Miniature Horse

We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 farm critters, depending on whether you count the chickens as one species, or 18 birds in total. I count them all because we have three horses and we count all three -- doing less for the chickens seems disrespectful. Last week, the total doubled as we entertained about 35 kids from Winter Street Elementary School's after-school program. The animals and kids represented a clash of energy forces that, could it have been harnessed, would have mothballed at least three gas-fired power plants for about a week.

o If you like reading Tim Rowland, you'll love watching him. See what else Tim has to say The alpacas on our farm were all boys and the cattle on our farm were all girls, a circumstance that has slowed our breeding program considerably. I don't think the species cross, so my dreams of an "alpacow" that would produce steaks, and a sweater to wear while grilling them, never came to much. So we turned to Doug May, who loaned us a belted galloway bull to come in and do the favors for the heifers Cleopatra and Heifertiti.

Sunday, July 22 10 a.m. to closing - Admission: gate, $2, track $5 per person, free for ages 8 and younger 9 to 10 a.m. - church service, Red Men Pavilion 10 a.m. - 4-H/FFA alpaca show and demonstration- dog show ring 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. - garden tractor pull, track 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. - 4-H engineering discovery table, building 2 Noon - 4-H/FFA and open-class meat goat show, main show ring 1 to 3 p.m. - Cheese carving...

Hundreds of people got a heavy dose of excitement Saturday night at the Washington County Ag Expo & Fair during an action-packed bull-riding show, sanctioned by the Southern Extreme Bull Riding Association. Twenty-two bull riders competed in the show, each vying for the top prize of $2,500, according to Cindy Scott of Buck Wild Rodeo Company LLC, which put on the event. Scott said they also had about 23 female barrel-racing riders, and a handful of “little cowboys” that took part in the miniature bull riding and Mutton Bustin competitions, which featured children ages 4 to 7 riding sheep.

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Aaron Crowl is a family man, but he likes to race, too. In his younger days, the Bel Air, Md., man spent a lot of time and money honing his skills as a dirt-track racer. About 17 years ago, he was getting ready to race his four-cylinder pick-up truck when a man who owned a nearby lawn-mower repair shop approached him and his buddies and asked them to try racing a lawn mower. Crowl gave it a try and he's been hooked ever since, he said during a telephone interview en route to the San Diego Zoo. He and his wife and two daughters were in California as part of the national touring series of the American Racing Mower Association.

This spring and summer festival season will include an Incredible Drifting Whistle Pig and the Wild Horse Band as well as Shin Diggin', a Possum Holler and Sister Mary Elephant. These aren't cartoon characters -- Possum Holler was probably the giveaway -- they are some of the bands performing at Tri-State-area festivals and carnivals through August. Some of the festivals have changed their dates, usually only by a week or so. However, Renfrew Museum and Park's Cumberland Valley Pottery Fest has been moved from June to Sept.

Rides! Cotton candy! Bands and demolition derbies! The season for that Americana staple - festivals - is upon us. Some events have changed dates or scaled back a bit this year, but there will still be plenty of opportunities to eat a bunch of french fries before jumping on a spinning amusement ride. Roundhouse Rail Days in Martinsburg, W.Va., is moving to the fall, Oct. 3 to 4, because July was too hot for many visitors, volunteer Donev Hatcher said. After six years, lack of funding did in the Summer Gospel Fest & Hog Roast in Shepherdstown, W.Va.