a cow in the process of it.

This picture made Isabelle look way too old!

There was a helping hands farm that was totally adorable.

The kids had to walk around collecting fake vegetables, fruits, eggs, grains, milk, etc.

Then they got to ride pretend tractors to harvest their fields.

Emily needed some help.

At the end, they took their products to the market and got pretend money, which they then took to the "store."

Here they are with their loot from the store.

We told the kids they could each choose one ride at the carnival. We would have done more, but they were so expensive!!!! Miriam and David chose the cars and Isabelle did the bumper cars.

In the cow barn, there was a calf the kids were allowed to pet.

A few of weeks ago, we went to the Living History Farms Harvest Fest and did a walking tour through the ages of farming in America.

Our first stop was an Indian village where they showed how they gardened, harvested, and stored their foods. They also had a buffalo hide they were working on scraping and they showed the "summer teepee" and the "winter hut." Sorry, we weren't good about taking pictures that day so I'm limited in what I can show you.

Our next stop was the 1800's farm. They were harvesting potatoes using oxen. Previous to this, Jonathan has wanted us to have yaks because they are considered such a well rounded animal. They can be eaten, they can be used for farming, they can be milked, and their hair can be using for knitting. However, he was somewhat disabused by the notion after seeing and talking to the farmers. The oxen aren't very intelligent and they looked like a pain to work with. The farmers told us this was why everyone switched to horses 30 years later even though horses couldn't be eaten and were much more expensive.

So we moved over to the 1900's farm where they were holding a plowing contest. There were probably 10 different teams of draft horses from sets of 2 to sets of 6. What a difference between the horses and the oxen. The horses only required one person instead of two. The farmer got to sit on a contraption that was pulled behind. The horses kept the furrows straight (unlike the oxen which tended to go all over) and they were at least 20 times faster. They were also much prettier to look at. :) The picture above is a set of American Cream draft horses, which were the most popular in Iowa back in the 1900s.

We helped them harvest the field corn by throwing it into a buckboard wagon. Then we used a grinder to remove the kernels from the cobs. The kernels were for the animals, the cobs are used for fast, hot fires. The farmhouses in the different time periods were pretty cool too. In the 1800s farm, the women were using dutch ovens and pots over a wood fire to cook dinner. In the 1900s farm house, they were using a wood fired stove.

By the end of the tour, the adults were pretty pooped, but the kids still had plenty of energy.

We headed over to their apple festival where we pressed apples into cider and Isabelle won the applesauce eating contest. We sampled apple fritters cooked over a fire. So yummy!!!! Jonathan and I were impressed and decided that apple fritters sounded great for lunch when we got home.

On the way out, the kids got to roll some beeswax into candles to take home. We've been using them during our weekly "Pioneer Night."

When we got home, Jonathan whipped us up a batch of apple fritters.

They are so much better than the kind you get at a doughnut shop.

Next up... time to start making the applesauce. A friend of ours gave us a few bushels of free apples off a backyard tree. Unfortunately, no pesticides also means lots of bad spots to cut out. So what we didn't pay in money, we definately paid in time.

Canning in our house is a whole family affair. The younger kids washed and rinsed the apples. Isabelle quartered them. I cut out the bad spots. Jonathan cooked them. The kids and I rotated sending them through the strainer. And finally, Jonathan and I finished it off with the actual canning. In the end we had 24 quarts of applesauce.

The kids loved partaking of our labors.