BJ Eick: On today's episode, Everything County Fair. Welcome to the front. Let's go. To the Front, the show that answers questions for Stock Show families. Presented by TTF Nutrition, livestock supplements that get you to the front. Thomas Gross, I see you over there dressed all in white. How we doing? Well, you know, I there's a little color to the shirt over here, but ⁓ it is it was a little red, white, and blue post ⁓ post fourth of July patriotic theme, I guess, going on over here. So we're doing great. How are you, sir? I was ⁓ I got up this morning in a in a mood to support our old buddy down in Georgia, so you can't hardly see that, but I'm rocking the blue ribbon show supply camo here. And I realized Mr. Jimmy has not does not have very good respect for my fitness because he sent me a two X shirt and I feel like I'm swimming in this thing. I think he said he sent one up for me too. Maybe he meant it for me as you've been hitting Slim Down, Trim Down. But you know, speaking of slim down, trim down, and we are a nutrition podcast, so I came across these and I have a bone to pick with you. If you remember a couple weeks ago you were complaining about these Oreos with peanut butter in ⁓ yeah. So we found Oreos with Reese's. Now maybe it was because you didn't have Reese's. These are incredible. I mean, maybe incredible's a strong word, but very edible, two thirds of the package is gone and I'm the only one that's eaten any of ⁓ So they must not be too bad. Yeah. I I think those would be those I could kind of get into. The many Oreos that are just peanut butter in the middle, ⁓ my God, it just makes me want to drive to wherever Nabisco's headquarters is and choke somebody. Like what are you doing? We didn't need to make Oreos better. You know, I don't know if this made ⁓ better. It made ⁓ different. So then I can switch up my Oreo consumption and feel like I'm getting different flavors all the time. I like it. Now I will say this. Oftentimes when I get into the Oreos, I feel like a cocaine addict 'cause I do ⁓ by the line, right? Just however many you can fit in the width of your fingers, pull those out and set ⁓ down and just go to town. You know what I mean? Like I'm a real addict when it comes to Oreos. So I've been going to the minis a few times and ⁓ At least you don't feel as bad when you eat the whole bag. You know, I don't know if that's true or not, but is that kinda like if I eat a whole th ⁓ sleeve of thin mints, I'm not feeling so thin anymore. Is that is that kind of the same type of idea? Yeah. Let me tell you though, you bring up thin mints, I've got to tell you, and they're not in season or whatever anymore. When Wendy's had the thin mint frosty. We got out of bed at ten o'clock one night. And drove to Wendy's to get a Thin Mint Frosty. It was so these things are amazing. So whenever Wendy's comes back with a Thin Mint Frosty, I am a volume buyer. That's all I do. I don't care what they cost. Awesome. Well, hey, we promised everything county fair. We're getting ready to go to our county fairs. You had your first setup today, so but you're fired up. Boone County, Indiana, is that correct? It is our first county fair. We decided to go over and show in Boone County and ⁓ we don't live in Boone County, but one of the great things that we've decided here, it's maybe it's not a great thing, it's something we've made a conscious effort of, is we are gonna do our best to have an awesome time at the county fair. And so that started with for us, we have more friends that are our age that we show with on a regular basis that live in Boone County. It's about equal distance to the Boone County Fairgrounds as Hamilton County for us. So we made the decision we're gonna show in Boone County with our friends. We're gonna go have a great time and ⁓ the kids are really, really looking forward to the county fair experience. Yeah, that it's crazy 'cause one of the things we're we we got sent today that we're gonna discuss is why is the county fair the hardest place to show, right? And part of it for me is like I just think our county fair we go in this next week. My kids wanna go to the county fair. They can't wait to drag everything up to the county fair and and And I just got back from judging a county fair. I'm a big fan of county fairs. My least favorite show we go to every year, for me personally, is our c our own county fair. Right. And it it just doesn't do it for me. But man, my kids, no matter what we've been doing or where we've been or anything else, they get fired up to go to the country fair. So We head in there. I want to say we go in like Saturday. ⁓ our deal's pretty nice in that it's a really short schedule for us with the pigs and cattle. So we get to go in, show after a couple of days and get home. ⁓ but man, my kids are fired up. My daughter is is juiced up for the country fair. So we gonna do the same thing. And like I said, I judged one out in Colorado this week. ⁓ and it was a had one of the best times I've ever had judging a show. But when it comes time to go to my own, I'm like, Ugh, gosh, here we go, you know. That's always my attitude. So let's jump right into it though. What's question number one that we've been sent? Julie sent us a question and she said, We're heading to our very first county fair as a family. Give us some last minute advice. Ooh, last minute advice. So, you know, I I think yeah, well, I was gonna say we we've started with maybe some of our advice, and I think that is mom and dad, let's go have fun at the county fair, and let's set aside all of maybe our personal emotions that we have about the county fair. And not ruin it for our kids if we can. And I think we can all be jaded about those local fairs. And and part of the reason is we've got a lot of history at our county fair. And if you're like a lot of livestock families, you kind of grow up in an area you might have shown at that county fair, you're now raising your family in that county fair. And so there's a lot of history, and good or bad, that history comes with you into your approach with your kids. And so if we can set some of that history aside and say, my kids are pumped to go to the county fair. Let's go have a good time. I think that's that's number one. And if it's your first one, depending on how broke your animals are or how many shows you've been to in jackpots, how prepared you are, your intensity and your stress level starts to get ratcheted up a little bit. And so I'd say to the extent that we can start off by saying we're gonna go have a good time. If the pigs aren't broke enough, we're gonna get frustrated. We've gotta we've got to be calm before that. If we've not been to a show before, we're gonna be experiencing new things for the first time. We're gonna try take it in and learn along the way instead of trying to ⁓ get wound up, I guess, at the county fair. Yeah, I I agree with that wholeheartedly. The other piece that I will say, and it's been a very, very long time since my kids were going to their first county fair. I can remember it. Our first one was during COVID. And so we were trying to figure out whether or not we'd get to have a show and how do you do it, and it was a one-day hog show and and all those different things. We had more than we could show off the trailer because we couldn't go in the barns that year. So I remember vividly going to our first one with my kids. The thing I would tell about anybody going to their first one is allow your kids to enjoy all the things that happen at the county fair besides showing livestock. Right. And and I would have that advice anytime you go to any show that has multiple things, right? You you're wearing a hat from NJSS. That's a great example of where there's a lot going on besides just showing your pig. And my advice to every parent is allow your kids just to be kids and go enjoy the county fair as much as you can with still getting your responsibilities done. ⁓ and let them enjoy the whole experience of the county fair, right? I mean it's crazy the I I whine about the county fair every year In reality, me and my wife met at our county fair, right? I mean, it was, you know, a four H romance, I guess you could say, as odd as that is. But like great things happen at the county fair. You just gotta let the kids go enjoy it. And I'm with you a hundred percent. Lord knows I made the joke on the mic when I was judging that show that I was the most competitive person in the ring and you know, all those kids out there showing that night, I told ⁓ I'd trip ⁓ all to win a foot race and I would. I mean I would trip you if we were in a foot race and I didn't think I was gonna win. I that's kind of the competitive nature I have. And man, that can really, really make it tough for you and it can really make it tough for everybody around you. And so as much as you can, put that away and let your kids just go be kids and run around and enjoy their friends and do all the things you can do at a county fair that you don't get to do anywhere else. That's my advice to people. ⁓ we've made this comment quite a bit that sometimes lowering expectations. is the number one way to have a good time and still enjoy this. And that's the biggest thing for me is man, when you go to the county fair, just don't go with expectations and just enjoy yourself. And if you can do that, I promise you it'll be a lot more fun for however many days you're there. Here's the other thing that I I've thought about is we're thinking about what can we take to the county fair. And it's a little different than some of the national pig shows that we go to because Maybe we get some lawn space and we've got animals in different barns and so we're taking our goats and our pigs. So we're gonna be running back and forth and so we're gonna be taking a few more things and we're gonna set up camp outside. But the number one thing that I think that