Thursday, November 8, 2012

Why Show Cattle?

Today is show day in at Farmfair in Edmonton. Farmfair is the largest cattle show in Alberta, and because it is so close to the farm it is a great show for us to take out cattle into and market them.

I always get asked lots of questions on why we do this and what makes it so much fun, so here is my attempt as answering some of the most common questions I get asked:

Q: What does the judge look for?
A: Because these are breeding animals rather then animals for meat the judge looks for different things. The main things that these animals would be judged on would be how sound they are (what their feet and legs look like), how much muscle they have, and how long and deep they are.

Q: What do you do with them?
A: Cattle shows are very similar to a dog show. We groom and primp the animals before they go into their class. Once their class is called they are paraded in front of a judge to be placed. The judge will evaluate each animal compared to their ideal and place the class from first to last.

Q: What can you win?
A: While we do not show animals to win prizes, there can be some great benefits to doing well. For the grand champions (best overall) belt buckles, cash, gift certificates to industry business and banners are very common. A few shows still pay out prize money in the classes. The two biggest shows to win would be Farmfair and Agribition. Both shows have a supreme show and if you win those (which is very difficult) the prizes are large! For having Supreme champion at Farmfair you win a brand new Dodge Truck! At Agribition to have Supreme Champion you win $10,000 plus about $10,000 in prizes. So yes there can be some incentives to win!

Our Simmental show is today, and we will be showing 5 animals including these two girls! Stay tuned to see how they made out.



Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Wedding Wednesday

Yesterday Dan and I ventured out to check off another thing on our wedding to do list. This time is was figuring out our wedding cake.

Dan was pretty excited thinking that we would get to do the cake tasting, but that is for another day. Instead we got to do a drawing of what our cake was going to look like, and price it out. Our wedding will not be small in size, but spending the original quote of $1300 on a wedding cake seemed a bit crazy. When we left the store we have worked it down to almost half of that, but I just hope that our guests eat it!

My inspiration came from this photo, lets just hope that it turns out!