HOME & FARMWednesday, October 23, 2019 Pontotoc Progress • pontotoc-progress.com Page 3A

Pontotoc County 4-Hers shine at state fairThe Mississippi State

Fair, held annually in Jack-son Mississippi, can be referred to as the “Super Bowl” of all the fairs that take place throughout the state each year. This is es-pecially true for Mississippi 4-H members.

The state fair gives Mis-sissippi 4-H members an opportunity to show their livestock on a larger stage. Mississippi State Universi-ty 4-H Livestock Special-ist, Dr. Dean Jousan stated that over 900 Mississippi 4-H and FFA youth exhib-ited 1,395 head of livestock during the 2019 Mississippi State Fair.

Pontotoc County 4-H was well represented at the Mississippi State Fair. Pon-totoc County 4-H members exhibited beef, lambs, and dairy animals. Each Pon-totoc County 4-H member that exhibited their animals will be listed along with the members that placed.

Beef ShowThe following Pontotoc

4-H members participated in the Mississippi State Fair Beef Show: Cali Allison, J.D. Chism, Tommy Dun-away, Jayce Grubbs, Leigh-ton Horton, Lara Horton, Wyatt Littlejohn, and Grace Randle.

The following Pontotoc 4-H members placed at the beef show.

J.D. Chism – Champion Santa Gertrudis Bull

Tommy Dunaway – Champion Santa Gertrudis Heifer

J.D. Chism – Reserve Champion Santa Gertrudis Heifer

Cali Allison – Reserve Champion Other Breeds – Brahman Heifer

Leighton Horton – Showmanship 2nd Place in her age classification

Lamb ShowThe following Pontotoc

4-H members participated in the Mississippi State Fair Lamb Shows: Lara Horton, Leighton Horton, and Eliz-abeth Nichols.

The following Pontotoc 4-H members placed in the lamb shows.

Leighton and Lara Horton – Mississippi Bred

Wether Dam Grand Cham-pion

Elizabeth Nichols – Re-serve Grand Champion Market Lamb

Elizabeth Nichols – Showmanship 2nd Place in her age classification

Dairy ShowThe following Pontotoc

4-H members participated in the Mississippi State Fair Dairy Show: Josie DiDon-na, Colton Farley, Carson Farley, Meredith Farley, Chase Foster, Mary Hatley Graham, Connor Kilpatrick, Brooklyn Kilpatrick, and Anna Newell.

The following Pontotoc 4-H members placed in the

dairy show.Colton, Carson, and

Meredith Farley – Other Dairy Breeds Junior Cham-pion Heifer

Anna Newell – Reserve Champion Commercial Dairy Heifer

Chase Foster – Reserve Senior Champion – Brown Swiss

Meredith Farley – Showmanship 2nd Place in her age classification

Pretty Cow ContestThe following Pontotoc

4-H members participated in the Mississippi State Fair ”Pretty Cow Contest”: Illa haze Manning, Bohannan Manning, Connor Kilpat-rick, Brooklyn Kilpatrick, Colton Farley, Carson Far-ley, Meredith Farley, Mary Hatley Graham, Kendall Graham, Anna Newell and Emma Newell.

The following Pontotoc 4-H members placed in the “Pretty Cow” contest.

Illa Haze and Bohannan Manning – 2nd Place with the theme, “Milk to the Res-cue”

Connor Kilpatrick – 3rd Place with the theme, “Milk from Almonds? I’ve never heard of ‘Strang-er Things’ Drink Real Milk”

Kendall Graham – 8th Place with the theme, “The Best Part of Waking Up is Milk in Your Cup”

Emma Kate Newell – 9th place with the theme, “Milk is Oz-mazing”

The 2019 Mississip-pi State Fair was a great success for the Pontotoc County 4-H members that exhibited their livestock. They built relationships and memories that will last a lifetime.

Please call Jane Cham-blee, at 662-489-3910, if you are interested in learn-ing about opportunities that are available for youth in the Pontotoc County 4-H program.

Farm & Garden Notes

James Shannon

489-3910

Quick bites programs set through Nov. 14

Quick Bites programs are offered through the Missis-sippi State University Ex-tension Service and provide information in a wide vari-ety of topics through inter-active video. The programs are held during lunch (12-1) on Thursdays. Contact the Pontotoc office (489-3910) to participate via interactive video.

October 24 – What’s the Deal with Roundup? Dr. John Byrd, Extension

Research Professor Plant & Soil Sciences

Roundup has been all over the news in the past months. Dr. Byrd will share his ex-pertise to help us “weed” thru all the Roundup infor-mation, evidence, and facts.

