RICHMOND - Last Friday, the mud in the fairgrounds parking area was as thick and sticky as cotton candy, the air filled with the competing aromas of cow patties ("barnyard honey") and deep-fried Twinkies, and the Wurlitzer played its wurlitzing music welcoming all to the Washington County Fair.

"RELISHES - BUTTERS - PICKLES" announced the sign on the Washington County Fair General Store at the entrance. "Welcome to Udder Space" read another, just around the bend where the cattle were penned.

Game vendors begged stragglers to try their hand at popping a balloon or shooting a basket, practically guaranteeing a big blue stuffed gorilla (or green frog, or yellow SpongeBob SquarePants) to anyone who tried. Nearly three dozen rides twirled, twisted, looped and leaned in dizzying combination, bringing color and blur to the lazy day. Mechanical failure derailed the 1001 Nights ride - a jury box that swings like a pendulum until it eventually makes a full rotation, then reverses direction - for part of the morning. But, before long, brave souls were showing their bracelets or parting with tickets to swing and drop on creaky Baghdad kitsch.

Orange bracelets were sold for unlimited rides from noon to 5, and some families never left the ride area for the entire five hours, when they had Super Slid, Merry-Go-Rounded, Tilt-a-Whirled, Gravitroned, Orbitored, Sizzlered, Tornadoed, Flying Bobbed and Zippered to the point of meltdown..

Then there were the animal folks, girls wearing Jonas Brothers concert tour shirts carrying roosters like bread loaves and boys wearing Red Sox caps grooming calves for show. Amid a maze of pens containing restless bunnies, grunting pigs, crowing roosters, gobbling turkeys, lowing cows, braying goats and bleating sheep, was a plump, Yorkshire swine named Ivory sacked out in the sawdust, seemingly oblivious to the gathering hordes and the bright blue ribbon it had won on a previous day.

Ivory, born in June of this year to the Tavares family of West Greenwich, won the ribbon not for showmanship, breeding or market - three of the classes that swine compete in at the fair - but for successfully negotiating a pig-friendly obstacle course faster than any other porker.

"Pigs are actually very intelligent," said Ivory's owner, Wendy Tavares, co-chairwoman of the Swine Division at the fair, whose family owns Hog Hill Farm in West Greenwich. "Contrary to popular opinion, pigs aren't dirty. They're very clean animals. The only reason they like the slop is because they don't have any sweat glands, so it's a way to stay cool. But, here in the shade, you see how clean they are."

The pigpens are equipped with automatic water nozzles. When a pig is thirsty, it just presses the nozzle.

"At home, we use automatic feeders," Tavares said. "Pigs will not overeat. A cow would eat till it died if it could. A pig will just eat until it's full."

Ivory and the other pigs like to play with Wiffle Ball bats, grabbing one end and hitting one another with the other end. "They also like those rubber dog chew toys," Tavares said. "They like the squeak."

Animals at the fair all compete within their breed for best of show during the week, then the winners in each category vie for "supreme animal of the fairgrounds" on the last day. Really, though, does a chicken stand a chance against an ox?

"I've seen it happen," Tavares said. "A chicken won a couple of years ago. You can get a really silky chicken that is a champion of its species, just about perfect within its breed. And at the end of the day, it scores higher than the cow. Nothing for the dairy cow to be ashamed of. Just a perfect chicken."

Parting with money, whether for games, rides, food or wares, is the reason fairs were invented, and the Washington County version doesn't disappoint. You can buy sundresses and bathing suits, sand art and fake tattoos. You can take a vintage, old-time photograph or make a wax hand (six possible colors, every possible gesture except one). Folks purchase clamcakes by the dozen, carrying them in greasy brown bags, or doughboys by the paper plate. The prime attraction at the Cross' Mills Fire Department booth were grills barbecuing smoked turkey legs. Next door, at the Westerly Ambulance Corps booth, the big seller was the deep-fried Twinkie. It looked like a corn dog without the dog. Whatever the white stuff is in a Twinkie disappeared after it was deep fried. How did it taste?

"Like a hot Twinkie," said one adventurous diner.

A booth set up by the South County Museum exhibited photographs from previous fairs in the region, including scenes from when it took place at the fairgrounds in Kingston.

"As you can see, one of the big draws at one time was harness racing," said Jim Crothers, executive director of the museum. "In another photograph, you can also see that the more things change, the more they stay the same: Maine's Ice Cream wagon. Local vendors selling wares, just like today."

At 4 p.m., it was time for "Rooster Idol," the cock crowing contest featuring about 10 birds in cages and their "rooster whisperers," human handlers enticing the animals to crow without touching them or their cages. The winner would be the rooster that crowed the most in 10 minutes. Once the event started, the birds went dead quiet. The emcee tried to advise the contestants.

"Make like a hen," she said. "Make a hen noise."

"What's a hen noise?" asked an adult male with a mute rooster.

"Muck-muck-muck-muck-muck," the emcee clucked.

The man tried "mucking," to no avail. One girl started slapping her rooster around in the cage. Another shook the cage. Both were admonished. Yet another yelled out: "Hey, this is not a rooster!" And another just screamed at her bird: "Crow! Crow! Crow!" After five minutes, the swine behind the crowd were making more noise than the roosters in the show barn.

But one rooster, a black giant named Blaze, had a steady voice, good for a crow a minute, and won the competition handily, finishing with 10 clear utterances. Blaze's partner, Rachael Demers, 10, of Coventry explained her secret.

While her competitors tried crowing, intimidating, clucking or cheating, Demers said her strategy was, "Just talking to him calmly. Telling him he could do it. Saying his name. When he's getting ready to crow, he lifts his neck up and raises his head, so I just kept encouraging him."

Blaze is two-for-two in blue ribbon "Rooster Idol" fair competition, having also finished first at his first event, the Foster Fair. The time limit passed without any of the roosters crowing that day, so it went to sudden death.

"We just kept waiting," Demers said. "A rooster has to crow sometime."