Country fairs and border collies

Yesterday Uzee and I drove an hour or so to take in the Heath County fair, a truly down-home experience involving goat competitions, rabbit hutches and home-made maple syrup. Far and away the best part of the fair, though, was the border collie domonstration, which featured a trio of completely undisciplined dogs and another trio of utterly bewildered ducks.

This is a picture of Maude, the least utterly-undisciplined of the pooches, but still very much a girl with a mind of her own. As you can see, she keeps her eyes on the prize -- in this case, a duck -- even as the ducks do their best to elude her. In theory, Maude wa ssupposed to herd these ducks around the ring, through a wire tube, up a ramp and down into a wading pool. In actuality, this never happened.

But it was fun to watch...