A little before noon we drove over to the fairgrounds. This is senior day and admission was $1. We ambled past the food booths, finally settling on the Etna Green Lions Club operation. Cheese burgers, onion rings, sodas sated our hunger and thirst. Our neighbors who live behind and one over from us showed up a bit after we got our food. They joined us on the bench going around the perimeter of the wooden booth. We had a nice chat.
The two of us wandered through the antique tractors display, into the blacksmith shop, and into the local history cabin before heading for the events tent where a local retirement facility was offering wrapped Eskimo pies or ice cream sandwiches. In the past, they scooped up ice cream and offered toppings. A no-go during a pandemic. Two of the runners-up for fair queen came and sat across from us wanting to chat. We left to browse some displays; I see on Facebook that the folks in the events tent eventually played bingo.
We meanwhile viewed the Home Arts displays in a separate building and the 4-H projects in another building.
I was surprised to see that Grace Village's Artists in Residence program had entered some works, and they were displayed together. That was nice.
The 4-H projects are judged separately.
A lot of the entries were informational/educational posters which I did not photograph.
2 p.m. found us sitting on bleachers surrounding a wire cage where a tiger show was to take place. It was pretty hot today; I made sure to drink some bottled water. We did have a nice breeze though, and the show only lasted about 20 minutes. The young lady in charge explained that all of her cats were under 3 years old and still in training. Not terribly exciting, but the white Bengal was a magnificent animal. One of the Bengals was not willing to exit the temperature-controlled trailer.
The tiger was fed bits of raw meat as "rewards". Tigers are nocturnal so doing a daytime show meant less activity.
The show started out with a 2-months-old tiger who frolicked with a dog. The trainers have the cats in Illinois part of the year, Florida during the colder months where the felines can stay outdoors and swim in a pond. Unlike housecats, these tigers like water.
We were home by 3 p.m. The air conditioning felt good. At 3 p.m. the rides would start up, but we were not interested in them. We did not visit the animal barns this year either.
There are harness races, truck/tractor pulls and events like that in the grandstand in the evening.
Since the fair did not take place last summer, people were pleased to be able to attend this year. The 4-H animals were judged last year, but no audience was allowed, just a limited amount of participants and judges.
Tonight we will have grilled chicken and our first local sweet corn of the season. Looking forward to supper. It has been a pleasant day. Tomorrow and especially Friday have forecasted rain and thunder storms.
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