I have one more post to finish out the State Fair. The last is here. Then I can move on to last week’s adventures with Kirby and Katie.

Kirby does a great job with the sheep and certainly loves some of the pet sheep here, but my guess is that if you asked her favorite animal she would say “horse”. We waited until late in the day on Saturday to see one of the presentations at the Cavalcade of Horses. After the show kids were able to pet some of the horses.

This particular show had a pirate theme and included gymnastics on horse back as well.

Then we went to the barn where the mares and foals were stalled. They had been the stars of a show we saw earlier. The youngest foal liked rubbing his rear on the fence and appreciated even more scratches by Kirby.

On Sunday morning we watched the Longhorn show. The first classes were Haltered Heifers. Those were young longhorns shown by some kids. The larger longhorns are shown in a sort of free-for-all. They don’t try to halter these. They are numbered and the judge looks at them as they wander around the show ring.

In this class there were cows with calves. It was entertaining to watch and interesting to hear the judge’s comments, especially since I had just heard that Kirby’s family are now the owners of a cow-calf pair of longhorns. That was something for Kirby to look forward to when she went home.

Back at the sheep barn, we spent some time with this performer who occasionally rides through the barn. Kirby asked if he could make a balloon sheep. He made a bighorn sheep ram! Side note…Did you know that these bikes were created so that the riders would be more visible to the transportation mode of the day (horses and carriages) and eye level with horseback riders?

At the end of the day the Marketing Awards were announced. We won the Marketing Award. We also had Best Program directed at the general public. The blue ribbon is for Best Educational Presentation under the Herdsman award for the sheep show. The white ribbon is for 3rd Best Educational Presentation over the whole two weeks of the fair.

I was glad that Kirby had a fancy ribbon too.