Virginia Folklife Festival

The VA Folklife Festival is one of the biggest, most interesting festivals in the area. Though there are many cool displays and competitions throughout the festival, the primary reason for the festival's existence is Moonshine. Yes, Ferrum, Virginia is pretty much the moonshine capital of the world.

Unfortunately today I had a nasty cold, and didn't so much as get to taste any of the 'shine. Heaven knows how it might have mixed with the cold medicine in my system. Not such a great idea!

One of the most fun things to watch is the Jumping Mule competition. In the "olden days" folks carried goods on pack mules. When they came to an obstacle, they could not very well jump a string of mules over all at once, so one by one they would walk each mule up to the fence or fallen tree and give it a "Jump" command.

The jumps get higher and higher each round to determine which mule can jump the highest.

Broadway and Iraq lined up by the fence to see the mules, and as each jumped it was rewarded with lots of applause. I had to keep reminding Iraq not to scream in her high "E" because not only did it hurt my ears, but all the dogs in attendance either started barking or tried to hide.

The winning mule was an old girl nearing 30 years of age. Her face was almost completely gray, but boy could she jump! Five feet from a stand-still! This picture was taken at a lower level, but that was the over-all winner.

After the mules they had a draft horse weight pulling competition.

I would have loved to watch the whole thing, but Iraq said she needed a drink, so we walked over to the food area where she decided she didn't really need a drink too badly after all.

The Skink enjoyed all the animals, sights and sounds... but just couldn't settle down for a nap in her wagon. I think Broadway enjoyed it too, but it wouldn't have been cool for him to admit it.

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