we need to have a conversation about is what snacks are we going to the bring to the county fair. The great thing with the moms in our group is they're each gonna take a day and bring a different awesome meal to the county fair, right? And so we've got food planned out, but when the food's in check. And we've got our animals along with us and the kids are running around having a good time. I can't imagine anything that's a whole lot better than that right there. Yeah. Yeah. The food's gonna have to be on point, ⁓ for me to enjoy it. I will tell you this, we've got some really good friends. I've mentioned them on here before, ⁓ Pam and Andon Booker, ⁓ that are buddies of ours and th we're in the pig barn and the cattle barn and they are too, so we're pretty tight with them. Pam Booker makes the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. And so there are chocolate chip cookies from Pam Booker available every day, and I will enjoy a lot of them. So I made sure I made sure that I had my appointment with my ⁓ diabetic doctor last week so that I don't have to go the week following Pam a week of Pam Booker's chocolate chip cookies. You you talked about Pam Booker's chocolate chip cookies, and I still have the text message saved where Pam texted me and said, I gave Tony two plates of cookies. Make sure you get one of those. Never saw those cookies. So I'm gonna be at your county fair to steal a few of those cookies, I think, that I'm deserved. So if you don't have any left for you, you know why. I'm not gonna say Pam Booker makes up says untruthful things, because she's a wonderful person, and I'm sure that's not true, but sometimes she gets confused. And what she meant when she said two plates, what she meant was she gave me two cookies and then told me they were both for me. So I apologize for Pam's error. I will I will lecture her about that and make sure more cookies come our way. Okay. Excellent. Well, so I think last minute advice, have fun. And then ⁓ any other last minute advice ⁓ would from a animal standpoint, I think, you know, as we think about what we're gonna pack, ⁓ you know, kind of make your list ahead of time and be and be prepared for a lot of situations. Pack hydrate with you. It's hot this week across the Midwest. It's supposed to be hot next week. I was just at a county fair yesterday where several people told me we are having a hard time keeping enough liquid in our animals. It is so hot in here. Utilize hydrate, I guess, and and not to give a complete product plug here, but that's the advice that I'd give you if you were standing right in front of me. So make sure that your animals are well hydrated at the show. Yeah, I came back from Hamilton County Fair in Noblesville, Indiana this morning and had to run down there for a couple reasons, helping ⁓ my cousins are first year. They're in the exact boat of this qu this listener right here that it's our first year at the county fair, first year with a show pig. So had to go down there and help my cousin Jeremiah. get ready for his ⁓ his first showdown that's gonna happen here this afternoon. And then I had probably ten families reach out to me about needing hydrate and it was a family at least one family in every single barn. So I went down this morning to help a young man drench his steer with some hydrate to get him back going. Obviously there was hydrate bags all over the pig barn and then I walked over to help some people with some goats and some sheep and it was the exact same thing. There were hydrate bags literally in every single barn at that fair And I help some families in every single barn just kind of get their animals restarted. Same kind of thing. You know, new environment. It's hot. It's uncomfortable. Some of those older county fair barns don't exactly breathe real well. So depending on the barn at some of these places, it can be get pretty stuffy. And it doesn't take much for those things just to decide. Today's not my day. I'm not eating. I'm not drinking. ⁓ hydrate. We got another Facebook message from a guy out in Iowa that said, Hey, my heifer never drinks. I started drenching hydrate a week before took her to the junior nationals, and as soon as we unloaded, she drank three buckets. And that's what hydrate does. More than anything else, it causes them to drink. So I love your advice. If you're going to a county fair, I would have hydrate with me. I would make sure I was prepared for animal comfort because most of those barns do not breathe well and it's pretty uncomfortable. ⁓ and just relax and try to enjoy it and don't go with expectations. If you're going to the county fair because you have to win the county fair, That's probably not going to end real well for you no matter what happens. Next question that we have here is from Seth, and this is going to touch on the same thing. It says our fair is six days long and our show is on day four. What's your game plan? How do we keep pigs on