Wild Day in NY

Dove Escape and recapture:
Our first show today was plagued with little things going wrong or silly. It was 100% humidity and it was raining all day. That humidity caused things to stick to themselves, lassos not to slide properly, and a number of other things. Beyond the humidity just a bunch of silly things were happening. We just rolled with it and it all turned out good. When Olivia turned her balloon into a dove the dove promptly flew off and up into a tree in the middle of the fair...visible from our stage. James ran off to get it but soon found it was too high up and the tree was unclimbable. So he asked a guy in the maintenance shop for help after getting a net from the 4H folks. The fair manager happened to be there at the time and he found the situation to be funny. Soon calls were going out over the radio and very soon a bucket truck rolled out. After a few minutes of maneuvering and she was captured and returned to her mate in the travel cage back stage. It was so much fun to watch we stopped the show and we all (audience and all) watched as things unfolded.

Since it was a full day of rain and crowds were small we decided to change things up and I offered a lesson in fire-eating to any adult wanting to try it. Two volunteers came up. A woman and a man...the man rturned out to be my long time friend at the fair, Elvin. He's a really nice man that reminds me in looks and personality of my best friend back home, JC. (JC you would love this guy....in a manly way.)

Here they are trying to touch the flame to their tongues.

Elvin did it.....eventually the woman would too.

see...

Elvin is practicing a mouting position that will allow him to have the fire in his mouth and prduce a "blow" that will put the fire out.

She eventually gives up...but...

Elvin does it and we do synchronized fire-eating.

Tada......

The girls befriended the Lemonade girls...here is a pix Joelle took and emailed to us.

Circus Bike:

If you have read earlier blogs you know Miles dresses as the pink gorilla and rides a tiny clown bike around the park or fairgrounds. While at Beechbend Park the bearings wore out so yesterday I drove downtown to a bike shop to get new bearings (the bike shop was setup and looked exactly like the bike shop in my hometown).

Then (yesterday) while riding the pedal fell off...fortunately it was only a lost nut. So I hit the maintenance shed and got the right size nut only to discover the threads on the bike were slightly stripped but I have a file and fixed it.

Baby Goat:

There is a group here called the Two-by-Two Zoo...they have a couple of black leopards, a couple of Kangaroos, Pygmy goats, lemurs, monkeys, tortoises, etc. Well one of their favorite goats was in labor all day and eventually had to assist in the birthing. A crowd formed to watch the laborious task. Eventually a 4H expert joined in and after over an hour of help the two kids were born...then rushed to the back stage area to be worked on....I don't know if they lived or died...so I will update this story tomorrow.

It rained all day, as I already mentioned, and today was a record for this fair in low attendance. So crowds were tiny. Still they were great. The last audience was made up of mostly tired depressed vendors and carnies. They left the show with smiles so maybe we did a bit of good for them. One sat dead center . He was hard to motivate into clapping and smiling but I made it my goal. It was when Amelia read the mind of three adults in the audience that he forgot his troubles and broke out into spontaneous applause. He kept it up until the end. It was awesome.

Motion sickness from Sub-woofers:

I never could handle the club scene. The loud pounding sub-woovers make me feel woozy. The band today on the main stage had their bass set really loud and when they played their 4 o'clock show I nearly lost my cookies and had to stick paper towels in my ears and leave the area. I stayed away until the very last minute as our show started at 5. I think Buttercup didn't enjoy it very much either. He is beginning to shed his skin and is a bit moody. Being back stage during that pounding seem to bother him so he spent the rest of the day far away from the stage.