“We’re taking every precaution to make sure that all the exhibits are safe,” I said. “I’ve been inspecting all the buildings this morning, and apart from the three initial incidents, we’ve had no other reports of any kind of theft or vandalism—not so much as a pea in the produce tent.”
“My wife’s in the craft barn—she spins the fleeces into wool and exhibits the skeins—and she heard about that poor woman whose quilt was vandalized.”
Aha. If Romeldales had fleeces, odds were they were sheep.
“We’ve got extra security there as well. And—are your Romeldales in the main sheep barn?”
He nodded. Sheep, then.
“My husband and I are there ourselves,” I said. “We’re camping out with our llamas, and helping our next-door neighbor keep an eye on his Lincolns.”
To anyone else, I would have said Lincoln sheep, but someone who kept one heritage sheep breed had probably heard of the others—and if he hadn’t, he could get a taste of how confused the rest of us were at all the heritage breed name-dropping.
“We’re going to have volunteer patrols out tonight, and they’ll be organized out of our end of the sheep barn,” I went on. “So while I wouldn’t brag about it to the cow or pig people, the sheep will get a little bit of extra protection.”
He departed, much calmer. But by the time I’d finished reassuring him, the morose man in the blue windbreaker had disappeared.
I turned and headed for the show office, but I ran into Randall halfway there.
“Mother’s dealing with Genette,” I said. “Have you seen this?”
I handed Randall Shiffley the flyer for the Virginia Agricultural Exposition. He frowned thunderously.
“No,” he said. “But I’ve heard about it. That Brett Riordan fellow has been handing them out to all the exhibitors.”
“Do you think it’s a threat?” I asked “To the Un-fair, I mean.”
He pondered a moment, then shook his head. It wasn’t a “no” kind of shake, more like “who knows?”
“Doesn’t look like one to me,” he said. “But I might be too close to the whole thing. I don’t think it’s going over that big with the farmers. Riordan doesn’t know beans about farming. Someone asked him if the events at his fair were going to be FFV-endorsed and he didn’t even know it stood for Future Farmers of Virginia. But I understand he’s connected to the wine community. If the winemakers come in big on his event, it could be trouble for us.”
“His only connection is that he’s dating a winemaker that every other winemaker in the state hates,” I said. “So the smart money says the winemakers will be staying away in droves.”
“Let’s hope it turns out that way.”
“I think it will,” I said. “Remember how Mother convinced us we needed to get the best possible wine judges and put them up in the Caerphilly Inn?”
“I hope it was worth it,” he said.
“It will be.” I explained the winemakers’ distrust of Genette’s intentions, and Mother’s decision to recruit nationally known judges.
“How do the official state fair’s wine judges measure up to ours?” Randall asked.
“They might be as good, but they can’t possibly be better.”
“Great,” he said. “Well, I’m off to pick up that country singer.”
“Now?” I looked at my watch. “I thought she wasn’t performing until this evening.”
“Taking her over to the college to do a radio interview,” Randall said. “Apparently she’s a little cranky about being in a town without a Starbucks, and I’m going to see if having the mayor himself as a chauffeur impresses her much. You’re in charge.”
He ambled off, head swiveling to check out every detail as he passed.
No doubt some emergency would crop up as soon as he left, but in the meantime, I decided to drop by the poultry barns to see how things were going there. Earlier, the mood had been tense and anxious in all three barns, but I was hoping now that the fair had begun and admiring visitors were thronging the tents, things would have calmed down.
And that seemed to be the case in the duck barn. People were feeding and grooming their own ducks, inspecting each other’s ducks, and trading bits of duck-related advice and gossip.
“—don’t take his word for it—he wouldn’t know a Buff Orpington from a Muscovy—”
“—you need to adjust their feed—they need a lot more protein when they’re laying—”
“—I always use a broody hen—I just don’t think you give the poor ducklings a proper start when you stick the eggs under an incubator—”