GREEN COVE SPRINGS \u2013\u202fThe whining sounds of bagpipes and the thundering booms of drums echoed throughout the Cattlemen\u2019s Arena Saturday morning as\u00a0the\u00a0Northeast Florida Scottish Highland Games and Festival officially kicked off at the Clay County Fairgrounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Men proudly marched in their\u00a0red or\u00a0green kilts, many wearing sneakers and the\u00a0pattern specific plaids of their clans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than\u00a01,000\u00a0attended the games. They ate Scottish fare, watched traditional Scottish athletic events like\u00a0weight throw, Scottish hammer, stone put, caber and sheaf toss, listened to live music and danced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Children got their faces painted, jumped in bounce houses,\u00a0participated\u00a0in a treasure hunt, learned about Scottish animals like Heilan Coos, Dumpy chickens,\u00a0Scottish Ducks,\u00a0Shetland Ponies and Clydesdales, road on miniature trains, played games\u00a0and visited a play area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adults tasted beer and wine, practiced their axe throwing and archery, highland dancing, heard Scottish history and explored their clan\u00a0history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Scottish Games will return to the fairgrounds next year\u00a0on\u00a0Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN COVE SPRINGS \u2013\u202fThe whining sounds of bagpipes and the thundering booms of drums echoed throughout the Cattlemen\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3496,3487,3495,3498,3488,3493,116,118,117,3492,3494,3499,3490,3489,3497,3491],"class_list":["post-178868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-argyle","tag-clay-county","tag-doctors-inlet","tag-eagle-harbor","tag-fleming-island","tag-green-cove-springs","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-keystone-heights","tag-lake-asbury","tag-margaret","tag-middleburg","tag-orange-park","tag-pace-island","tag-penney-farms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}