The Alice Show

Last Friday was one of those days that I’ll relish for years to come. Dennis and I spent the day at the Alice Springs Show. Having spent so much time at fairs and livestock shows throughout my life, I thrilled at the opportunity to take the Russian to his first county fair equivalent.

The Alice Show is such an ingrained part of the local culture that the opening Friday of the two day event is a city holiday. Most businesses are closed for the day to allow everyone to attend the show. For a town no bigger than Alice, it’s amazing that so many appear to fill the show grounds and realize that some of the exhibitors have driven many hours, if not days just to get here.

We kicked off the day at the cattle show. Cattle numbers were nearly double of last year and the general condition of the cattle is greatly improved. Both are likely due to the high levels of rainfall and resulting quantities of forage.

Other than the rocky back drop, the dialect, ear size on some of the cattle and a few terms like bullocks and milk teeth, there isn’t much different a cattle show in Alice Springs or Knoxville, Illinois. (Other than the fact that the only two black hided cattle showed in the “other breeds” category, even though they were registered angus.) The announcer harassing the crowd for someone to bring him a cup of coffee, made me feel right at home.

 It didn't take Dennis long to notice people (including mom) standing with one foot on the rails.

We watched a few classes and spent most of time discussing – poop. From the beef ring, we moved on to the dog show and agility competition. Dennis was enthralled by the running, leaping and weaving dogs and again, we discussed – poop.

 We checked out the poultry and guess what we discussed there? Yep – poop.

You only need one guess on the topic of discussion during the equine events.

With neither of us being a big fan of crowds, we skipped the mid-way and rides. There’s plenty of time for those things when he’s a bit bigger. We spent our day checking out the animals and mechanical oriented displays in addition to watching the grand opening parade. The Caterpillar equipment on display was a huge attraction and Dennis had to inspect, touch or pose with it anytime we got close to the tent.

He would have quite content to spend the entire afternoon sitting in the dragster on display from the Alice Springs Inland Dragway.

 The little guy consumed an incredible amount of food. He ate a deep fried foot long sausage and over half the accompanying bun, a large fruit punch and a big bowl of strawberries and yogurt. This was just three hours after his usual breakfast of peanut butter toast, half an apple and glass of milk. When we came home that evening, he announced he was hungry and wanted pizza. I have NO idea when he put that much food in his skinny little 30 pound body.

The Grand Opening Parade took me back to my small town agrarian upbringing. Nothing like a parade that includes, kids, horses, cows, pickups, and even a backhoe! It’s no wonder I feel so at home here!

A day at the show had such a big impact on the Russian that the following morning he came with me to a Weight Watchers meeting and as we were getting out of the car, we discussed the fact that were not any cows at the meeting. As we crossed the parking lot, I worked REALLY hard to change the topic of discussion and prayed REALLY hard that he wouldn’t walk into the Weight Watcher and ask where the cows were or start mooing.