Butler Farm Show board member Harold Foertsch is ready for this year's event.

Butler County is filled with a variety of people doing interesting things. This weekly feature offers snapshots of some of them by asking them five questions. The latest installment appears below.

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The 63rd annual Butler Farm Show begins today in Butler Township, but much of Harold Foertsch's participation happens before and after the weeklong event.

On the board for 30-plus years, the 73-year-old Foertsch does many jobs at the show. Those include overseeing the 4-H livestock events as well as the tractor pulls. A farmer by day in Jefferson Township, Foertsch also is charged with cleaning out the livestock barns. Here, he discusses this less-than-glamorous job.

QUESTION: How many animals are housed in the Farm Show barns?ANSWER: There's going to be 50-some head of cattle, probably 147 hogs — probably around 100 sheep. Also chickens, rabbits, goats and some horses.

QUESTION: How much manure do these animals produce?ANSWER: I'm willing to guess probably 100 tons — in that ballpark. (But) it's mostly straw and sawdust with the manure mixed in.

QUESTION: Aside from daily pitchfork duty, do livestock owners clean out their own stalls?ANSWER: Kids do during the week in their pens and for sale night. The kids will clean out their hog pens (for instance) so the barn looks neat, smells good and buyers come in and see what clean animals they have.

QUESTION: How do you do the cleanup and who helps?ANSWER: With skid loaders. I have four operators and about three kids with pitch forks and a couple of kids tearing down pens. Dave Cox and his son, Buddy, have helped for four or five years. That's all of us on Monday morning, and we're usually done in four or five hours. Within a six-hour period it's done.

QUESTION: What do you do with the straw?ANSWER: After the show's over it's spread real lightly over the parking lots. They're not paved. We cover the grass where the traffic wears it down.