Bears! (and county fairs)

[altivo]

Went to the county fair this morning to see the animal exhibits and all the textile stuff now that the displays are up. We also stayed long enough to see the "Great Bear Show" which is in fact a sponsored-in fundraiser for a bear shelter and rehabilitation place in Texas. The bears appearing in the show were obviously hand reared and accustomed to humans. They said these were bears who had come to them as orphan cubs. They were black bears, two males of 16 years in age and a female 8 years old. Good natured, probably as smart as dogs but also more inclined to be lazy and less eager to please. Even so, they did simple things with just verbal commands and hand gestures, like balancing and walking on a large ball or a barrel, balancing on a teeter board, and dancing with a human partner. They seemed eager enough to come out of their enclosure and do tricks, and were quite gentle and well-behaved.

I'm not sure what I think about the performing act, but the intentions appear to be good. They had a lot of educational information about bears in the wild, their needs and behavior, and how to avoid confrontation or problems. Their organization accepts orphaned cubs and injured bears, providing them with living space, medical care, and food. Those that can be returned to the wild are given that opportunity. Those who cannot return are given "retirement" space on their ranch.

The fair continues to shrink. This county has sold out to sprawling suburban developers, and farms are dying. There are still cows, pigs, and sheep, but most seem to be 4H projects rather than from working farms. There's a horse show, but it's not a very dynamic one, mostly girls leading around their ponies on halters. The cooking, sewing, and craft exhibits have some fine examples of the art but relatively few entries. There's a huge amateur photography exhibit, but not much actual painting or drawing in spite of open categories for the exhibition of art. Smaller animals, like rabbits, goats, and chickens, are still in abundance but not quite as many as I recall from past years. I suppose in a few more years it will have turned into nothing but a midway carnival with a bunch of commercial booths pushing stuff, a demolition derby, and a couple of night time rock or country music performances. That has been the fate of the county fairs closer in to Chicago.

Fortunately there's still Boone County, just to the west of us. Their fair is sponsored by The Grange, operates on land it has owned for a century or so, and is still a real agricultural fair. Even that one is on the outskirts of development though, and the subdivisions of adjoining Belvidere have come to stand right across the road from one edge. Boone County is next week, and features a draft horse show. All week the grounds will be hosting Belgians, Shires, Percherons, and Clydesdales. That's something I can't think about missing... Distance to Boone County fairgrounds? About 15 miles. Distance to the McHenry County fairgrounds we visited today? About 10 miles. Not much difference. I'd skip McHenry, except they give me a free pass for judging some of the textile arts.

Next weekend looks busy. I think the steam threshing show in Sycamore is that Saturday, too. OK, off to the market, since the fair displaced my usual schedule this morning.

Comments

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

I went to a tractor and draft horse show on a whim in Northern California back in the mid 1990's. It was quite cool to see the draft horses pulling the weighted sleds, then seeing the tractors trying to move them after the show and struggling. Horses for the win! Some of the farms here have horses, it's a big horse racing area being close to Newmarket (10 miles away) and I've seen Clydesdales as well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hee! Horses have continuously-variable transmissions as standard equipment. It's amazing how much a good team can do, and without all the noise and stink of the huge tractors. They also use no fossil fuels. XD

Clydes are my absolute faves. They are so big, but not at all stupid. Most are extremely gentle and patient, too. They bond to humans with nearly the same intensity as a good dog will demonstrate. Some of the hotblood breeds, like the Arabian, are more "pet-like" but I can't resist the gentle giant nature of the draft horse.

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

I sometimes have a fantasy of living somewhere where things are simple still. And while everyone has their car and such, I just ride a horse. Not a regular horse, but a big one, like a Clydesdale, or a Shire. Go make a grocery run with a big old horse and some saddlebags. Kinda like the Wild West I guess, but more easy going and relaxed. I guess it's okay to dream. *^..^*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted to do that. I've managed to get as far as living where I can at least have a horse (in fact I have three) but using them for commuting to work or trips to the store is still not practical. There's no safe place to leave a horse while you run into the store for a few things. Because people aren't used to being around horses any more, it's a toss-up whether the horse would be first to get hurt or some child or adult who did something stupid.

Then there's the traffic. From here to the nearest grocery store, I can't avoid doing at least a part of a mile on some road that is traveled by people in cars who go too fast and won't give an inch to a bicyclist, let alone a horse. In fact, we have some drivers who deliberately try to spook a horse. I guess they think it's funny.

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah... That's the fantasy part of it. I don't think there's anywhere left that's simple and quiet enough to do that anymore. At least over here, they still have enough sense to give horses and bicycles enough room. I probably meet horses once or twice a week when I'm driving, and make sure to give them the room they need. I don't want to be the "typical American". Oddly I'm a lot more careful while on my bike, especially overtaking, because the bike doesn't make any noise at all. I'll slow up and match speed about 20 feet back and give a friendly "coming up!" and make sure both the rider, and the horse, know I'm there before moving up. And of course it's nice to talk to people.

In Utah people never slowed down or moved over for a bike, they'd just squeeze past and push through. People have this idea that roads are only for cars, and that everything else is a "toy" and should be off in the playground. California was slightly better, but even there people thought they owned the road. "Get on the bike path!" (referring to the American River bike trail) never mind it wasn't anywhere near where I currently was or wanted to go, and had a 15 mph speed limit, enforced by motorcycle (and ignored regularly because you could hear that big Kawasaki six long before you were in range) Here at least, bikes and horses are still a way of life. I see people on bikes all the time, young people, old people, it's respected.

