Words and Light

The Pennsylvania Farm Show opened in Harrisburg on Saturday, and my editor Randy, his wife and I went to check things out.

The annual show, now in its 95th year, is the culmination of all the county fairs and is essentially Pennsylvania’s state fair. (Given the time of year, everything is indoors in the massive Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.) Agricultural produce and stock are judged and auctioned, there’s a rodeo, local vendors set up booths, etc.

I’m going back today, and later I’ll blog more photos from Saturday and today, but here’s what’s running on today’s A1 in The York Dispatch:

© 2011 by The York Dispatch. Lawson Neutzel, 6 of Seven Valleys, sits in a pen with two of his family's Yorkshire pigs at the 95th annual Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011. The Farm Show will run through next Saturday, Jan. 15.

I’m glad this is A1’s photo — because a pig ran me over while I got this shot.

More precisely, the pig, which of course weighed more than I did, barreled me over while I was talking to Lawson’s mother for the caption. Neither she nor I saw the fat porker coming. I guess it escaped from its handlers en route to its pen or the auction ring.

I’ve never covered a county fair or anything involving so much livestock — besides a few rodeos — but if getting run over by a pig is the worst thing that happens to me, I’m completely okay with that!