October 31 – Let’s Make a Halloween Design…

TOGETHERLynette McDougald, In-

structor Plant & Soil Scienc-es

As a change of pace, Ly-nette will have some fun pre-made designs she’ll share, but much of our focus, will

be a BOO-quet arrangement. It’s not as SCARY as you think to design, we’ll have step-by-step instructions.

November 7 – The Harvest

Lynette McDougald, In-structor Plant & Soil Scienc-es

The Harvest season is here, and we will talk about incorporating fresh flowers with produce, dried, and natural materials. These “trans-seasonal” designs will take us right into the winter holiday season.

November 14 – Container Gardening

with BulbsDr. Joy Anderson, Exten-

sion Agent IV DeSoto Coun-ty

Small spaces but want some decoration for your deck, patio, or entryway? Great containers and flow-ering bulbs are the answer! Join in the fun as Joy An-derson shows how to layer beautiful spring bulbs in out-door containers for continu-ous blooms.

If my rooster meows

don’t blame meOne morning a couple of

weeks back I let my chick-ens out of their house and noticed my favorite one, Raymond, wasn’t running amongst the flock.

I wandered down the back path thinking he’d run out before I’d caught sight of him, but didn’t see him there. You see, he and the cock of the walk, Copper, don’t get along too well some days.

So with a heavy heart I went to the truck to get to work.

My dear Jon had shut them up the night before, so I thought maybe something had happened to the rooster and he was already in the ground and Jon hadn’t told me.

When I got home for lunch that day I remembered that in my haste that morn-ing, I’d forgotten to let the cats out. Raymond crossed my mind again, and I won-dered if maybe … I opened up the cat door and sure enough, six cats meowed at me and one black and white rooster peeked at me through his pretty red wad-dles. I laughed.

“You’d rather spend the night with the cats than put up with Copper, huh?” I asked.

Raymond was the only rooster that thought he needed to flog us from time to time. I didn’t know what turned him that way. But if I wore red out around him I guess he thought I was his mortal enemy and sneaked up on me.

I found out by doing some reading that when the roost-ers are trying to find their place amongst a lot of new hens, they get that way, and you just have to raise your arms and chase them and holler at them. It works.

Anyway, every night now since that one he has gone to the cat house and slept with them. I can’t say as I blame him, he has six fur blankets to snuggle up to.

Of course I wonder if the cats fight over who gets the feather pillow to sleep on. Can you imagine a fluffy live down pillow? Buuuut knowing how roosters smell he won’t be coming to my

bed any time soon.Now that’s not the only

thing that has gone on around Magnolia Plantation lately. Jon went away to spend time with his great-aunt in Booneville and I spent the weekend getting some Operation Christmas Child shopping done. Now y’all have been treated to two stories on this sub-ject that is near and dear to my heart, and there will be more.

Anyway, I also finally got my scarecrow up at the end of the driveway. I’ve been wanting to get that done, but the weather has just been too hot to think about it. Sunday afternoon with its clear cool air and azure skies was the perfect weather for me to build my little lady fishing woman.

She reminds me of grand-mama because she loved to fish rain or shine. I rolled some tires down the drive-way that Jon has had hang-ing around the hill for sev-eral years and used them as her chair.

I put one of the big cane poles in them for her fishing pole then put her togeth-er. Then I had to string the pole. It would have made much more sense to string the pole before I put it in the tires and set the scarecrow on it, but seeing as I am a Sanders who are closely re-lated to Aron’s, I chose the longest hardest way to do it. You see, the tip end of the pole is more than seven feet high. Sooo I traipsed down the driveway to the house and got my little wooden chair and carried it to said pole and put my pretty hook on it.

So now the lady is fishing in the fall air and the rooster is snoring with the cats. And if the rooster meows or the cats let out a lusty ‘erer-er-er-errrrrr’ I guess that means they are learning foreign languages at night.

Chirps From Cardinal

Lady Regina Butler

489-3511

Front Row: Lara Horton, Claire Randle; Back Row: Molly Randle, Leighton Horton, Jayce Grubbs, Cali Allison, Grace Randle, J.D. Chism, Tommy Dunaway.

Front: Carson Farley, Brooklyn Kilpatrick, Meredith Farley, Connor Kilpatrick; Back: Colton Farley

Front: Illa Haze and Bohannon Manning; Back Show Judges

Chase FosterAnna Newell

Front: Elizabeth Nichols; Back: Show Judge, Michelle Nichols, Sa-die Nichols, and Michael Nichols