THE THINGS YOU LEARN. Goat breeders do not dock their animals' ears. These seem to be getting along well enough despite their very different ears.


In a nearby pen, at the Kane County Fair, another goat with even larger ears. I was sufficiently intrigued by the difference in goat anatomies that I asked about the phenomenon. There is a simple enough explanation, which will occur to readers with a bit of introspection.


In the Corn Belt, there are still opportunities for people to show horses. These are Percherons with carts (I'm sure there's a special term for these carts but it escaped me.) The center team driven by the two young ladies won this judging.


After the show, they tidied up the horses for the ride home.


There was also a judging for Percherons pulling these beer wagons, which, however, were not laden with kegs of Schlitz or Kingsbury for a real test of strength.


There was a petting zoo at the Ogle County Fair, which, in addition to the usual lambs and bunnies, offered this simulation of milking a Holstein. (A rubber glove is a mutant facsimile of an udder. Why?)


What always impresses me about the local county fairs are the 4-H projects. At Ogle, the names "Huskie" and "Badger" are popular for the chapters.


The theming for the Lincoln Highway chapter in Kane County is imaginative.


Many 4-H participants raise prize animals. The sign indicates this pen would be auctioned off on the last day of the fair. As it's a pen of barrows, the price they sold at was probably already determined in the futures market, which makes contracts on barrows and gilts.


I work very hard at keeping the bunnies out of my Victor E. Garden, but some people work very hard at raising bunnies, in this cage "Flake" and "Henry" who are prize-winning blue-eyed Polish rabbits.


Some of the science projects are pretty good. Here's a door circuit built by a ten year old.


At Ogle County, one contestant scratchbuilt a pogo stick, complete with a notebook of engineering calculations.


Another contestant at Ogle County might be a comer in a future Punkin' Chunkin' competition.


I also discovered something called the 4-H Cooperative Curriculum, which includes projects on money management and personal finance. This display won a prize for Kane County.


At Ogle County, there were several displays, some of which used the "Checking It Out" activity and some of which used other materials. I discovered that these projects were popular with chapter treasurers.


This bratwurst stand at Kane County was a tasteful distance from the swine barn. Again, it's serving my favorite bratwursts, and the proprietors understood that a bratwurst is eaten with sauerkraut and horseradish mustard. We will know that the State Line has become an integrated economic region when proper mustard becomes a standard option at sausage shops south of the Cheddar Curtain, most of which labor under the misapprehension that that bland yellow stuff is mustard.


And at Ogle County, a corn stand with a name that hasn't been completely lost to history.


The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, for the uninitiated. (When I'm feeling wicked, I contemplate teasing my Great Western Railway friends with a sketch of a four-cylinder, six-foot drivered, double chimneyed mixed-traffic steamer called King County Grange Hall, which could refer to a real P of H chapter.)