An annual event Cedar City citizens look forward to each fall is the Cedar Livestock and Heritage Festival. For Dave and Jan this was the second time to experience the event. It began on Friday evening at the Cross Hollow event center (which Dave and Jan did not attend), but Saturday’s parade down Main Street, with the sheep parading through town, is an annual highlight of the event, with many other activities taking place at the Event Center. Decorations in town anticipate the event for the weeks leading up to it.

The parade features many indications of the region’s agricultural and animal heritage. Antique tractors not only participate in the parade, but compete at the Event Center in tractor pulls which test their ability to pull heavy loads as far and fast as possible.

Other vintage vehicles participate in the parade as well.

Among the farm machinery appearing in the parade are steam machines which add moisture to downed hay in a dry climate.

The sheep in the 2021 parade had apparently not rehearsed their part sufficiently. The crowd waited a while for the sheep to appear. When they did appear they seemed intent on traveling in circles rather than the straight line intended for them by their shepherds. Dave and Jan didn’t witness it, but they learned that late in the parade route the sheep headed by the hundreds into someone’s back yard to add interest to the event! Their behavior called to mind the Bible’s comparison of sheep with human beings when it says (Isaiah 53:6) “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him [i.e. Jesus].” How loving of the Lord to bear the burden of human wanderings!

At the Cross Hollow Event Center, after the parade, tractors and horses pulled their loads, shepherds showed the trailers they live in during their attention to the sheep during summer pastures in the mountains, and vendors displayed their wares.

The Cedar Livestock and Heritage Festival is a very interesting event – one of the many things Dave and Jan enjoy about living in Cedar City.