 |
| One of the Shire Horse class winners |
We have been at Heckington Show today - and will be again tomorrow.... the weather is glorious and the people are turning out in their thousands...
Heckington is the largest village agricultural show in the country. It hosts the largest Shire Horse classes after the National, including qualifiers for the Horse of the Year Show plus the regional Grade A Show jumping qualifer. It also hosts the largest number of regional rare breeds - Lincoln red cattle, Longwool sheep and Lincolnshire Buff chickens - and, of course, the curly coat pigs. In weather like this, with people in their summer clothes, pic-nic-ing on the grass and everyone in carefree mood, it is hard to beat.
 |
| Merry and Shirley at breakfast |
We've been taking the curly coats there for the past 7 years - always accompanied by a trusty spaniel (The Bestest gundog until this year) so we're now a familiar attraction. This year the curly coat representatives are Merry (blonde) and Shirley - the first swallowbelly we've taken to the Show. They've had a constant stream of admirers - despite showering many of them with water from their bucket.... I suspect by the end of tomorrow they'll have perfected the wallow they started this morning and will be reluctant to leave their hordes of admirers to come home.
 |
| Merry demonstrating the Art of Making a Wallow |
In the meantime, people are fascinated by these wooly pigs - "Are they sheep or are they pigs/" is the most frequently asked question.......with their woolly coats it is not always easy to distinguish at first sight..... These two, being youngsters, still have most of their curls but the older ones have moulted and are now wandering around in their cool grey skins.... The wool, assuming we can gather it, is shipped off to a colleague in America who transforms it into material that fly fishermen will die for..... Nothing is wasted.
 |
| "Been awfullt good Mum - can we go now?" said Jaunty |
.
Today it was Jaunty's turn to represent the canine horde at Rectory Reserve..... He's never been to an event like this so we thought it would be a useful step in his education. He was totally non-plussed by all the noises and people and just wanted to sniff the ground - to death....Sitting around whilst I watched the Shire horses or anything else was a bore... he just wanted to carry on sniffin..... as soon as he got in the truck to come home though he was out for the count. We'll see if Bugler fares any better tomorrow....
