The Royal

Last Sunday afternoon (a week ago) we went on a jaunt. Down to Toronto's Royal Winter Fair. It has been years (YEARS!) since the last time I was there. LeeAnne and Vanessa joined us and we headed out right after lunch. First stop....

After we fueled up at Starbucks, we headed for the big lights...

And in no time, we arrived...

The first thing we did was make our way to the dairy building looking for Heather. She was there with the Waterloo County 4H Club.

And here she is....taking good care of her "bossy"! 

We had lots of time to check out exhibits and pavillions. Even watched the Dog show....always good for a laugh or two!

Does anyone remember the book "Robert the Rose Horse"? My brother Jonathan and I loved that book. This horse below reminded me of Robert. Although I don't think there was really any connection to that book. Just a fun coincidence! :-)

Checking out Jonathan & Sheila's garlic...

Northern Ontario has quite a fantastic little pavillion going on - representing lots of farmers and businesses from there. This is the second year they have sourced Jon & Sheila's garlic. (see that big black tub of garlic in the picture above?) Of course in true Gerber fashion, we had to go up to the lady working the booth and start quizzing her about where the garlic came from. She didn't want to tell us the name of the farmer. But said that it comes from "such and such" an area of Northern Ontario. We all started laughing and said "That's our brother!" It turned out to be quite funny! :-)

Writing our names on the cow. Why? I dunno. That's just what you were supposed to do!

Did you know....diary cows can produce 125 lbs of saliva per day? Or that a cow gives in her lifetime enough milk to fill 200,000 glasses? Me neither. We were busy learning all kinds of fun things! LOL!

Sunday evening the preliminary showmanship competition began. Because Heather was competing in the senior category, we had to wait and wait while the juniors and intermediates competed first. I think it was close to 10:30pm before we saw her come into the ring. Max had long since fallen asleep. There she is...number 172.

Unfortunately we couldn't be all loud and cheer her on. Or even make motions to let her know where we were. It's a very quiet and serious thing. The last thing you want to do is start spooking the cows. Some of them were jumpy enough the way it was.

You have basically 5 seconds to make your impression on the judge as he circles around you and your calf...

And then after moments of quietness...the top 4 or 5 are chosen by the judges. They have to return the following morning to compete in the finals. I think there were about 138 seniors competing. I don't really understand what you all have to do to win but it has alot to do with how well you handle your calf as well as keeping your eyes on the judge and hoping and praying your calf does not decide to act up! LOL!

Afterwards we went back to say goodbye to Heather, pet the calf and wish her lots of good luck for the competition the next day (she wasn't in the showmanship. Rather it was all about the calf...is it called Conformation? Someone help me out?! Not sure about that. It sounds right!)

We headed out and the truck made it home in record time. I really can't tell you how long it took us. That would be incriminating. But it wasn't bad. Not bad at all. It still ended up being a very late night and we were all very tired the next day.

As for final results, I don't think anyone in Heather's club placed for showmanship or conformation. But. BUT! They won first place for their 4-H display. All the clubs are judged on how clean and neat they keep their animals and their display and signage and all kinds of stuff. First place! NOT BAD! :-) And that's all I know about that.