Been to any Fairs ?

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...

Sounds like a good fair, here I believe the last one in the state is the spencer county fair and it for ten days after Labor Day, so the vegetables are slim in a late like this one.

It is one of the better fairs, used to compete as a lot of them as a teen in FFA. I will be going to Deerfield fair on Friday.

The Potter County Fair has lots of raffles, guns, ATV's, etc. The Game Commission and Dept. of Conservation &Natural Resources are there with their respective educational trailers. The regional state representative is there with lots of free stuff. Last year I got a bunch of rifle targets, a current year hunting/trapping digest and some other literature.

The bingo hall, tons of food and all the usual carnival rides.

But, like I said, the animals are the main attraction for us; the horse pulls and various riding events, all the different 4-H animals to be judged and the auction.

There's a big fireworks display the last night.

Wisconsin has a county fair in almost everyone of our 72 counties. Some are very big with 100k attending in 4 days while most are small and some very small. I have not shown dairy cattle for 50 years, but our granddaughter shows some beef, sheep, rabbits and chickens through 4-H. We are selling my Hereford herd and getting more sheep and raising more New Zealand Rabbits for fryers. We will add more sheep as we have found a good live market for the smaller Katahdin with a buyer that knows the markets. No shearing and a lot smaller animals to deal with.

We have a very large meat animal sale every year and yes prices are very high but most of the monies goes into scholarship funds for the youths and that helps buyers and parents to know where the funds will go.

Bryce

The State Fair of Texas opens this Friday, Sept. 27th and will run through Oct. 20th. in Dallas, Texas
There is absolutely more to see there than one can imagine.
2.5 million people are expected to go through the gates at this year's event.

Back in August just ran my 6th Nebraska state fair marathon (and that was my 18th overall marathon completed) The Nebraska state fair marathon is by far one of my favorite races each year. Not many entries, it's completely flat course in Grand Island (fastest, flattest course in the nation) and is a Boston certified course. There are literally no hills in Grand Island, and per my Garmin watch the total elevation change over the entire course was just 13 feet...seriously. it's that flat. This year it absolutely poured rain on us the last 5-6 miles, couldn't hardly see a couple blocks ahead of us at times. After the race we generally just walk around the fair, check out exhibits, sample food, and have a great day. This years weather was the exception though. Headed straight for the vehicle and drove through pouring rain most of way home.
Jim

good for you jab..I really miss my marathon days..never qualified for Boston ..9 minutes was as close as I could get..which you would understand is still a long ways away from qualifing....those days are gone for me...enjoy it while you are able to..

Oh I'm sure there aren't many left in me. At 53 I'm seeing a few more injuries than I'd like each year. Been battling an ankle tendon issue that is really nagging me.
I have the market to market related coming up in two weeks. That's an 8 person team, 75 miles, omaha old market to lincoln haymarket area.
Then just a half marathon at start of november, good life halfsy, that's a fun race.
Then just a few fun and relaxing early morning runs rest of november to keep it going until Thanksgiving and time to trap for couple months and rest the legs!
Jim

We show sheep at 3 state fairs and 3 county fairs We used to go to 8 state fairs and show. This was my dads 70th year exhibiting at the South Dakota state fair. We show 4 breeds, Hamps, Babydoll southdowns, Targee and Dorpers. Have 60 plus head at the fairs makes a lot of work but the kids do well and enjoy it.