Snakes in the grass at the Big Vegetable Show

Our village show was held today, or as we call it, The Giant Vegetable Show. It's usually a good show, so we dodged the thunderstorms and popped up the road for a look. There were plenty of very big vegetables and some odd looking vegetable animals, but the stars of the show turned out to be snakes! It's not every day you see a Burmese python (one of the largest snakes in the world) slithering around a field in Buckinghamshire!

The kids loved holding the snakes and would now like one as a pet. I told them that when they grow up and leave home they can have as many pet snakes as they want!

 

 

 

They were also quite taken with the bosc monitor!

 

We met a noctule bat called Rose ...

... watched ferrets racing ...

... and spotted the queen bee.

Then the bee keeper donned the outfit and opened up the hive inside a netted area. I've never seen anybody do that at a fair or show before, so it was interesting to see. He puffed smoke at the bees, which I always though made them drowsy. Apparently it doesn't though, as it makes them think there's a forest fire. Then they dive into the hive and eat as much honey as possible, ready for a hasty escape. That gets them deep into the hive makes them so full that they can't bend their abdomens round to sting anybody.

 

Mustn't forget the vegetables!

Very odd vegetable animals

Enormous cabbages and courgettes

We also saw some very badly behaved dogs. They were supposed to ignore the sausages and squeaky toys all around them and go to their owner when called, but almost all of them couldn't resist the tempting treats, which was very funny.

Then the little one met the mayor, which seemed to make his day. He even wiped the ice cream from his face before saying hello!

 What a great show!