Fair Gets Mooovin'!

I can smell the corn dogs and hear the lowing of the cows as the 75th annual 2011 Contra Costa County Fair is underway. Except this year, the meaty treats inside those cozy corn cocoons include alligator and kangaroo. And some of the mooing coming from the barn is from six recently shaved and sunscreened (I'll explain later) dairy cows.

The attractions are quite varied this year. George Sandefur, known as Jungle George, will delight Contra Costa fairgoers for the first time ever with outlandish dishes including raccoon on a stick and, for the truly adventurous, kangaroo burgers, just to name a few. So make sure you bring your appetite! And local 4-H group Delta Diablo will be showing off six primped and preened dairy cows for the first time at the Contra Costa Count Fair in 20 years.

The six local girls in Delta Diablo decided to raise and show dairy cows this year simply because they'd never done it before and were looking for something new and challenging, said Brentwood resident Brenda Dominguez, whose granddaughters are both in the group. Also, the cows will retire to a dairy after they're shown, which appealed to the girls.

The group will show their heifers early Saturday morning and are pretty nervous, especially after they shaved the cows (part of the rules, Brenda says) and most of the animals got sunburned. But now that they're properly lathered with plenty of sunscreen, the girls are hoping everything goes off without a hitch.

Between the dairy cows, rocky mountain oysters, live music, midway games and everything else, the next few days will be a blast.

Come on down and see us today, Saturday and Sunday at the Fairgrounds in Antioch, to experience all the Fair has to offer!

Bonus: to see a list of ways to get free or discounted tickets, check out our website.

We'll see you at the Fair!