Went to Berry County Fair

We did make it out to a couple of our local county fairs this summer.  This is always a great chance to let the boys get close to real animals other than the tree rats that live in the yard.  I enjoy seeing the crafts, eating fried food, and watching the other visitors.  Tam loves the tractors...and now the rides too.  Jude just takes it all in, but does have some affinity for wheels.  I think Brian mostly likes spending time with his family.

For our first fair, we went with our friends, Keith, Xander, and Jo.  We had decided to go on a day that Brian was free too, and this turned out to be one of the hottest days of the summer. Luckily, we tackled the fair early in the morning because everyone was wilty, ornery, and sweaty by eleven o'clock.

We toured slowly through the animal barns, letting the children check out the animals.


 The bunnies were the first to be seen and uber cute.







There were a few guinea pigs housed with the rabbits...Tam spotted them right away as not like everything else.

The fowl were also okay to be approached by the kiddos.  Both Xander and Tam tried to "talk" to the roosters with little success.









The larger animals were a little more scary for the kids and they had to be a bit more coerced to approach them.  Eventually, all the children braved-up and touched the various big animals (goats, pigs, cows, horses, alpaca). 

 

  Jude LOVED checking out the animals.  Once Daddy showed him how to reach out his hand to get sniffed, he kept trying to touch the animals on his own. 

 Jude had  very little fear and tried to reach and touch everything that looked his way with a bit of curiosity.

 And sometimes the animals were really reaching out to touch Jude! 

 This was a common shot of the two boys behaving so well with each other.  Xander just turned 5years old and Tam is 3.5 years old. 

 The pig barn was chaotic because we entered it in the midst of judging.  This meant that there were loose pigs being herded around the pens.  Twice random hogs got away from their owners and made flights down the aisles were we were walking.  This up-close run in with huge livestock was a bit too much for the kids, especially little Jo, and they were a bit freaked out.

Did I mention that it was HOT...like in the 90s hot with high humidity.  The kids were sweating like mad after just a short time. 
We had lunch in a little piece of shade and tried to keep cool and hydrated.


We ended the day with a quick look at baby animals in the birth barn and then high-tailed it to the car and the air-conditioning.





Overall, a good day spent with friends in the heat with animals :-)