LANCASTER — Saturday brought sunshine and blue skies to Lancaster, providing a perfect setting for this year's Lancaster Festival Fair Day.

Throngs of children and their families crowded around activity stands, making soapdish bubbles, building wooden birdhouses and lassoing a "steer," which was really a bull's head atop a few bales of hay.

A menagerie of animals completed the scene: llamas, horses, pigeons and goats waited patiently for curious hands to pet them.

A big attraction was the mini-train that chugged around an oval track. Moms Becky Conley of Mansfield and Pam Dean of Lancaster waited for their children — Cameron and Ashlee Conley and Kailey and Chloe Dean — to finish their ride on the train. "They're having a good time," Conley said of her children.

Cameron, who had designs painted on both his cheeks, enjoyed making a birdhouse, while Ashlee preferred to watch the racing pigeons.

Dean's son Caden slept soundly in a stroller while his siblings rode the train. "My kids like the petting farm," Dean said, adding that they also liked seeing mules and pigeons.

Dean and Conley attended Fair Day "just to get the kids outside," Dean said.

Musical entertainment was provided by the Reynoldsburg Community Band, Celebration Singers, Standing Stone Strings & Things, The Lyies Family, The Saunders Family and The General Guiness Band.

Festival director Lou Ross said Fair Day keeps getting better and better. "We're on a roll here," he said.

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