Salt Spring Island Fall Fair
Yup. It’s another cow.
And no, this hasn’t turned into a Bovine Blog.
I took these photos a couple of weeks ago at the Salt Spring Island Fall Fair. My friend had been urging me to come over for the island’s annual fair, which, she claims, is the social event of the year for Salt Spring Island.
“Will there be cows?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m there,” I said.
Salt Spring Island has a long history of farming ― the island was first known for its fruit harvests, then the dairy and poultry farmers arrived. These days, Salt Spring is famous for its lamb …
… and for its cheese made from goats’ milk.
In keeping with that history, the Salt Spring Island Fall Fair has been an island institution since 1896. This year’s theme was Celebrating Family Farming to coincide with the United Nations declaring 2014 the International Year of Family Farming. (I so wish I had made it to last year’s fair: its theme was Pirates of the Carrots and Beans.)
It seems like everyone on the island has something to exhibit at the Fall Fair ― from livestock to produce to baked goods to flowers to handcrafts.
Although the sheepdog demonstration was fascinating and the zucchini races were, um, unlike any race involving green vegetables I’ve ever seen, my favourite event was the sheep shearing.
The shearer showed us how shearing used to be done ― with a big, shiny pair of blade shears …
… and then he showed us how it’s done today ― with powered machine shears.
The Salt Spring Island Fall Fair takes place every September. If I’m feeling in a year that my blog needs more cow photos, I now know where to go.
Through My Lens: Irish Cow
Now that I have cows on my mind, I can’t resist posting this photo. This cow was happily munching away when I rode past her, again on a bike, but this time in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland.
(And no, I did not lie on the ground to take this shot — the road and pasture were at slightly different elevations, about four feet apart. At the bottom left of the photo, you can just see the top of the stone wall that lined the road my friend and I were cycling along.)
Echte Nederlandse Koe
I’ve taken the train from Paris to Amsterdam many, many times. One of those times, I spent much of the journey eavesdropping on the idle talk of a Dutch couple sitting behind. From the way they spoke to each other, I surmised they might be brother and sister.
I’m by no means fluent in Dutch, so much of their conversation was way over my head. Except for shortly after we crossed the Belgium–Dutch border, when the woman said something I understood perfectly.
Nu is ere en echte Nederlandse koe. (Now there is a real Dutch cow.)
I smiled to myself. Could a cow seen from the window of a high-speed train possibly look more Dutch than Belgium or French? Really?
Really.
I knew what she meant. She was home ― back in her own country ― and everything looked familiar again. Oddly enough, I’ve always had the same feeling when travelling to the Netherlands from somewhere else by train ― only because, out of all the countries in western Europe, the Netherlands is the most familiar to me. It’s not my home, but crossing the Dutch border always feels like a home-coming of sorts.
I took the above photo while cycling through the Dutch countryside just outside of the city of Arnhem ― only because these cows struck me as particularly fine-looking specimens of Nederlandse cows.
Velella Velella
While my family and I were checking out the surf conditions at Long Beach the other weekend, we came across dozens of these.
They’re velella velella ― a small animal about the length of my index finger. Related to the jelly fish, they are normally found hundreds of miles off shore. For some reason, they are sometimes washed ashore, which is what happened the other weekend on the beaches near Tofino. According to Tofino’s mayor, a marine biologist, it is a rare, but completely natural, event.
How cool that it happened the weekend we went to Tofino. (And how cool is it that Tofino’s mayor is a marine biologist?)
And Then There Were the Reptiles
Wanna know the No. 1 question I’ve been asked about my trip to Florida?
“Did you see any alligators?”
Why, yes, yes I did.
Although they are not nearly as photogenic as my feathered friends, I found Florida’s reptiles equally fascinating. I suppose the simple reason for that is because native reptiles are few and far between in my neck of the woods.
We do have snakes in Canada. And I saw a snake or two in Florida, which I found somewhat interesting.
But we don’t have geckos, which I found adorable.
And we don’t have iguanas, which I found mesmerizing.
And we certainly don’t have alligators. (In case you can’t tell, all the floating logs in this photo aren’t. Logs, I mean.)
Here’s what one of those logs looks like up close.
What I really don’t get is why people would want to canoe right up to one of those floating logs.
I suppose it’s no different than me sleeping in a tent in the middle of the Rockies knowing full well that bears tend to wander around campsites just before dawn.
Sleeping with bears? Canoeing with alligators?
Bears? Alligators?
I’ll take my chances with the bears, thank you.
There and Back Again 