Saturday 15 November 2014

The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Toronto, ON

Gord and I went to The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (The Royal) today.  It's at Exhibition Place from November 7 'til tomorrow.

The Royal is Canada's most prominent agricultural event within both the provincial and national scopes. Its mandate is predominantly trade-related, featuring wine and food shopping as well as the livestock, machinery and foodstuffs displays. Entertainment includes an international horse show, cattle shows, chef competitions, rodeo, and President's Choice SuperDogs.  The first show opened in November 1922.


There is something for everyone!


There is a huge foodcourt.  We had an early supper there.  I had wings and fries from St. Louis and Gord had a humungous chicken schnitzel sandwich.  The prices for everything seemed reasonable.


There is lots of shopping including horse supplies, clothing, hats, boots, jewelry, sweets, cooking supplies, soaps, etc.

Even a liquor store
You could get a massage
Gord bought a Green Bay Packers cap
Of course, I bought this teeshirt!

Ag-tivity Central was a farm-inspired play area for younger children with face painting, mini tractor races, a mechanical bull and more.

Kids were so excited to get on the bull ...
and then were tossed off within seconds

We spent some time at the petting zoo where there were over 60 animals.

This girl tried to take a selfie with this baby goat
but it kept licking her face

These two were funny.

The white and black guy would leap and twist ...
And then they would put their heads together ...
they must have done this about 100 times
You could buy feed for the animals
Awwwwww!

Then we went through the Harvest Path.


The veggie section was fun.

Giant crazy-shaped rutabagas
A 71 pound rutabaga
A crazy 6.4 pound carrot!
62.6 pound yellow beet root - a Royal record
and unconfirmed world record
859.6 pound pumpkin - second place
836 pound pumpkin - third place
459 pound pumpkin - fifth place

There were some chicks and chickens in the aMAZEing Food Journey section.


There were carvings made from butter.


We caught the end of a cow judging competition.

The winner

We walked around the cattle barns.

These two had their heads together chewing
Must have been a long hard day
Farmer Gord

This guy did rope tricks.

He would have kids crouch down and
then get his rope going around them ...
And then have them stand up
All the kids wanted to do it

The Food and Lifestyle Stage had cooking demonstrations.


We finished off in the Vineyard and Brewhouse, which was coordinated by Jed Corbeil of the Griffin Gastropub in Bracebridge (we've been to many of the craft beer festivals he organizes every summer).


They served craft beer.

I had Underdog's All or Nothing, which I discovered
this summer on a craft brew cruise

They also served wine.

I liked the Bubblehead Sparkling Pinot Noir

Jed took his guitar out and was singing by the bar for a while.


The horse show started at 7pm and we watched it on TVs in the bar.


It was a fun time with lots to do ... we were there for eight hours!

2 comments:

LeeAnn said...

Wow 8 hours! I LOVE petting zoos! That looked like a good one!

Teresa said...

Looks like a fun way to spend some time.