First we visited the Highland Games. I saw three different games: Sheaf Toss, Tossing the Caber, and Tossing the Hammer.

Sheaf Toss
This sheaf is a bag containing 16 pounds of rope. Traditionally, it is filled with hay. I think that the hay bag fell apart too easily and was larger, so they have modified the bag. It is lifted and thrown with a three-tines pitchfork. The sheaf must clear a cross bar without knocking it down, but it’s OK if it rides the bar while falling to the other side. After each round, the height of the cross bar is raised. In this photo, the cross bar is above the top of the photo.

Yes, this man is wearing a kilt. He was actually quite cute, but you can’t tell from the photo because it was taken with Froggy-Half’s cellphone.

Those little people in the background were Tossing the Caber, basically throwing a huge log.

These guys were the from one of the Pipes and Drums bands. The two guys in the background are playing bagpipes.

And one more Celtic band with a bagpipes guy in a kilt:

The Celtic Harp show was really great, but my picture isn’t so great.

I also got to try a Scottish Egg for the first time. It was quite good, so I found a recipe that I will try to use at home.

They are remarkable because of the speed that they are traveling. I can’t believe how fast the bands of clouds are whizzing by.

So far, we’ve only had intermittent rain storms thanks to Arlene. We haven’t really had any windy conditions.

Last year, during Hurricane Ivan, the terrifyingly strong wind blew one of our shutters right off!