Chickens and Horses and Ribbons, Oh My!

It's a Blue Ribbon Week for the Hawkins'. Well, mostly blue ....




Poultry Club ribbons Saddle Club ribbons




Abbi proudly "fluffed" her fancy before the judge made his way down the table to her. She received a blue ribbon.

Kevin and Mitch are hanging on to their broilers while the kind judge inspects the breasts of another competitors chicken. Wouldn't most men enjoy being a chicken judge??? They each received blue ribbons for their broilers and roasters, and then several Honor ribbons for some of the birds. An Honor ribbon is step above blue, and allows them to return to the table to compete only with the Honor - ees. Make sense?

Abbi has fallen in love with "contesting", which involves barrel, flags, and poles. Here she shows her fine form in barrels. She is a true cowgirl!

Then on to the fancier competitions, like Horsemanship, Showmanship, Riding, and Reining. She rides with good form in spite of never having taken any lessons. She won ribbons in all these classes except for Horsemanship! Hooray!

Here she gets a little coaching from our very own Horse Whisperer (aka Uncle Terry) before her Western Horsemanship contest. What would we do without him?!


I'm pretty sure the judge was impressed with her big smile, or perhaps it was simply the fact that Ginger is 25 years old and still looks so good!

A nice pose with Ginger before competitions got started. Please take note of the wonderful haircut on Ginger's mane ... yup, I did it and I'm proud of it!

I'm tired and I really don't know how this post is going to look. I'm pretty sure that none of the pictures are going to be lined up with the correct descriptions, but guess what? I don't care! See, that's what spending 14 hour days at the fair does to a person ... not to mention all the sugar, grease, and diet coke a person can possibly consume. Good Night All! And sweet dreams of lots of ribbons for your own kids - if you're brave enough to take the leap into 4-H!