The Beastmaster lives

Yes, Cpl. Wolves made his usual  Wednesday visit this week, and his animals greeted him with the usual enthusiasm:

Seriously, the way those animals dote on him is amazing.

Kit-tays and the Corporal

Cpl. Wolves came by yesterday to visit his animals. And his mother, too, I guess, but probably mostly his animals. And, yeah, his animals were glad to see him:

Looks like he was glad to see them, too.

A Wolves Christmas

Christmas at Chez Wolves actually started on Christmas Eve. Cpl. Wolves and Married Into Wolves had in-law conflicts and so came to Chez Wolves on Thursday. Naturally, the animals were happy to see Cpl. Wolves, especially Jeb the Wonder Dog:

Yeah, he hung around with Cpl. Wolves quite a bit:

No, really:

Almost all of the animals got into the act. Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog and Mischief failed to get into the act here, but they were the only ones:

Always good to have them over, and a very nice Christmas Eve it was, with one glaring exception that I will discuss in a later post. It involved what we watched, which definitely was not on our list of annual holiday favorites.

County fair, part two

Naturally, the county fair is centered around agriculture. They've been doing this in my county for 151 years apparently, and the point is mainly to pop off about what a growing-shit badass you are. I'm down with that. Name a vegetable, somebody got a ribbon for Best in Show:

I grow peppers my own self, and I might have to enter next year.

 Their spuds were bigger, though:

 I can't touch this. The winning pumpkin in the yellow variety was 220 pounds.

Them some big watermelons, too:

These, apparently are chinese squash. Who knew:

I was pretty pleased with my zucchini until I saw these:

Finished products also were on display. The fruit of the vine was embodied in homemade beer and wine:

I need to get me a gig judging this shit. Please note that the winning wines are just empty bottles. Can't judge it without drinking it, right?

Yeah, we got livestock. These are cows:

This is a cow's ass:

This is another cow. I also took a picture of the cow's ass that was next to this cow, but I decided that one cow's ass was really enough,  don't you think?

Some of these are beef cattle, some are dairy cattle. Pretty sure this is steak on the hoof:

In keeping with fair traditions, these cattle were raised by 4-H kids, none of them out of high school. Several put up signs thanking their sponsors:

This means I can go down to the Urbana Giant and buy me a chunk of the cow in the background of this photo:

Nobody's eating this horse, though:

The horses we saw -- and most weren't there, because they were off racing -- were sulky horses. They pull little carts like these and people bet on the outcome:

And let us not forget that magical animal, the pig. Lot of bacon on the hoof at the fair.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, bacon:

Got more, but it's late and there's already a lot of pictures here. More coming.