Let's Go to the Fair!

Every year, Shila and I go to the Washington County Fair. We go to look at the animals and people. And more and more, we go to take photographs. It is as if it were all set up for our photographs. People turn out and animals are tied up and waiting for us. Perfect.

Can you get me the heck out of here? I hate this. I'm on a 2-foot lead for four days. And I can't get away.
                                   I would love to, beautiful steer. But you are not mine to free.

I have a problem of empathizing heavily with the animals. So does Shila. We have to suspend that to do our thing. We're just there to record it all.

A Lineback. Such a pretty pattern! They come in a bunch of colors, but all with an unpigmented back.

             I marvel at the bodies of cattle. How we've shaped them to our needs and wants. Here, we want a lot of muscle.

A giant Gelbvieh bull. I love these guys, especially the red morph. So packed.

 

Each year, I exclaim anew at cow pelvises. Really, there's no animal in which I can see the pelvic structure so clearly. And that giant udder...my gosh. This animal simply couldn't survive outside of captivity and domestication. It could never get away from predators with a gigantic milk dispenser dangling between its runners.

Your blogger, humbled and awed by what we've done to Bos taurus. At one time, it was a fleet-footed ungulate, not a patient and long-suffering ever-refilling dispenser of liquid protein. Takes me back to when my kids were nursing. I loved it, but it does fool with one's body image. You forget for a few years that you're anything other than a dispenser.

photo by Shila Wilson

Shila and I stopped to ask this girl about her Jersey calf. She was showing it for her brother, who couldn't attend the fair. When she came into the stall the calf turned toward her and nuzzled her. It was so sweet to see their relationship and the trust and love between them.

It was much the best-looking Jersey calf there, too. 

A Boer goat. Bred for meat. I am sorry. This animal is entirely too doglike to be considered edible, at least by me. I am in awe of 4H kids for their ability to bond with an animal like this, then sell it at the fair. It is a necessary mindset, but one which would surely desert me at the crucial moment. Noooooo! I want to take Jimmy back Hoooooome!!

On to the wabbits. Of them, I prefer to kootchy-koo the ones that are bred for their looks. 

Netherland Dwarf, selected for cute.

A compact packet of rabbit. At about this point my nose starts to tickle so I quick hurry up and take some more bunnyshots before the eyes begin to stream. I once hugged a woman, got instant nosetickleeyestream action, and asked her if she kept rabbits. "Yes! I just cleaned their cages before I came over." Oh.

That's your problem, innit?

Gah, I'm sneezing just looking at these.

Always feel a bit bad for the rabbits, hanging there in their cages with lots of loudspeakers and bustling all around. 

Then I saw Owen and Josh who are my Science Club pals and Owen showed me how his Reserve Champion rabbit gives him kisses when he asks for them. And it did, twicet.

That was nice.

My fascination with chickens continues. I never tire of ogling chickens. 

Apparently they enjoy ogling me back. 

I was too excited to get the names of most of them, but I'm pretty sure this is a buff Orpington rooster.

Ever my favorite, the compact and perky Japanese bantam. The Japanese do cute very well.

A Polish crested who seemed intent on pulling out every last feather he had. Can't say as I blame him. I'd start with the ones over my eyes.

No idea what this little creature was, but look what they've done to his legs. Good grief. 

The whims and caprices of man, writ small on a poultry wall.
(I'm advised by a reader that it's a Mille Fleur D'Uccle bantam, a hen. She'd have a comb if she were a rooster). 

This was my favorite chicken, a bold and confident Foghorn Leghorn kind of rooster. We got ourselves a croon going and exchanged some pictures and thoughts. I had a hard time pulling myself away from him. I can't say I know what he was thinking, but it was a connection, that's for sure. Baaaawwwwwwwwwwwk.

More fair animals to come. The best kind.

Small Animal Barn

The Washington County Fair happens over Labor Day weekend. I go every year, no matter how hot, stanky and humid it is. Bill didn't accompany us this year, which is probably a good thing, because you have to really, really want to be there to deal with the stifling heat and smell of fried dough. There is a Felliniesque quality to it that attracts me. I take millions of pictures, while dispensing five-dollar bills and juggling the repeated entreaties of my kids to get to the midway where we can roast our brains on the hot asphalt, waiting in line to ride icky filthy undersized kiddie rides and throw darts in weak arcs at balloons made of titanium so we can "win" a "free" "prize" that costs us $8, is worth about 79 cents, and breaks in the car on the way home. At least they don't have baby green iguanas or red-eared sliders as prizes any more. That made me insane. And don't even talk about the box turtle races, which I protested and brought to a halt several years ago.

I do miss the sleazy house of horror, trampy T-shirt stands and creepy sideshows that accompanied the concession that gave live animal prizes. They had these great hand-painted wooden fronts with giant pythons and parrots, recorded tapes blaring about the giant snake that could eat an entire sheep, and the creepiest carnies. Loved it. But the midway now is all dull as a corncob, without the sparkle of danger and sex, though you couldn't call it sanitized.

I'm there for the chickens and bunnies, cattle and horses that clop smartly around the trotters' racecourse. I'm there for the homemade crafts and giant pumpkins. Mostly for the chickens and bunnies, though. It's hard to photograph them; the lighting is bad and the cage bars are obtrusive. The only hope is to stick the lens right up against the bars and get in their faces.

This is a Japanese silky. He's got a genetic mutation that creates feathers without barbules, those little hooks that interlock and keep a feather sleek and smooth. You don't want to leave Japanese silkies out in the rain. They wouldn't survive a month without a coop, methinks. What chicken would, in this raccoon-ridden world?
I like the extra touch of Antwerp blue around the eye. This little rooster looks intelligent and slightly severe to me, though I think it's just his feathery eyebrows.

I can't tell if this rooster looks intelligent or not. He's a Polish crested, with the added allure of lacy feather edges.
Tiny sweet baby bunnies, all together in a pile.
A giant angora, allergy in a cage. I sneeze just thinking about it. I'm allergic to rabbits, cats, and horse dander. I can ride, but don't ask me to curry a horse! Some dogs drive me crazy--Cocker spaniels and some other long-haired dogs. Kind of depends. But not birds, thank goodness, or Boston terriers. I can bury my face and go to sleep in Chet's sweet eyelash-length fur. If I buried my face in this rabbit's fur I would not wake up.
And a Siamese dwarf bunny. Please. Every time I thought I'd found the cutest bunny in the world, another one would hove into view. I have to get out of the bunny barn now. Cute overload allergy. Achoo!