No chicken bingo. Yes, that’s right, the much-anticipated chicken bingo event at the Clay County Fair didn’t materialize. Others might have been sad that there were no carnival rides, but for me, heartbreak was the lack of chicken bingo. Think I’m joking? I was all set to compare South Dakota chicken bingo circa 2009 to Southern California chicken bingo circa 1970.
Never mind. There was plenty to see in the children and cattle category.
A young showman with his winning entry
The ones with pointy underbellies are steers?
The San Diego Sierra Club teaches a “Nature Knowledge” class for city people who don’t know anything about wildlife or native plants. As we move toward the day when our rural areas finally repopulate (as I believe they will, just not tomorrow), it’d be great to have a “Rural Knowledge” class with “steer? bull? heifer?” on the curriculum.
Hog heaven for some
Backstage at the beef ring
Is it me, or is the electricity shock dummy posed kind of like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever"?
So sorry I didn’t get to see the “stay away from power lines” demo. In the city, this would be a “don’t release metallic ballons near power lines” demo. I don’t think anyone expects city kids to get very near power lines and transformers.
4-H-ers are learning about alternative energy
Perhaps South Dakota’s Congresswoman needs to spend more time with the farm kids of Clay County. I’ve been told that at last week’s Midwest Rural Assembly in Sioux Falls, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin answered a question about South Dakota wind power by plugging nuclear and offshore drilling instead. Huh? Unless the cost of building new nuclear power plants becomes a fraction of what it is now or a catastrophic earthquake gives us access to an ocean, wind power looks a whole lot more likely in South Dakota. Unless the powers that be plan to stand in its way, that is.
