What Does it Take to Put On a Stockshow?

As many of you already know, we are a farm family. The man of the house is an Agriculture Instructor at the local high school. Husband's specialty is livestock. Many a years ago, we decided to raise the children in the livestock area of farming. This meant that it would be our main ACTIVITY as a family. We didn't want to be divided...me taking one child to an event, him taking another child and then having grandparents taking a third child to a different event.

4-H and FFA is a very non-age segregated activity. When dad goes somewhere to work, the whole family can go as well and participate.

Now don't get me wrong, our children played sports at a young age....we burned them out on it before they were old enough to show livestock...yep, that's how we did it.

So, back to putting on a stockshow. We attend many, many, many stockshows through the year. Our local show is actually run by us (the local Ag Boosters).

It takes many, many, many, many, many...you get the picture....hours.

We really start planning for this FEBRUARY show in OCTOBER.

This post is about our trip to Sam's Club to get the items for the BBQ dinner that is the money maker to put on the show.

We leave the house at 5:30 AM.

I am pretty sure I woke up the rooster when I started the car...

We tank up on plenty of coffee....isn't that a pretty cup? I really feel 'pecial when I use my 'pecial coffee cup and saucer!

After I had to turn around and drive back home to get my "list", I make it to the Showbarn (the building we have the stockshow in).
Teri and Rachel are taking inventory of items. I am checking my "list" and making any changes before we head to Sam's Club.

Rachel brought her son, Tanner. Tanner just thought he was was going to go with us so he could ride around on the big fancy flat carts at Sam's.

We gave him the important job of throwing out the old salt and pepper shakers....

He is almost finished with 1/3 of this ONE shaker....he is SHAKING out all the salt.

Is that a boy thing or what? Can you see the container on the bar? It is FULL of salt and pepper shakers....hmmm, maybe by the time Tanner is 21, he will have shook out all the salt and pepper.

We made it to Sam's Club and purchased $753.00 of "stuff".

What you are looking at is what we carry ourselves.

We met a really nice worker, Zach, who put all our other "stuff" on a pallet.

Yep, each year is a learning experience...we used to stack our own 3,000 cans of pop.

Didn't Zach do a great job? Last year, our pallet was TWICE that size!

We've learned to assess and make changes. We also learned to use a flatbed trailer instead of a pick-up bed to haul the goodies.

We are now back at the Showbarn and have unloaded the stuff.

We tried really hard to get Zach to come with us so HE could unload that pallet of pop....

Then we REMEMBERED Tanner!! We remembered that he was young, energetic, and um, gullible....yah, that's it.

Did I mention it was FREEZING that day as well?

Also, that we had to stop and air up a tire?

Oh and we had to make another stop to make sure the stuff was strapped down!

We did the firemen's line and got the stuff into the Showbarn.

Here I am checking the ceiling (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Rachel is not in this picture.

You see, Rachel thought the bathrooms were working at the Showbarn. Rachel didn't use Sam's Club or Quiktrip's pretty bathrooms.....she thought she could "hold it" til we got to the Showbarn....insert evil laugh....

Rachel didn't know that the water was shut off to the building so it wouldn't freeze and bust like it has on more than one occasion. (Last month's gas bill was $700.00)

So, needless to say, we HURRIED to get the stuff into the building and Rachel made a beeline to the house.....

There you have it...one small part of putting on a local stockshow. Stay tuned for more posts about hosting a stockshow.