A big swig of the State Fair

On Tuesday at the fair, I lent a hand to Wally Rutledge (the man from whom I bought my first two Shetlands). The Shetland classes were held the Thursday before (the day before the Fair opens to the public /-: ), but the Sheep Supreme Champion classes were held Tuesday. I helped him show his Get of Sire group. None of the Shetlands placed in a ring crowded with predominantly meat sheep, of course; still, his group of four katmogets represented our breed well. But first, Wally showed his ram in the Supreme Champion Ram class. While I took photos, Rick and Brian stayed with the Get of Sire lambs to make sure no one untied them. The sight of such friendly sheep generated a lot of interest in passersby!

As I mentioned, livestock entries were down this year. The poultry/small animal barn was half full of fowl at best on Tuesday, and on Thursday the rabbits and cavies were even sparser.

There were quite a few dairy cows present this year. I just love this shot of gentle Jerseys.

Of course, there are always other animal "attractions" at a fair, like this massive constrictor outside the "World of Reptiles" tent. Eeew.

There was a K-9 demo in the afternoons; it was interesting to watch this Belgian Malinois work.

We each gravitated to different kinds of displays...
...and even caught a passing parade!

The majority of our time was spent in and around the horse show stadium, since Rick was the horse show vet for the two days we were there. There weren't a lot of entries for many of the classes, but the draft section was well represented; they are always a crowd-pleaser. This year, they even held a draft "play day" event for the draft exhibitors, which was a lot of fun to watch!That's Rick's client, getting ready to show his six-horse hitch of Shires. If you look closely, you can see Brian and another boy sitting on the blue wagon on the left. That other boy is Rick's client's neighbor; he's been their "junior driver" for several years. Next year he'll be too old to qualify, so Rick's client wants to groom Brian for that role. Fortunately he has gentle, well-trained horses, as you can see below.


Finally, my favorite "fair food" -
I had the gyros stand's "fair special" both days we were there; a falafel gyros with Greek fries and watermelon lemonade. Mmm-MMM! The only other thing I craved was a big cinnamon roll; mine had maple icing. :-)

That's it for now from . . .