We went out last night. This is a rare occurrence. Especially for me. However, last night was the annual fundraiser for the Future Farmers of America. So we went.
Now, just where do you think the Future Farmers of America would have a fundraiser?
DINGDINGDING! Yes! On a FARM! Specifically, on a giant dairy farm, in that farm's absolutely enormous shop. Really. HUUUUGE. The shop has to be big enough to fit all the massive combines and other large machinery that are now a part of farming, so it's about the size of a high school gymnasium. And insulated and heated. Sort of. It even had bathrooms. Well, ONE bathroom indoors, which was allocated to the women. The men were directed to an outside porta-potty. Except it didn't look like there was any light out there, so I'm guessing a good number of the intoxicated males in the crowd--and there were many--probably just wandered into the dark and peed on the ground.
I didn't investigate, however.
BUT ANYWAY.
The venue was none too big, because there were at least 300 people in attendance. There was good food (chicken barbecue--a local institution), giant tubs of iced beer and a whole table full of wine (sometimes being pregnant is kind of drag--this was one of those times), a silent auction, and . . . The Farmer's Challenge.
Cue gameshow music!
The Farmer's Challenge is a quiz contest. Think Jeopardy! for rural people. The questions were all about animals and tractors and stuff. Which meant I knew the answers to exactly four of the fifty questions--the miscellaneous category questions about movies and country music. Luckily, we were in teams, and A. and the MiL, plus a retired dairy farmer, were on my team. Unluckily, it was a really hard quiz and we only answered 23 out of 50 questions correctly. So we didn't win.
However, the winning team only got 28 correct, so we didn't do too badly. And the prize is a big, ugly trophy in the image of a grain silo. So, you know, no hard feelings that we didn't go home with that.
What we did go home with (from the silent auction) was a literal ton of grass hay (though we did not literally go home with it, as we were driving my car and a ton of hay is not going to fit in a Nissan), a giant container of Round-Up weed killer (with feed cap included!), many tickets to university sporting events, and some free Arm & Hammer products (baking soda, toothpaste, and deodorant--wheee!), because one of the organizer's best friends sells Arm & Hammer products and donated like $20,000 worth of products.
Chicken barbecue, beer, The Farmer's Challenge, hay, and free Arm & Hammer products. Does a Friday night get any better than that?
18 comments:
Does a Friday night get any better? How about bear, raccoon, beaver, venison, wild boar, squirrel, moose, elk and turtle on the menu.* And teenage girls in halter tops and daisy dukes wandering around carrying rifles and raffle tickets. YEE-HAW!
Yeah, that's the wild game dinner my uncle's hunting club has ever year. I'll give you a minute to get your jealous on ...
* And pie. Gotta have the pie.
Word verification: fleurate -- Cover something with fancy French flowers.
I'm surprised you didn't see if you could live THERE this winter ! A heated insulated barn, hot dang.
'Bout as crazy as it gets around here is turtle soup and a shootin' match.
word verification 'symman' - the guy that sung with that garfunkelman guy.
You have reached a countryfication I'm sure that's not a real word but what would I know, right?)level that I never could have imagined as you grew into adulthood as a military brat. Who would have thunk.
Wow. Sounds like a lot more fun than my father's stories of his time in the FFA. My favorite one is where all the FFA guys got blindfolded - in the middle of the night - and were dropped in unknown locations around town, then had to find their way to the train station. Dangerous, yes, but apparently it was supposed to prove that they could find their way around the farm during a snowstorm or something. By the way, his high school yearbook page of the FFA had EVERY guy in the high school. And they all looked incredibly thrilled to be there.
Word verification: rachan - pretty much my father's pronunciation of "racoon"
Trust me, your Friday night outing was alot more interesting and rewarding then mine. I got to sit home and listen to my son play some new Xbox game while I nursed a ruptured ear drum.
I thought you guys farmed organic? What's with the roundup?
Anonymous: I should first state that we do not actually "farm" in the true sense of the word. This is more like a homestead. Secondly, my garden is organic. However, the burdock and buckthorn trees that try to take over the pastures? Fair game for Round-Up.
Get ahold of those questions and post them here and give us the quiz!!! It will be really really really entertaining because we promise to not take it seriously.
Fabulous.
Word verification: proarf -- show dogs barking
Hmmm...I'm going to second the bad news bears on the Round Up. Mainly because Monsanto is the most evil corporation in the history of evil evilness.
Also, they're probably going to finance the Anti-Christ's bid for world domination.
Ok, here is a weird question - any idea who the contact person is for the FFA that organized this? I am marketing and communications director for an Ag organization, and this sounds like something that would be right up our alley for a team building exercise, or entertainment at our annual meeting, or something...
Glenda: You mean the quiz, I assume. It was just put together by some lady using, I believe, the Internet and a John Deere calendar. There were like ten questions about John Deere. A lot of the quiz was pretty specific to our county.
Anyway, the questions were all projected onto a big screen and we wrote our answers down as we went, then exchanged with the next table for grading. Just like in school. The questions included a lot of identification of tractors and animal breeds (Dutch Banded cows, Southdown sheep, etc.), as well as local historical buildings.
"It was just put together by some lady using, I believe, the Internet and a John Deere calendar."
This may be my favorite thing you've ever said on this blog.
(Uh, my verification word this time is "vagoide." Am I on Jive Turkey's blog by mistake?)
Hee! 4th reader, I did not recognize you at first, because HEY, I suppose you are only 4th reader on my site.
(I'm totally going to start saying "vagoide" now, by the way.)
ANYHOO, your Friday night with the FFA sounds intriguing. I hope you at least got a sip of beer.
Thanks! I will save some of those ideas in case I have to come up with one of these...now I need to find a John Deere Calendar... : )
Sounds awesome to me! Though I'm sure I couldn't answer a single question right and it would haunt me because I love to win at Trivial Pursuit and when I don't win I doubt myself as a worthy human being. It's sad.
Congrats on your take-homes, though - what WILL you do with all that Round-up? ;)
Whether Roundup is good or evil I leave up to others, but one thing it doesn't do is kill buckthorn. Just sayin'.
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