Pax Arva Colat

Yes! The National and World Championship Ploughing Show. Did you know such a thing even existed. This is what I should have posted about for BAB day! Fight soil compaction:Moldboard!

My sister Rachel and her son were visiting, staying an extra few days to recover from a cold. What better medicine than tramping through the mud on a cold rainy day? Will Trey ever let them visit us again? Rachel was quite a trooper though and as we waited for the "bus" (see left) she said, "Whenever Trey and I get in situations like this, I think, well, at least it will be good to blog about." But I have the pictures, so I get to post about it instead of her.

The National Ploughing Show happens every year in Ireland. And the world Championships are every other year. (Austria, 2008) So really we were pretty lucky that we were present for the world championships! I didn't really get to investigate too much on how be become a champion. We did see judges with clipboards making notes, gesticulating to each other, nodding thoughtfully as they passed the furrowed plots of muck. But what exactly they were looking at I couldn't tell you. The straightness of the furrows? A consistent depth? Uniform width of each row? I don't know how else they would judge. There is also the question of equipment. Since there were ploughmen and women from New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa, among others, I imagine that ploughs and equipment are borrowed from Irish farmers. But I have the believe that tractor and implement maintenence and familiarity make a difference in performance. Maybe they have some kind of drawing and everyone is assigned a random tractor and plough, or maybe there is time for practicing. Clearly my investigative reporting needs some work.

I did successfully determine that the three of us were the only three people at the show not wearing wellies. Even children being pushed in strollers had miniature little rubber boots. Many woman had fashion wellies; pink plaid, orange butterflies, purple stripes... If there is one thing I'm coming home from Ireland with, it's purple striped wellies. It was very tempting to buy a pair at the show, but then I would have had to haul around my mud crusted hiking boots anyway. And my socks were already soaked by that point. As we marveled at the array of rubber boots, "Are Irish citizens issued these boots at birth?" the Irish were busy marveling that we carried a baby in a backpack.

I can't write a post without mentioning food at some point. The rain stopped around lunch time and we had some nice savory crepes, a ham and cheese with tomato pesto, and a feta and olive with herbs. Orrin had chicken pad thai and Silas had fun slurping up the noodles. Rachel tried to feed Ellis while we were semi-dry and sitting down, but he didn't eat much. We discovered this later as he wailed while we waded in the mud and looked for a covered place to sit down so he could nurse. Poor baby. We took this photo of Silas with the big ploughing monument that was surrounded by the flags of all the participating nations. The inscription on the monument is Pax Arva Colat, Latin for Let Peace Cultivate the Fields.

We did miss the Dancing Diggers: Ten Ton Ballerinas, which are a group of excavators that do sychonized, um, movements; spinning in circles, swinging their buckets. There was also horse powered ploughing and sheep dog trials, which we didn't get a chance to see. But all the more reason to return to next years. I'm sure we'll have loads of visitors chomping at the bit to see sheep shearing demonstrations, milking parlor displays, and Piedmontese cattle.

By the time we made it back to car, the sodden oat field that looked like such a mess when we had arrived now looked like the high ground, and I found myself thinking, "Look how dry it is between the rivers!" Fortunately the little Touran did not get stuck and we made an uneventful exit.

(Can you believe people were pushing strollers in this? Can you believe we went without rubber boots? )