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This past Saturday was a very special day for Rutgers University students and alumni alike. To those who weren’t privileged enough to attend the State University of New Jersey (although about half of the state did go there), I’m talking about Ag Field Day…or is it Rutgers Day? Whatever you wanna call it, it’s a day full of food, fun, and farmy stuff.

Rutgers: the official university of the Armpit of America

The reason for the confusion in the name? Well, it’s probably even more confusing to explain. Ag Field Day (the Ag part standing for Agricultural) had been held each year since 1906. For much of that time, it took place on the Cook Campus of Rutgers University. Starting last year, the powers that be decided to make the event a university-wide festival called Rutgers Day. But over 100 years of history doesn’t just get absorbed, so the day is still referred to by its original name.

I met up with some friends, who brought their three dogs. It seems as though almost everyone who goes brings at least one dog. As you can see in the picture below, the three cattle dogs all decided to roll around in the grass. Though this was beyond adorable, they were apparently rolling around in some crap or something. How cute.

Aside from all the dogs, there are plenty of animals out on display. The Rutgers University farm is proud to show off its horses, sheep, goats, and cows. And those animals are proud to poop all over the place for dogs to roll around in.

Ag Field Day is also the sight of a massive plant sale. You can buy any type of herb, vegetable plant, flower, or tree imaginable. A few years ago, I even bought a Venus flytrap! This year, they had a couple different types of carnivorous plants, but the flytraps were already gone.

Another highlight of Ag Field Day is the food. State-fair types of vendors serve all kinds of food products, including all those foods that are served deep-friend and/or served on a stick. Aside from these carpet-bagging carnival vendors, you can buy ice cream made on campus, with milk from the cows whose crap you just stepped. It’s the circle of life.

Now that Ag Field Day has turned into Rutgers Day, the university went out of its way to brag about all things Rutgers. They put up all these signs with Rutgers trivia, such as the one below:

More like "Who?" and "Whatever happened to her?"

All the departments on campus have their own displays. For instance, the Water Resources department had a display of rain barrels they’re auctioning off. But, my favorite by far is the Entomology Department, which puts on one hell of a show:

Is there any three-word combination that’s better than “Insect Petting Zoo”? Probably, but I’m too lazy to find one. Anyway, children, adults, and bloggers in their mid-20s are more than welcome to touch a variety of cockroaches, leeches, scorpions, and other creepy stuff.

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all, though, is the cockroach races:

This entry was posted on April 29, 2010 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Rutgers. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: cockroaches, insects, New Brunswick, Rutgers, Rutgers Day