My son is helping some farms ...
shear and fit and show their flocks of sheep ..@ New England’s oldest and largest Fair this weekend...Right here in Deerfield NH. Got to get some Fair Food !

Can’t beat the fair food, do you know the breeds and if they are block shearing them or do they shear them close? Around here most are sheared close, blocking is the old way of shearing show sheep.

My son started cleaning pens then on to fitting and showing from cow place to sedila mo . Paid his way through college fitting judging and breeding club lambs. Congrats to your son for doing all that hard work that goes into showing livestock.

Here is a pic of his Supreme Champion Oxford Ram ....he won 10 years ago at the Big-E in Springfield Mass. He gave up his flock ,8 years ago,and was burnt out. But some how that flame is flickering again....and some Oxford Sheep (his old blood lines) will be back on the property next spring. He blocks them out with a flare comb and hand trims the rest. He’s been doing it since he was 12...and now he’s made a good name for himself....and people pay him to “Fit” their animals.....he doesn’t care to slick shear.

If you want to restore your faith in youth, just get you to an old fashioned county fair. At least here in Wisconsin you are going to run into a bunch of hard working, polite kids who are proud of their animals and can engage in a conversation with an adult and look ya right in the eye while doing it.
They can rattle off all the specs of their critter, be it a cow, horse, pig, chicken, goat, sheep, rabbit and so on.
Here, many of the local business men pay big money for the kid's animal in the meat auctions and then sometimes give the animal back to the kid.

GO FARM KIDS!

Zim

Yeah slick shearing oxfords would be a pain most here are Suffolk so you don’t have the legs or face to fit. I always found slick shearing faster because you don’t have to worry about getting the squared right on the sheep, I’ve seen it done wrong and the sheep looks like its walking crooked to the ring.

Yup ..Suffolk’s are huge sheep.....and expensive ( for good ones ). And yes slick shearing doesn’t take as much skill....and time.

I said that wrong I meant personally I find slick shearing faster, I had trouble blocking probably because our old stand always seemed at the wrong height to square them off right for me.

Suffolks and southdowns are in the flock at my house

And he’s working on some Hampshires too....then he gets to show them...he usually holds the heads and a helper sets the rear feet.

My family and I enjoy going to the Potter County Fair near my camp. It's the last free (free parking and admission) county fair in the state. We schedule a family vacation to camp every year during fair week. The 4-H animals and judging are a big hit with everyone. And every year they try to get me to buy a goat at the animal auction.

The local gun club maintains a small log cabin on the fairgrounds and we sell memberships and raffle off guns during fair week. We also rent or own a building used as a bingo hall. We use the money made from bingo during fair week to buy fish food for the trout we raise and stock on local streams.

During a club meeting last year before fair week we were voting on the very serious issue of whether or not to buy one or two more bags of shelled corn to use as bingo markers.

great trappin spot too.

Fishing ain't bad either!

believe that fair is over 150 yrs old right?

Our fair's are all done. I went to one. Love those foot long hot dogs!

greasy italian sausage and fries here.usually gut shot for a couple days after my visit.

Yep

I don’t know the history Mark. I do know this year’s fair was the 83rd annual. The fair itself may be much older than that, that may be 83 years at his current location or whatever.

What do you guys have for attractions besides animal shows, the state fair here has a butter cow, here is a link so you have an idea.

https://www.iowastatefair.org/about/butter-cow/

They have a guy doing chainsaw carvings, magic shows, horse pulling, horse jumping, carnival rides, huge 3,000 lb pumpkins...tractor pulls, pig scramble, motor cycle daredevils, and a bunch of other stuff...