165th Richmond Fair

Richmond is a small town located south west of Ottawa, it's about half hour drive by car from Ottawa to Richmond. And for those who didn't know, Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. My parents in-law moved to a Richmond retirement community home from Niagara Falls early this year. It's a very pleasant quiet little town surrounded by farm lands and nurseries.

The town hosts a 4 days fair every year in September. This year, the town celebrates its 165th year of the Richmond Fair. The fair was from 17th to the 20th of Sept 2009. The fair includes your typical fun rides, gaming booths, face painting, food courts, arts and crafts show and sales, petting zoo, agricultuaral awareness, lots of different competitions, and stage shows. It is definitely a lot of fun for a family day out.

One of the show we saw was hypnotic show. It was so fun to watch a group of people from the audience to let themselves be hypnotized and do things they normaly wouldn't do. Like the picture above, they were conditioned to do river dance when ever they hear the river dance music goes off. lol  Aside from that, they also had different on stage competitions and concerts shows at different time during the 4 days fair.

One of the highlight of the fair is the acrobat show. They have both aerial and trampoline acrobat shows in one. It's a truly a crowd pleaser. They're showing several shows through out the day. The acrobats are truly amazing in what they do, and all the kids love them.

The above pictures are taken from the arts and crafts show they featured at the fair. There are plenty of arts and crafts for sales, and lots of arts and craft competitions. A good portion of arts display there are all done by students of the local school. There are also quilting, photographs, flower arrangements, bake goods, vegietable competitions. Plenty of stuff to see there.

There are all kinds of farm animals competitions going on at the fair all day long during the 4 days event. From sheep to cattle to horses competitions. There are 3 large areas at the fair dedicated to horses event. One for horse back riding, horses & carriage riding, and miniture horses & carriage riding competitions. I've always seen horses from a distance passing by farms in the car, they are truly amazing animal seeing them up close. Never realise how big they are. Just truly amazing. There's dogs show as well, but unfortunately we just missed it.

 The purpose of agricultural awareness at the fair is to teach people and kids the importance of agriculture, and the way of life on a farm. There's a sheep pen next to couple of spindle to demonstrate how to spin wool. A milking session to show adults and kids how to milk a cow. And also the type of food we grow on the farm and etc. There're also a section of the fair dedicated to show off all the different types of vehicles and equiptments they use on the farm. Some farmers are showing off their carpenting and blacksmithing skills are the fair as well. The fair is just so full of fun and educational at the same time.

Some of the fun stuff at the fair for kids are of course all the rides at the fair and the gaming booths. Aside from that they also have clowns there for face painting and making all sorts of funky balloons for kids. A feeding pen let you feed and pet all sorts of farm animals, and miniture horse ride.

Another attraction for the fair is the snake show hosted by the Reptile Zoo just outside of Ottawa. Other then showing off the snake, it is also there for education purpose. I'm really surprise to see all the kids crowded together at the front roll, while the adults all hang back. I really would thought that kids would be more afraid of snakes then the adults, but appearently not. lol One of the picture shows a brave 4 year old boy being wrap around by this 18feet long python to show how it would wrap around its victim. And snakes aren't slimy dispike their appearance. In fact, their skin feels like plastic. It is funny to see how many adults are so afraid to touch one, while all the kids are all over the snake. lol

The Reptile Zoo really provide a lot of infomation about snakes. The different type of snakes and how to recognize one. Do you know that to classify a reptile to be a true snake it has to be missing an ear, legless, and no eye lid? And snake really do make a poor choice for a pet, because people don't realize how big they'll grow. 95% of the snakes ended up in the Reptile Zoo because people just can't take care of them. Snakes have poor eye sight, their main sensor is their touge. They actually recognize us human as predators, therefore they will flee from us. They will defend themselves of course if they are provoke. So you won't be attack by a snake unless you provoke it. Another fact about snake is that they don't eat people, regardless what you might have seen on movies. They do however eat people by mistake. There have been a few cases where python ate a farmer. Why? Because due to their poor eye sight, they depend on their touge to smell their prey. And a farmer been working with farm animals all day long and make the farmer smells like an animal that they prey on. And so accident happened due to mistake in identity. Seeing and touching a hude snake up close is quite an experience. What an amazing creature.

So. That was my weekend at the 165th Richmond Fair. My husband and I had a lot of fun at the fair, and we learn a lot of stuff as well. That was the first time we went to Richmond Fair because of my in-laws are living there now. We're planing to go to the fair from now on, especially since we have a reason to visit Richmond now. So the next time if you ever near Ottawa area in September, be sure to stop by the Richmond Fair. I promise, you won't be disappointed.