Fair Hounds: Goat exhibition gets under way
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For the last four days of the State Fair the sheep barn transforms into a goat barn.
About 750 goats will compete this year and Marie Ljosenvoor of Maple Lake is one of the ring stewards who makes sure everyone has what they need and gets where they're supposed to be.
"Most of the people who work in the dairy goat department are my family. My dad is the superintendent, and then me, my spouse and my brother."
Ljosenvoor's been raising goats since she was a girl and coming to the State Fair even longer. "I have been attending the Minnesota State Fair Dairy Goat show since I was a baby. My dad started working here when I was one."
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This morning, she and the other staff had been working since midnight to ready the barn for the arriving goats.
"It's really pretty chaotic especially between the 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. time slot. People probably left late at night, some people who come from northern Minnesota leave right after chores at night. They leave at 8pm and arrive at 2am. You have a line-up of trucks around outside the building."
But she sees a certain beauty in the large cars and trailers maneuvering and parallel parking.
"It always looks like a ballet to me."
The goats will all arrive by 2 p.m. and the first judging is at 5 p.m.
