The Cheshire Show

As our readers know we begin preparing long before the show day and on the Monday before it all comes together and at this point I would like to thank all involved for helping make the entire show such a success.

Here is Carl our PR director from the NFU on mine and Simon’s shoulders attaching posters and flags in our stand.

This is the finished vegetable (provided by Lowe's farm shop) display together with a vintage David Brown tractor kindly leant by friends of ours Mike and Edward Walker to learn more about these pieces of agricultural history click here www.dbtc.co.uk

Also we had this rather thuggish Ram, the same old cow as last year and this year’s pig a Kune Kune pig called Neville from our committee member Mark Walton’s www.Stockleyfarm.co.uk

Neville was a real star and will sit and beg like a dog if offered his favorite food a banana. A sad fact was that Neville was rescued from a flat. Someone had bought him as a pet not realizing the size he would grow to.

Now being Chairman of the committee means “leading from the front” so guess who got to wear the chicken suit? Here I am being checked out by committee member Norman.

Another star of the event was Albert member of the RABI charity team pictured here with the main prize for the raffle. The raffle and sale of the Vegetable display at the shows end raised nearly £600 for the charity. To learn more about their work click here www.rabi.org.uk

Graham or Andrew always take time to photograph some of other aspects of the show and first up is carriage driving and show jumping in the horse section.

These events attract fierce competition as many such events up and down the country are qualifiers for the bigger events you often see on the TV.

Graham also spotted this caravan made in the old Romany style on display.

A sign of a slower pace of life.

Also in this section is the horse show and here is the line of competitors.

Besides horses and cattle there is also a large dog show section and here they are with this one being put through her paces.

The finale is the water fight that pretends to be the YFC float competition and perhaps you might recognize two in this picture.

While all this was going on Dorothy, Andrew, Margot and Graham had also set up in the education marquee and here is the result of their efforts for the Greenheyes.com stand which this year won best in marquee.

It incorporated a tree showing many of the birds insects etc that can be found at the farm, a “pond” with wildlife from a pond dip (which I stress we returned unharmed afterwards) and guess the object boxes.

Also featured was that tree ring you saw Simon preparing earlier this was about 60 years old and Dorothy and Margot had prepared an information tab for every year of it’s growth as we knew it’s exact age as it was felled this year.

Stars of the display were Dot and Phil, two Great Diving Beetles located in our miniature pond.

Strangely, large amounts of visitors to the stand wanted to touch or hold them

Although we often take the micky out of Andrew and his stalking around the farm in his camouflage clothing I think his pictures show just how well his approach to his photography is bringing the results. Well done to all the team.