The Report. . .
So many of you have emailed and offered support during the planning of our Barn Party – I thought you’d want a report. Nothing funny here. Just a bunch of pictures from a tired but satisfied chik. Of course, there are pictures missing, because I was half in a daze and half running around like a chicken with my head cut off. So hopefully you’ll get an idea of the experience by browsing through this photo essay.
CLEAN UP:
Don’t know how many people clean their barn. With a broom. But here we go. And when brooms just don’t cut it:
We have some great friends – they spent HOURS helping us prepare and pull off the barn party.
There is no picture of Prince Farming and my son going up and down the lane fences with weed-eaters. Nor is there a picture of my niece who learned to drive on our small tractor – pulling the bush hog – for the first time ever – so the fields would be manageable. What a star!
We sold tickets. This was a fund-raiser party. Our Pathfinder Club (sort of a co-ed Scouts program) sold the meal (haystacks) to raise money for a huge trip they’re taking next summer to Osh Kosh. The 8th Graders sold baked goods and desserts to raise money for their class trip and graduation expenses.
Here are our same friends – still hard at work (we should be watching the one whose fingers are in the money box more closely!) In the background you can see the food tables.
While we ate, we had a local band (Luther led out, I can’t remember what they called themselves). They’re very talented, and sing/play a variety of folk music.
In between eating and talking and listening, there were a variety of activities. I didn’t get photos of all of them, but here were a few favorites:
Not all the vehicles were this imposing. They seemed to have a blast.
Here the kids pillow faught "to the fall" (when someones hay stack tipped over.)
Face painting is always a hit. Here they worked with temporary tattoos or Rubber stamps (with washable skin ink and markers).
For those who didn’t want to go on their own, they could ride with a stable (opposite of unstable) rider. Several little kids were led around this small field. Or their parents rode with them. Or the parents rode alone. And when they didn’t have customers, the riders (my nieces) did this:
The miniature horse lives with these guys, and loves to follow wherever they go. He’s so cute!
We had several team / individual contests planned. I was the MC, so didn’t get pictures, but someone got a picture of me:
That would be me with my chicken hat. Pathetic thing. Looks like the chicken was having a hard time laying that egg. And that egg probably thinks about as well as normal "cackleberries" do. I believe I was cheering on the pie-eating contestants here.
We had a corn-shelling relay race (teams had to grab an ear of field corn, run to the wagon to husk and shell the corn (take all the kernals off) then run back to their team to tag the next person). It took a lot longer than I anticipated but they didn’t want me to cut it short, so we let them do half of the husks (12 per team).
There was also a Tug ‘o War. The first round was over in a hurry. The winners got foam animal visors (horses, maybe). The next war was a bit more evenly matched, and they started wearing down. The winners actually had to have help from the side-lines to get the tape over the mark. Their team more than doubled in number to overcome their very strong opponents.
The pie-eating contest was. . . disgusting. I felt like throwing up for those crazy people. They weren’t allowed to use their hands. They were covered with black trash can liners, but still managed to get their clothes full of chocolate pudding. These two stuck it out to the end, but weren’t the winners. My pictures are too bright (you can’t see what’s going on) because of the sun’s angle (or the angle of the shots, I suppose)
There was also a beanbag toss game that Blackie brought for us to play. People seemed to enjoy it (the object was to throw a beanbag into the hole in the box 30 feet away – with 4 tries, I think). There was another player throwing in this direction. At times, this drew quite a crowd.
And the kids had a blast with the climbing rope.
This must not have been taken at the party, because normally there were tons of kids around.
We also had a jail. People paid to have someone thrown into jail. The victims had to sit in the jail (a horse stall) for 10 minutes or pick a task out of a bag. If they chose NOT to do the task, they had to double their time in jail AND pay a ticket to get out. I was thrown into jail and opted to sing "Mary had a Little Lamb" opera-style. Luckily most of the people were on a hay ride at the time, so I only embarrassed myself in front of a few people. The other time, I had to "gallop" around the barn on a stick horse yelling "yee haw" and pushing the horses ear to make the music play. Whatever. There weren’t very many people who chose the embarrassing way out of jail. I just didn’t have time to sit. In hindsight, maybe I should have just used all my tickets to keep myself in there the whole time. Didn’t think that one through, huh?
We ended the party with a couple of hay rides, pulled by my favorite father-in-law (yes, he’s also my only one!)
When they got back, there was a campfire and hot chocolate. And clean-up. Most people left around then.
The weather was perfect. We had around 125 people come by (in waves). It was fun to visit and see the kids enjoying themselves. This year worked out well because the barn is not inhabited by cows yet. Next year’s party (in our barn) is not a guaranteed thing. We’ll have to see how messy it gets (being new to this whole farm thing and all).
