CUMMINGTON -- On Sunday, the Cummington Fair came to a close with prize-winning animals and machines from decades past.
With warm sunny days on Friday and Saturday and an overcast but cooler day on Sunday, fairgoers had good weather for a summer highlight for many in surrounding towns that dates back 157 years. Blue ribbons were awarded on the final day of the four-day fair, which also featured draft horse pulls.
Carson Bisbee, 14, of Chesterfield showed off his 3-year-old oxen Harvey and Moose, something he's been doing for four years.
"I don't know," he said, when asked about what appeals to him about sharing his oxen. "I just like it."
His father said he grew up with 4-H oxen, and he has draft horses and dairy cows.
"He wanted to start a pair, so he started a pair, and he's hooked," Donnie Bisbee said. "He was doing the dairy cows before. Now he can do more stuff with the oxen. He can go pull logs. Showing the cow was just going in a ring and show it. This one they can do different classes, pull the stone boat, the logs and the pull the cart. He enjoys all that."
Beyond the animals, visitors were greeted by antiques. Jonathan Cranston of Ashfield, who farms in Ashfield and Cummington, showed several, including a 1940 Farmall H that ran the carousel at the Cummington Fair, which his wife's grandfather bought new, "which was the result of the horse dying."
He was standing next to a 5-horsepower Abenaque, an early and well-made engine that first appeared around 1895.
"At that time, I'm not sure that many farmers were accustomed to mechanical machinery, and there was a transition from horsepower and gasoline-powered engines," he said. "So I think a lot of them struggled to maintain operation of these."
He said he was working to make sure the engine was tuned.
"It's a little bit challenging when we're displaying these because they're not running at their optimum speed. They're not powering anything, so they're not really working and they're not running at their optimum efficiency."
Cranston said he likes mechanical things. But he also has a use for most of these. In prior years, he's displayed a threshing machine. He was also displaying a New Holland rock crusher run by a 1912 Falk engine, which had been bought out by Rumely in 1912 -- both decals are visible, one underneath a coat of paint.
"That was kind of a special day for us when we put those two machines together for the first time in over 100 years," Cranston said.
But the item he brought that likely won the most admiration was an original and unrestored 1948 Harley-Davidson, which his wife's father, Almond Streeter, bought in 1949 and gave to her father for his 16th birthday.
Explaining that many of these machines are still in use on his farm, he said, "We make do with what we have."
Sean Porter, 12, has been working with oxen since he was 4. He has a pair of white Chianina oxen, a breed originating from Italy. These two oxen were born at his family's farm, Porter Family Farm, in Ashfield, and he's raised them.
"It's fun kind of going through the process," Sean said. "Like I have pictures of them when they were this tall. And then they get bigger and you see them grow and get better at stuff, and you also improve with them."
He said he enjoys the different classes of competition and meeting friends.
Sean's father, Josh Porter, said he encourages his children to take part in 4-H showing and noted that Sean has had different challenges with each pair of oxen he's worked with.
"You learn a lot by breaking the calves and working with them that way," Porter said.
What's the key thing Sean is learning?
"Patience," said his father.
Abigail Parks, 10, was waiting to show Susie, her 1-year-old Border Leicester sheep on Saturday morning.
"She's very calm," Abigail said of Susie. "She's very curious and friendly."
Abigail also appeared to be calm as she waited.
Her mother, Karin Parks, said her daughter has been around her grandparents' farm since she was an infant and that it's Abigail's fourth year showing.
"She is actually fourth-generation," Parks said. "She goes every day to her grandparents and goes to the farm and feeds her sheep since she was little."
Parks said her daughter has learned far more than about how to care for sheep -- about public speaking and how she's perceived by the public.
"I have a 10-year-old that can do an annual budget that's pretty darn close, as scary as that number was. She's made big plans of travel. She'll go ahead and call an adult and say, 'Hey, can I get a ride to Maryland?'"
In addition, Parks said her daughter works independently and has her own savings account and figures out how to pay part of the feed bill.
Of her daughter, Parks said, "She just has gotten awfully responsible."