Time for the weekly post.  It's terribly slack of me to only post once a week, but it's better than nothing.  Life is busy right now.

Our Show last week had terrible weather, rainy and windy, but we rugged up and went along anyway. 

 If you have to rug up against the weather you can at least be fashionable while you're about it.

First stop was the shearing competition, which is my favourite.

You can see why shearers end up with bad backs.

They were shearing a sheep every 3 minutes on average; I can't imagine doing this for a living.

There's a real knack to throwing out the fleece so that it lands on the skirting table with the tips up and the cut side down, all in one layer, so that the daggy, inferior edges can be pulled off and discarded.

I wanted one of those fleeces so bad, but I have 5 whole fleeces already, so space is an issue; I'd better spin some up real quick.

Then we watched the show-jumping; this is Mereth's favourite show activity.

The horses were so beautifully turned out, they were a pleasure to watch.

When the rain started we ducked into the pavillions to see the exhibits.

There were the usual things, like honey and eggs;

but also some entries in classes that were a little out of the ordinary. 

In earlier times the ability to render fat and dripping from home-killed meat was a necessary skill; I'm glad I don't have to master it these days.

And this is butter sculpture; the lady who made these little works of art is nearly 80, milks her cow every day and made all the butter for these creations.  She's truly remarkable.

We bought a little bit of fabric from a booth, and indulged in a pair of Ugg boots each.  Then it was off to see the birds;  I think pigeon fanciers are a strange breed themselves. 

The proud owner assured me there was a head in amongst all those feathers.

I much prefer this sweet little hen, lovely colours.

Last stop was the mettwurst stall, to buy a metre long pepperoni stick, like this one.

It was very hard to manouevre, so once it was bought we had to leave.  We had a lovely day, even if it was wet and muddy.