It was 20 years ago this month...

Many of you already know that I was very active in 4-H for the full ten years I was eligible. I joined 4-H in the third grade and started out with rabbits. I raised dutch and californians (as pictured below). Rabbits were fun because they weren't huge, and I could raise several at once and plan bloodlines. The first year project is two rabbits but by the 6th year I was taking 10 rabbits, a brood pair, a meat pen and 4 individual rabbits and a single fryer. In the early years there was enough space in the rabbit barn for everyone's projects and room left over for the 4-H clubs to sleep over night after the rabbit sale (and that is a post all on its own) but by the time I was in junior high rabbit projects had swelled in popularity (city kids could raise them in the garage or backyard) that many of the specialty projects like meat pen had to be brought the day of the show because there wasn't room in the barn anymore. Specialty projects include: Meat Pen = three commercial breed (meat rabbits) of uniform weight and size not to exceed five pounds. Three rabbits weighting 4.5 pounds will beat a meat pen where they weigh 4.5, 5, and 4.25 pounds. I won reserve champion meat pen a couple times. Single Fryer = one commercial breed rabbit not exceeding 5 pounds...I could never nab this one. Brood Pair = One buck and doe pair not to exceed twelve months of age. This was hands down my favorite specialty project. I won champ brood pair like, three times. The secret is breeding for them early, so they are born in October before the fair. You're going for the "old married couple" look in rabbits, as pictured below. This is me in 1992. Here is one of my "old married" brood pairs. This was probably a champion as Dr. Stowe, our neighbor and dentist is pictured as the sponsor buying the champion pair. Dr. Stowe bought many of my projects over the years and continues to support fair projects every year. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, that's me wearing the tiara and sash of 1992 Champaign County fair Rabbit Queen. Yes, I still have them...packed away somewhere. Eric Duncan was Rabbit King that year. We got our pictures in the paper many times as we had to pose with all the champions and reserve champs etc.

BUT I also got my picture in the front page of the Urbana Daily Citizen. On Thursday we were running the rabbit barbeque fundraiser and one of the photographers came by and was like "hey, if you take a big bit of a rabbit sandwich, I'll put your picture in the paper." And I, being media savvy years before acquiring my English/Communications degree, said "I've been in the paper 12 times already, put it on the front page." On Friday there I was on the front page, in mid bite of a rabbit barbeque sandwich...shameless I know. Mebbe next year for fair I'll dig that out of the vault. The picture below is me with two juvenile californian bunnies that we hand fed that same summer. One day in June I found them outside of the kindling cages (extra large cafes for does and their babies) but because I was breeding for meat pen and single fryer, I had like 6 kindling cages with nest boxes. None of us still have any idea how these guys with hardly any fur got out of their cages. Their eyes were still closed and everything. The problem was, if I put them in the wrong nest box, the doe would suss out the intruders and quite possible, stomp on the whole nest. Unwilling sacrifice a whole litter, we tried out hand at hand raising them.

It actually worked! We couldn't find a bottle small enough and ended up feeding them a similac mixture that we put in shallow spoons and then soaked bread in. First we kept them in a box with a heating pad on low then moved them to a little cage. Because we handled them so much, they were extra affectionate and fun. Do you see those plaques in the upper right hand corner with the records on them? We went to a rabbit show in Nashville Tennessee one year and I won best of breed and best opposite sex and boy that was a fun weekend, we never ate so well at a rabbit show. We even kept the rabbits in the hotel room that weekend, but that too, could be another blog post. I had other 4-H projects too like photography and Veterinary Science (that was a new project all the middle schoolers did and it was HARD. I remember us all grumbling about it and I didn't take the second year. I also took creative writing in high school and went to the state fair, but never placed. And I took a few cows. Here I am in the sale ring with my Limousine/Angus cross Hershey. He weighed in at 1030 lbs AND won his class (a fairly large one) this was pretty exciting for us because we weren't big time beef cattle farmers, it was more my Dad's hobby and for us to raise such a quality calf, we kinda came out of nowhere that year. I also took an angus heifer that year, who acted as company for Hershey in the barn. She wasn't nearly so fun, as she had a habit of jumping when she got startled and I'd find myself on the opposite side of the yard when leading her around. Dad always wanted me to let go of the rope when she jumped but every time she landed I'd land on my feet so I held on. I also took a jersey dairy heifer in the sixth grade named (not creatively) Buttermilk. Showing her at the fair is also another blog post.

As you can see, I could go on forever about 4-H and rabbits, and maybe I'll write some more about it later. 4-H was a tremendous, tremendous, influencing agent in my life. One of the great things about 4-H is that a young person's interests can go in many directions, there are more