Hog Blog

Stock Show reports more than 154,000 visitors on 75-degree Saturday

A string of warm, sunny days has been gold for the Fort Worth Stock Show, which just reported on Twitter that it's only 300,000 visitors from hitting the 1 million mark in attendance -- with seven days to go.

On Saturday, the temperature hit 75 degrees at DFW Airport, just five degrees below the record for the date, and 154,400 people attended the Stock Show.

This week brings good news and bad news: Tens of thousands of visitors are headed into town for the Feb. 6 Super Bowl, but some typical Stock Show weather is also on the way.

Temperatures are forecast to dip below freezing around midday Tuesday, turning the day's rain into freezing rain or sleet, and North Texas might not see freezing again until Thursday.

The Stock Show will end Saturday, one day early, because of Sunday's Super Bowl.

 

Let's go shopping

Feeling the need to burn some cash at the Stock Show? There are plenty of opportunities to spend. Vendors offer everything from TCU cowboy boots to jalapeno everything _ jalapeno salsa, jalapeno grills, creamy jalapeno soup mix (yum). Shoppers can prep for next Christmas with a cowhide stocking or tap their culinary talents with basil-infused olive oil from Carrizo Springs. Wrap it up, I'll take it all.

_Diane Smith

Stock Show is more than livestock

Did you know one small piece of cotton could be stretched out long enough to cross a cattle barn at the Stock Show? A presenter at the Planet Agriculture exhibit explains to elementary students how cotton is stretched out to make fabric for clothing. The seeds extracted from cotton are also used in every day products. For example, the oil from the seeds is used for makeup. (Now that's agriculture I can totally appreciate.)
-Eva-Marie Ayala

How to milk a goat in four easy steps and still look cool

Okay, I'm not sure how well I managed to the last part of that, but I'm going to tell myself I did. Tonight fellow education reporter Shirley Jinkins and I represented the newspaper in the Stock Show's annual celebrity goat-milking contest. It's one of those things you agree to do because it sounds kind of fun, and then you're actually there holding a cup looking down at a live creature thinking, "Oh. My. God." We didn't win, but it was one of those educational experiences that's just "so Fort Worth," as a dear friend likes to say. So here's what I learned:

1) Size matters. Shirley and I got out in the first round. The goat only produced maybe two drops for us. I lovingly held her, and Shirley performed her best milking techniques she had practiced. But the goat's, um, equipment was just too small to collect a good amount of milk, a Stock Show crew member noted to me after the fact.

2) Stay calm. Also new to the contest this year Gary "With a T" Hayes from 97.9 The Beat. Somehow, he talked his cousin Keshia Sylvester into holding the goat for him while he milked. Only he got a little squirmy getting close to the udders, which then made the goat a little squirmy in return as seemed to be looking for an escape route.

3) Dress the part. Special contestants this year were Swedish television personalities Erik Ekstrand and Mackan Edlund (the team on the left in this picture). The two are making their way across America in a road trip that apparently includes taking on whatever crazy adventure they can find. They took on this challenge and even advanced to the second round. And while their camera crew's sweater attire gave a hit of that out-of-towner look, the duo did their best to blend in with appropriately styled cowboy boots and western wear.

4) Do whatever Deborah Ferguson does. It's hard for this North Side girl to say Trimble Tech girl beat her. But Ferguson and her husband Steve Lamb, of WBAP, had some serious skills. They were swift in getting straight to the action. Ferguson easily won her prelim round milking her goat with great speed. But the goats were drying up in the final round. It was Ferguson/Lamb versus 95.9 The Ranch's team of Justin Frazzell and Taylor Scott vyingfor the win. Ferguson and her husband seemed to be on their way for a win, when the boys from the Ranch came rushing up on the surprised couple as they carried milk to the finish line. In the end, the two teams tied.

-Eva-Marie Ayala