Pig Show!

First off,

It was only last week when someone came trudging onto my blog and made me feel as if I couldn't write what I feel for being watched like a hawk and picked apart. Well guess what, I don't care. If you want to come onto my blog and mock me- that is perfectly fine with me! You are only wasting your time and brain cells.

I only hope that one day you will be as mature as I am and have a relationship with someone that makes you as happy as I have been with my boyfriend.

I also can only pray that you will never be treated as I have been treated by you, but I can hope differently.

As one of my favorite bands sings  "I don't think that I could be so Cold hearted".

That being said! Moving on.

On a lighter note, and the reason I started to write this post, Josh and I had a very busy and successful weekend!!

As many of you know Joshua raises showpigs. Duroc showpigs. He had a very bad incident where his main breeding sow and best momma pig miscarried. She was carrying the pigs for the show that happened this past weekend. Since she miscarried, there were no pigs for the show this past weekend.

That all changed when Josh and I made the long trip to Butler, KY. I could have sworn I wrote a blog post on that, but I can't seem to find one! I'll just post a quick recap! :)

 

We left the boring flatness of middle GA and headed toward the gorgeous mountains of TN and KY.

We got to our destination and picked up all these little piggies!

Most of them are for kids that show pigs and wanted a KY pig that Josh picked out for them.

The two 'red' pigs at the top left corner are Josh's two little show pigs. 

I loved that trip. It was fun and relaxing.

Josh and I both agree that roadtrips are our favorite things to do. Just the two of us, no one else to worry about!

While we were at the barn in KY, Josh had to pick out his pigs. He was looking for a gilt and a barrow. He was had chosen his gilt and was trying to figure out which barrow he wanted. He and I narrowed it down to two, then, boars. He has since castrated the poor fella making him a barrow. Anyways, it was down to the two. Josh couldn't decided which one he wanted for sure. I knelt down beside him and tried to help him figure out the flaws of each and the positives of each. At some point, after he was still undecided, I just blurted out... "That one! He's got the best... everything" and he said "Looks good to me!"

So Aubie it was. Bet you can't guess where I got that precious name from!

I named the gilt Bree and the rest is history!

 

Bree

Josh and I spent some time walking them and Josh fed them up the way he knows how and off to the show we went. Since the two pigs were litter mates, they are very much the same size. He was sure they would be in the same class (since classes are done by pig weight), but they just happened to be in two separate classes! He took Aubie out first. The second he walked out of the holding pen the judge pointed at him. He was pinned! Yes, my little Aubie has a chance to win this thing! (Every pig that the judge likes he sends to a different holding area to look at them again after all the other pigs are out of the way. He has to look at about 20 different pigs in each class, sometimes more, and pick 8 of those to place.)

I go get Bree and bring her around into the holding pens to get her ready to go into the ring for the next class. 

They let all the 'pinned' pigs out of the ring and the judge looks over them for a while. He slowly pins certain pigs again which are the pigs that are 4th-8th places.

Josh and Aubie are still in the ring. 

Then the judge looks at one guy and holds up three fingers. He turns around and quickly flashes two fingers at the other showman and one finger at Josh. He won!

Now it's Bree's turn! Guess what, same thing! 

We have 2 first place pigs and there are only 2 classes of Durocs. Josh automatically wins Grand Champion and Reserve Champion for the Duroc breed! It was just a matter of picking which one was Grand and which one was Reserve. Aubie ended up with the Grand and Bree was Reserve. 

I'm so proud of Josh! He won BOTH Grand and Reserve! He was pretty excited too.

Sorry for the horrible quality of this picture! I was the only help Josh had and I didn't have time to fumble with my camera, alas the cellphone was there.

Since Josh won the overall Duroc show, he had to stick around and show in the overall final drive. That means there will be one pig from each breed (all the Grand Champions) showing together in the ring for the judge to pick out the Grand Champion Overall Pig. 

Josh didn't expect to win this because the Duroc never does, and just as suspected the Crossbred won the Grand and the Hampshire won the Reserve.

Overall, it was a great (& long) Saturday!

Big thanks to Clint and family for helping Josh get the pigs to the showgrounds while he was on his way back from Athens!

The rest of the weekend was great as well. I am now sitting here at work waiting until I can see Josh again! I miss that boy when he is gone...

But, so happy I can call him mine! :)

I think we might just have to have some little pig showers of our own one day! Don't worry, they will show horses too!