Wednesday of last week was a great day for the Vineyard.
During the last hour of the 152nd Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair on Sunday, a drizzly rain began to patter the ground. The exhibit hall closed and the animals in the barn and fiber tent were loaded into their trailers. Someone played Taps on a bugle. But the midway remained open and active, and rides still zipped and zoomed, flashing their colorful lights. Fairgoers continued to roam the booth area, eating corn on the cob, burgers and cotton candy. The fair comes only once a year, after all, and it was only a little bit of rain.
The gates opened on Thursday morning for the 152nd annual Agricultural Fair, and within minutes the livestock judging was underway, six horses cantered around the show ring, and a person scaled the portable rock wall at the edge of the food area.
Nothing, not even a partial road closure and some imposing detour signs, will keep people from the fair. That’s the hope of Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society as the 152nd annual Livestock Show and Fair begins today at the West Tisbury fair grounds on Panhandle Road.
Nothing so gentle as real strength, nothing so strong as true gentleness.
“That’s what we say about draft horses,” Bruce Marshard said, standing next to one of his Percheron horses, Sonny. His pasture mate and fellow Percheron Max was grazing nearby.
On Thursday, August 15, the corn dogs come to town. So does the Ferris wheel, Robinson’s racing pigs, goat and swine exhibits, woodsmen’s competition, chop stick knitting contest, the list just keeps going on and on as the 152nd Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Livestock Show and Fair begins.
On Thursday at around 7 p.m., Marques Rivers was seen fiddling with something in his pocket. He stood beside his girlfriend of almost five years, Sarah Neubert, waiting to board the Ferris wheel at the Agricultural Fair. It was their annual “date ride” they said, the one they always take the first day of the fair. Ms. Neubert, who is mildly afraid of heights, was nervous, but not nearly as nervous as Mr. Rivers. Minutes later, just as she had summoned the courage to look up from her hands and take in the view from atop the wheel, the ride stopped.