track? And I think when this message came in on Facebook too, ⁓ they were saying something about, you know, there's an open show kind of first couple days, and then their target show is on day four. What do we do? How do we think about it? What are we doing from a hydrate standpoint or a you know, maybe liquid standpoint to keep your pigs on track the whole time? Yeah, that's a long county fair. That is a long show. ⁓ that's longer than a lot of the national shows that we've gone to this summer or you've been to. ⁓ and I will tell you that to me there's a couple different things to this that I think about when we leave to go somewhere. One is gotta be real honest about what your trailer ride's gonna be and what the the creature comforts are gonna be for your animals while they're going there. Right. And county fairs can be notoriously long unload times depending on how they handle it. Like a lot of times, you know, they don't do it at my county, but down there at Noblesville, you weigh right off the trailer. And so it takes a long time to get unloaded and get those animals processed, multiple hours sometimes. So you gotta be real honest about what those animals are going to experience while you're traveling to and waiting in line to get them off the trailer. So I think about that kind of as one thing and then how that evolves into my timeline for getting them ready for the show kind of as a separate issue. If I was in their shoes and we had to, you know, we had four days before we showed them, I'm not as concerned right away about when I start hydrate at home. What I do want to make sure is I don't have a major setback traveling to and getting checked in that puts me behind the eight ball then when it's time to get ready for the show. So if I'm in their shoes myself, I'm going to start hydrate maybe a day or two before we go in, before I put them on that trailer. If I know it's going to be a bad experience or potentially hot, potentially a long wait, I'm going to go ahead and start hydrating them early, just not at a breakneck pace, but just a couple shaker bottles a day if you're using hydrate. I'm going to do that for a couple days with full water leading up to the travel. Then once I get them in and get them checked in, I get my weights and I kind of know where I need to be, then I'm going to go back to the process that we always lay out. Two to three shaker bottles a day, two scoops per shaker bottle. I'm gonna start it as soon as I get in there and I'm gonna go up through the day of my show. And I got four days till my tart till I'm trying to show ⁓ So that's what I'm gonna do. I always think about it in two parts. One is what's it gonna be like getting ⁓ in, and then what's it gonna be like getting them ready for the show. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. What what goes through your mind? Yeah, think the other thing that we can get sidetracked by are all the ancillary things that are gonna go on at the county fair. And I think this person, when they sent this question in, showmanship was one day, open show was a day, the junior show, which it sounded like is the one they the junior show is what they really cared about, was on another day. And what I will tell you, it's hard to have your livestock maxed out and on point multiple days in a row. And so showmanship, yes, we want them to look nice, but we probably don't need to have them maxed out from a fill or feed and hydration standpoint. Your open show, we'd love to perform well at that, but if that's not the one that's your target show and your target show is the next day, maybe we don't fill them up with everything they will eat and drink and have them all the way as juicy as they can be the day of the open show. We keep the main goal in mind with everything we're doing and it leads to us get having a better chance to reach our goals. So when our family sets our goals, they're for that junior show. They're not for the open show that's going to happen there. Yes, we've got showmanship goals as well. But as far as maxing out your livestock, keep that main goal in mind. And if your main show is on day four, we're gonna back up, start that hydrate regiment three or four days ahead of time, work our way into it. And then the night before the show is when I'm gonna have them really pretty full and really full of liquid if I can. That way on show day we our muscles are fully hydrated and ready to go. I probably don't do that going into the open show. And then expecting them to get up in the heat and kind of fill all the way back up again the day be the day of the open show and then the night ⁓ night before of our junior show. So keep the main goal in mind when we are filling and hydrating these animals. I see that mistake happen a lot. I've made that mistake several times too, and so that's why I can ⁓ kind of give that reminder to everybody. Yeah, no doubt. I am pretty bad about getting them too juicy too