A Day at the Fair

So I’ve gotten even more behind on blogging than I had planned to. This past week or so has been a pretty crappy week, with unexpected filing of taxes, rear-ending someone in my car on Wednesday, and Chris hitting a kangaroo and damaging the front of my car on Thursday (more on all that later). There were some great things in there too, like finishing Season 1 of “Game of Thrones” and Chris’s and my 6 month anniversary. Time sure flies!

As it’s been awhile since I last blogged, I have quite a bit to talk about. Here (and in my next few blog entries) I’ll try to catch up on the main happenings from March. First up: the Lucindale Field Days.

A few weekends ago, Chris and I went to the Lucindale Field Days, which was basically like a big county fair. It was a lovely day for it, mid-70s and sunny. I was excited to get out and get a bit more local flavor. I was especially excited to see the working dog competition and pet the puppies (although on the website it said that the puppies would be there only if it wasn’t too hot out, so I had to hope that it wouldn’t be a repeat of Australia Day and the ferrets). 

 

Australians call cotton candy “fairy floss.”

The first order of business was to get us a bag of kettle corn. Chris had never had kettle corn and didn’t even know what it was. He thought it was like corn on the cob but fried in a kettle or something like that. Haha! I introduced him to one of my favorite fair foods (funnel cake is still Number 1) and he enjoyed it. Then we watched a group of bagpipe players. I happen to love the bagpipes and thought it was great to see a mix of ages in the group.

 

Part of the bagpipe player group.

We wandered around a bit after that looking at all the stalls and depositing our raffle tickets at each of the participating booths (we could win a riding lawn mower!). Then we headed to the field dog competition. I had only ever seen that kind of stuff in movies, so it was fascinating to watch and listen to it in person. The dogs had to herd a group of sheep through a gate and then down a passageway, jump on top of the sheep to make them cluster up, get the sheep up a ramp, then back into the main field and through the end gate. The handlers seemed to get frustrated at times, and it showed in their tone of voice. The dogs seemed to love what they were doing, although I feel kind of bad for the sheep. 

 

Herding the sheep to the gate.

After watching the adult dogs at work, we pet the cute puppies. Luckily they were there and it wasn’t too hot for them! We continued our journey through all the stalls (there were at least 400 booths), stopping to pet the farm animals in the petting area, grab some delicious fish and chips, try on some traditional Australian Akubra hats, and get pictures with the Mailbox Competition entries.

 

A traditional Akubra hat.

 

One of my favorite of the Mailbox Competition entrants: a shaggy horse!

Midway through the day I couldn’t find my phone, so we spent a little while retracing our steps. I finally went out to the car, hoping it had fallen out of my purse there. Luckily it had. Phew! I could then stop worrying and enjoy the rest of the day. We ate some delicious ice cream while watching the raffle prize drawings. Unfortunately we didn’t win anything (dang, no riding lawn mower). But it was a fantastic day full of sunshine and good fair food. I hope there are more of these coming up because I sure do love going to them!