Is my panacea salvageable? Not as it is, I think. It's going to take a major change of mindset to do that, something to shake the people out of the selfish self-image that they're somehow important, like the photocopy dude. But I don't know what that is...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No more gasoline and having to use vehicles that don't go so fast and aren't so large and showy may help quite a bit. Some parts of the US are worse than it is here, and some are a little better. Areas with large Amish or Mennonite populations are probably better because you still see horses in daily use, for utilitarian purposes and not recreation. Unfortunately those places aren't always the best for the horses, who sometimes suffer serious abuse.

That's what the "Get on the bike trail!" stuff is about. The speakers are drivers who automatically assume that all bicycle riding is merely recreation rather than practical transportation. It's the same as the mindset of politicians who think we don't need to maintain roads any more because we have airplanes. Or that all passenger rail service should be eliminated because we have cars and airplanes.

An old attitude, really. As Marie Antoinette supposedly said, "Let them eat cake." These people know that their own preferences are the "right" ones, and anyone who chooses otherwise is at least a weirdo and probably something worse, like a left-wing commie subversive...

[yasha-taur.livejournal.com]

The horse show that keeganfox refers to is amost certainly the Nevada County Fair and Draft Horse Classic. http://ncgold.com/Events/Fall/DraftHorseClassic.html Chris and I have been to that show a few times, and it is pretty cool...

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

That be the one! Woot!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That sounds really fun. I wish it weren't so far away.

We have a number of fairs and events around here but none are that large or focused exclusively on the big guys. The Boone County Fair will be this week, the Northern Illinois Horsefest is the last week in August, and the town of Clinton, Wisconsin has an annual celebration and parade this month that features nothing but horsedrawn parade units. Everything from antique fire equipment to manure spreaders can be seen in that, including a number of large mule teams and even a few donkeys. Right after the draft horses, I love the mules. Amazingly intelligent creatures.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

That bear refuge sounds good :) There are some refuges here like that for horses :) Sorry to hear that the fair is losing its strenth, I never grew up in the country and my suburb hasn't changed much over the 2 decades I've lived here. The city I live in hasn't really changed too much either, some new buildings, more developements but you'd swear some of the new places had been there for eons.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We have horse refuges too. Those are easier to set up and defend than refuges for bears or wolves, though. Try letting wolves roam free, even if you have a thousand acres, and the neighbors will start screaming even before they ever see one about how the wolf will eat their children and pets or whatever. It's a deep-seated prejudice that's very difficult to overcome. Bears and cougars face similar discrimination, even though the black bear is the most common here and is the least dangerous of the North American species. Cougar attacks on humans have never been a common thing, even when the cats were ubiquitous. Now they are nearly extinct in most of the eastern US, and are only seen frequently in the Rocky Mountain and west coast regions.

Native Americans lived with the wolf, the bear, and the cougar. They did not fear any of them, but treated them with respect. For some reason, people of European descent would rather hunt a species to extinction than learn to compromise with it.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Bears are lovely. Not many in the wild in Western Europe these days though. Too densely populated.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the situation here, too. Black bears were once found all over the US, but their numbers have shrunken in most areas so they mostly occur now in the remaining forest and mountain areas. I've encountered them a few times, but never saw an aggressive one. Grizzly bears and polar bears are a different matter, though, and you want to stay far away from them if you can.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

The fair continues to shrink.
Looks like it's the same in England, too - except for different reasons. Stupid foot and mouth disease...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hopefully they'll react in a more intelligent manner than what they did in 2001. Mass slaughtering is no longer the appropriate response. We have better means of control.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the better means of control (vaccinations etc) result in not being allowed to sell the meat in Europe. As I understand it, this is the reason for 2001's mass killings.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The better means of control do save your breeding stock, and save the farmer from going bust or taking huge losses. Surely regulations don't forbid selling the OFFSPRING of vaccinated stock. (If they do, Europe is even more backward than anyone could have imagined.)

Likewise, there are now reasonably effective treatments. My perception the last time around was that UK officials behaved in a closed-minded, nineteenth century manner and refused to consider revising their attitudes or their scientific understanding of the disease. It was is if you went through and killed every cow in the country because one had the mad cow disease. (I know, they almost did that too...)

Oddly enough, I have also to note that while such regulations may be in force in Europe, they continue to accept horsemeat slaughtered in the US, against all popular opinion and policy, in spite of the fact that horses here are never raised as a meat source and are almost invariably treated during their lifetimes with innumerable drugs and antiparasiticals that are banned in Europe in order to keep them out of the meat supply.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm no apologist for our crazy livestock laws. Any solution that favours killing (and flagrant, polluting waste of the results) over freely-available cures is just... barking mad. I didn't know that about the horsemeat, but I'm not surprised at such silliness.

Officials do seem to have behaved as you say. The farmers themselves weren't happy, obviously, whether for welfare reasons or profit. *grumbles* The Welsh sacred bull fiasco proves nobody's learning lessons, so I'm pessimistic.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't think you really agreed with it. I have to say this suddenly makes me appreciate more what Rowling is doing with her Ministry of Magic in the HP novels. It's a much more brilliant parody of head-in-the-sand UK politicians than I had realized at first.

The horsemeat thing is really quite appalling. The movement to put a stop to commercial horse slaughter in the US has been underway for decades, and has a clear majority support among voters and the general population; but politicians continue to drag their feet because small well-heeled factions with lobbyists pressure them to take no action. Horsemeat cannot be legally sold for human consumption in the US at all. The three remaining slaughterhouses are owned by foreign investors, and sell their product overseas, mostly in Japan and Italy as I understand it. The total number of persons actually employed by this brutal practice amounts to nothing, two or three hundred at the very most. The total contribution to the US economy is less than nothing. Yet we can't seem to get the thing stopped entirely.