early. And if I'm in that case where I'm gonna have multiple days, those things are gonna hit the ring. Think you gotta pick a day like you said. And if you're like me and you're like, well, maybe a little more for open show, and I don't want to get beat by that one on the open show day, you gotta have somebody in your corner that can take a feed scoop out of your hand, right? And make you sit down and make you commit to your plan. That's w I always felt like if I really wanted to be good on a diet, what I needed to hire was somebody to slap cookies out of my hand when I was getting ready to put one in my face. And sometimes I need that at a pig show, like Tony. Put the feed cup down, he does not need any more. ⁓ sometimes that person is you, other times you're not around, and when you're not around, I I do a poor job. So ⁓ yeah, that's that's my advice too, is if you're not for sure, if you can make yourself behave, get somebody to help you. Get somebody that's willing to get in your get in your grill kindly and say, We're that's enough for today. But here's what I can promise you I'm never slapping a cookie out of your hand. I don't think it's worth the risk of doing that. So I'm gonna let you have your cookie. Yeah. And and and here's the other thing, I don't I don't want you to slap one out of my hand either. ⁓ I won't. If you're making a bad decision, I'm gonna jump right in and help you. I'm all about but I will run amuck with you like nobody you've ever met, but don't expect me to lead us in a positive direction. I I I probably not capable. Hey, the the final question here, and I think this is the one that I'm gonna call the hot button for the day, is Joe asks, why does it seem like County Fair is the most difficult place to show? And I And I think the easy answer to that is because it's close to home, we see those people at the feed store, we see those people at school, we see them at sporting events, it is home and we always like to protect our home turf. And so I think that's the easy answer as to why it's difficult. But Tony, what else have you guys seen that you think, hey, this is why things are a little bit more challenging? For all families at the county fair. Well, I think part of it is gotta be and we're both in the state of Indiana and my shout out if you run these shows and do this, I know it's a thankless job and and and I wouldn't want to be a person wearing a badge at a county fair. I know that, right? I don't want to be the council member, I do not. But I think part of it's gotta start with just registering and getting things signed up for the four H program in the state of Indiana is really cumbersome. Right. And I mean your family went through it. We had, I don't know, eight or nine different pigs to sign up plus ⁓ three calves. And man, it was a multiple hour process to get those things put into that 4-H online website. Then once you do that and you try to make sure you didn't make any mistakes, then you gotta go through a totally different system through the fair entry system just to get them officially signed up for the county fair. And again, make sure you don't make any mistakes, right? And I think that alone gives me heartburn, right? And and makes me kind of get a sour taste of my mouth for just the four H system. And I don't know who designed it. I'm not trying to call out I know that your extension agent. Nobody in your c local county had anything to do with it and there's nothing they can do to change that. But man, I'm not a fan of that system. It is not very user friendly. ⁓ So that's part of it for me is like, ⁓ here we go. We can go to a national show, we can jackput every weekend, and I can sign those things up from my phone and and move on, right? And when I go to the county fair, it is, man, I gotta get all my paperwork out and I gotta spend multiple hours just getting them enrolled for four H. I think that's part of it, you know. I will say this our our good friend, collective good friend Nathan Day, put a post out on this similar subject on Facebook. He had a comment on a post. And his comment was this. He's now to the point where he's helping with his county fair, right? A lot of people his age down there at Noblesville are kinda running that deal now. He said basically there's two kinds of rules that they gotta come up with. Some of ⁓ are bec some of ⁓ are exactly why we think rules come out because ⁓ somebody was you know, upset about something and so now it's no fitting or somebody got mad because pigs went outside of the barn and so now they can't do that. Some of those are exactly the reasons you think they are. Others are the fact that they have to deal with all different types of families, all different types of showmen over the entire array from first time to, you know, quote unquote professional and certain things you have to govern to the to the middle. Right. And so what might seem like a rules beneath you for one reason or the other is very helpful for the middle or the other end of the spectrum from where you are. And it's very easy to lose sight of that perspective when you're just aggravated about going to the county fair to begin with. And I thought Nathan, who's been through every part of this industry, ⁓ you know, I thought that was pretty good insight that he put out on Facebook the other day. It that was a very, very astute comment that We gotta remember that we're not the only ones there, you know, and some folks need one thing or the other, you know. I agree with you a hundred percent just on the people and the relationships piece of it. Like, there's nobody we wanna beat more when we go somewhere than somebody from our own county. Right? Like, you know, if you gotta see them all the time, I don't I wanna I wanna stomp them out, right? That's kind of how I am. If I don't see you very often, then I'm not as worried about it. But man, I mean that part of it's I think just human nature, but the god. The county fair and the 4-8 system in our state anyway is pretty cumbersome. You know, it's probably necessary in a lot of ways, but my land, it can be cumbersome. Well, one of the things that I think the goal of the system is great in theory to say we want to stop cheating from happening, we have some deadlines, we have some entry dates, we want to make sure that you are following these rules. And what I'd say is grown out of that is a really complex system that people are there's there's a large barrier to entry. And that's one of the things that scares me a little bit is county fair numbers continue to drop across the country, and I think we should be really worried about that. One of the reasons why that might be happening is this barrier to entry. And I know this is our first year in 4 H and and we signed up for ⁓ when we signed up for one of the national shows we went to this year. We s we I timed it just for fun. We spent seven minutes getting registered for our national show. We had spent three nights working to make sure that all of our animals part of that's a product of me having too many of them on feed, I know. But we spent, you know, three nights getting all of our animals, and my wife and I were both very nervous that if we put a wrong number somewhere or if we didn't take the right picture and attach it to the right pig, that then we were gonna be unable to show. And so I think the rules were developed. To make sure that people adhere to rules. And what I'd remind some people is we can make all the rules in the world and cheaters are going to cheat. Right. And and so we can't always govern legality or rule following all the way across the board. And instead, what we've done is we've made it really difficult for the average family that wants to follow the rules, and we've made it even more difficult for the first year family that has no experience doing this. And I'm afraid that that's gonna say, well, baseball took me seven minutes to register. The fair took me twelve hours to register. And then I showed up at the county fair and unfortunately I heard a story recently, you know, of a of an animal showing up at a county fair and and there was a number off on the RFID tag and they wouldn't let the animal show. And so to that county fair exhibitor or superintendent, I'm gonna tell you this directly, and you're probably never gonna hear this. Let the kids show, right? And so let's develop systems that let kids show they've worked hard with their project. Don't kick them out at the end for a technicality that clearly nobody was trying to cheat or do anything wrong here, right? And so we've created these rules to try to stop cheaters. I don't know that we've done that anyways, and we've made it really difficult on the average family. So why is it difficult? Because of rules that are in place sometimes that that have ⁓ kind of raised the barrier to entry. I think the other thing is unfortunately. ⁓ the county fair mentality has become we're gonna pull the winners back to us instead of trying to raise our own game and our own expectations, right? And ⁓ we've all experienced this. If you've had success at the county fair, it seems like there's a rule that comes out next year that's squarely aimed at you. And and instead of saying, How can we all get better and how can we all raise our level of pay ⁓ play, instead it seems like we're gonna drag winners back to us, and I'm gonna tell you. ⁓ as a business owner and somebody that's hired some people over my lifetime, I never want to hire people that wanna pull success back. Instead I want people that try to raise their game to up their level. And so in life, people that are successful try to get to the front, right? They try to raise their level of play, they try to l raise their level of work. They're not saying we need to drag the winners back to us, right? And so ⁓ start with your kids when they're young, encourage them to try to raise their game instead of trying to just pull winners down off their off their ⁓ off the ⁓ podium there. Absolutely. And you and I have a rule still in place at the county fair that we still go to that is direct was directly aimed at us and it was we go in on a Friday night and weigh on Saturday morning and so I brought a set of scales up so that Saturday between ⁓ all of our your your sister and all of my kids we had about eight crossbred barrows. And so I brought a set of scales in so we could try to keep those birds from all being in the same class and the very next rule. The very next year there's a rule about do not bring any other scales into the in onto the fairgrounds. Funny thing about it to me was the committee who put the rule in place also used the scales to weigh their pigs. ⁓ so that kind of cracked me up a little bit. Now I always get a chuckle now when I read our rule and think about the people that put it in place. It just kinda makes me laugh. ⁓ th I agree with you a lot that people that that are administrating rules need to have an understanding of the the spirit of the rule and not the letter of the rule. And a great example of that happened to my family years ago. And I was nine years old. I was probably yeah right at nine years old. It was the first summer, you guys have probably heard the story my father passed away when we were really, really young. First summer we were trying to do 4 H. It was just my mom and and us. And And I was trying to read ear notches as a nine year old and I transposed ⁓ The barrel was a six five and I put ⁓ down as a five six. He was not allowed to show, not allowed to be in the auction, as my older sister's pig. And that's a great example of Spirit of the rule, not the letter of the rule, right? There was no reason that our bearer who wasn't even any good to begin with couldn't have exhibited and we couldn't have made that correction and moved on. And I think we have to, if you're running a show, my ask of you is take each example as its own entity and be a slave to the spirit of the rule, not the letter of the rule. Because we we make this too hard and we're too punitive to some mistakes that are not in any way trying to get somebody an advantage. And and we kick people out and I guarantee you, you know, that was the last year either one of my sisters showed. Right? Now I kept doing it because it was a love of mine, but we lost two exhibitors at that fair because of that. You know? And we're not at a spot where we can afford to run people off. Right? We need to be pretty welcoming and pretty open on this deal if you want your numbers to continue to climb or even just stop going down. And so that's my ask of anybody with a badge that administrates rules, be a slave to the spirit of the rule, not the letter of the rule. I think if we could all do that and everybody chill out. Try to enjoy your community. Enjoy things going on at your fair besides just trying to win whatever show you're in. I think County Fairs could be great again. Is that our hashtag for the day? Make County Fairs Great Again. Is that ⁓ I think somebody uses that as a tagline. I want to make some hats. Yeah. That's it for me. Make County Fairs Great Again. There's been a couple things that I've bad ⁓ as I've judged shows this summer. A couple things have been highlights of my grand drive speeches. One of them is Man, we need be more grateful. I think just as a as an entire industry, as an entire community, I think about everybody needs to be more grateful for the opportunities that we have. And then I think make county fairs great again is going to be part of it. So my big shout out though to the El Paso County Fair in Colorado. I just got back. I was out there this week. I think that's one of the best smaller county fairs in terms of the way they're ran and their livestock committee and how great those people are out there. they do a phenomenal job. So if you're listening in, My hats off to you 'cause you guys were awesome and me and my wife went with me. We had a wonderful time out there. Well, guys, there's a lot to unpack there and ⁓ you know, we could go on for way too long about county fairs and and I think at the same time, you know, Tony, you and I are both we c we can get negative about ⁓ every once in a while too. So I guess I want to leave everybody with a little bit of a positive note. Go to your county fair with a good attitude, go with a smile. No things aren't gonna go perfectly. Do what you can to volunteer and help out. Most of those volunteers are underappreciated and overworked. It is a lot to put on a county fair. It's different than a jackpot show. Things are way different. Your local people there didn't set a lot of these rules, right? And so be helpful with them. Have a good time at the county fair. Enjoy the time with your family. Amen. To the front, baby. To the front has been brought to you by TTF Nutrition. Livestock supplements that get you to the front.