Quintessential Country- The County Fair.

I have only just begun this blog. I think this is about day #11. And, although each day on Cowfeathers Farm brings rich reward, any of you who missed the accounting of our 2010 County Fair experience are truly living only partial lives. In any case, it is worthy of this blog....
So, I thought I would sub in a day at the fair, probably once a week, until any who missed it the first time get all the way through. Hang on to your hand-tooled belt and settle down with some tractor churned ice cream!

Carrie Bradshaw famously chronicled city life of singles in Sex in the City. I, too, sit at my little Mac laptop, chronicling(is that a word?) and there the resemblance slides off like the frosting on the top of the blue ribbon pecan corn cake in the 90 degree heat at the county fair. Instead of sharing the latest goodies in the window at Bergdorfs, or pithy observations of Male interaction, I’m here to share what it means to live in rural America 2010 in a day so rich with image and so ripe with sweat, fried food and the smell of the decaying skunk in the manure pile outside Peaches’ horse stall.


Yes, today was the first day of the Pickaway County Fair! I think. It is hard to think of the fair as starting today, as we’ve been hard at work for many days. The Fair Booth started going up on Wednesday, the six wooden standards that make up our 8’x16’x4’ display for the club. Speaking of the club, Saddle and Sirloin has grown this year. We now have 54 members taking 108 projects to the county fair. The booth is where we display the non-livestock projects, of which there were 60 some. Gun safety, photography, archery, welding, engine building, interior design….the range of projects are staggering. The Fairbooth committee designed the booth this year around the Bicentennial of our county, stars and pigs, flags and Carhartts. Country meets The Country. The booth was finished on Saturday, just after we moved our rented camper into the fair. This is where I now sit. In AirConditioning??? (Those of you who don’t know, I never use AC). The camper is moving back and forth, as Hamilton is here with me, and he is constant motion. Georgia and Tod are finishing nighttime Fair barn chores (we’ve already been home to shower and to do Home barn chores- we have 8 animals here, which leaves another 50+ at home that are still needing us) and Madeleine is enjoying the benefits of neighbors by playing cards with friends at another camper. In any case, Sunday is “Move-in-day”, which is the day all animals projects are moved in, by midnight. We got a good start, arriving with the horse by 10 am in order to get in a ride. Georgia is taking Peaches this year- in fact, Georgia is our only child showing livestock this year! Peaches is notoriously rambunctious at the Fair. So we got out in the morning heat to give her a chance to get her jollies all out. She did very well, after an initial prep by me. By 1:00, George was done with the ride, and we had Peaches installed, next to the aforementioned skunk. Back home to pick up the sheep and poultry. Georgia’s ewes both had twins this May, and Georgia brought Dolores, her white Border Leicester ewe to show with her twins, Evelyn- also white and Everest- a black ram lamb. We picked up Dolores and put her in the bed of my monster truck, with her babes in a large metal crate, packed up a pair of Australorp hens and a pair of Cuyuga ducks and off to the fairgrounds once more. Even out here, a monster truck with lambs in a dog crate is a novelty. I think the truck gets so much attention because with the loud diesel rumble folks think their brother/father/buddy is driving past, but the attention is held with the “Awww” factor of the sweet lambs. Once at the fair, all animals were shown to their pens for display. Water buckets filled, bedded, fed. Horse stall decorated in a Disney theme (decorated stalls! What?) By 9:30 pm, we were done with all chores, home and Fair and could tromp back to the Camper for the night. But, I offered to help braid Peaches mane, which Georgia accepted. I haven’t braided a horse since, maybe, 1986, so I was a tad rusty. Still, by 11:30 Peaches mane was reasonably tamed- a real accomplishment- and we were off for a few hours rest.

Blondie with our temporary home attached, getting ready to leave Cowfeathers.

Monday is the kick off of the Fair, and it kicks off with horses. Historically not one of our more successful arenas, I have talked at least one kid into a horse project for the past 4 years or so. This year started in similar fashion to year’s past, although, Peaches was on her best behavior after a getting a little hormone help from the Therio department at Ohio State. After several years as broodmare, she assesses the start of the fair as a fantastic opportunity to get back on the job. This year we opted for decreasing her employment opportunities. It worked nicely, and she was MUCH calmer. Can’t say the same for Georgia, who by the time she got in line for her Showmanship class was in tears. I’m sure it doesn’t help that Peaches stepped on Georgia’s right foot on the walk down to the arena and it might be a little broken, certainly significantly bruised. She never complained, so another mom fetched a bag of ice, and I tried to do what I could to keep her off her foot. I’m pretty sure the tears were of stress. I attempted a pep talk, then ran away, thinking if she has access to me, she’ll quit. She cried her way through Showmanship, but did it anyway, and a pretty decent job, although she made a few errors ( hard to concentrate when you’re crying) and was not “in the ribbons”. A few sunbaked, dust filled classes later brought us to the Walk Trot class-another good time for me to hide, leaving Dad to field the possible “ I don’t want to”s that she’s prone to, but rarely shares with any but me. I got her up, and on the horse and in the arena, and dove into the crowd of sweating grandparents with cameras. She walked, she trotted, she stopped, she backed, she was a star. The pair rode around with real pleasure, Peaches tail swinging rhythmically Georgia posting up and down with a bright, genuine smile. Amazing. As usual, one of only three English riders in a field of 20+, she laps the slow moving western horses, weaving through the clumps like Secretariat 30 lengths ahead, only at a trot. They line up, the announcer starts calling places, and in historic repeat, her number doesn’t get called. Places 5,4,3, - all members of our club, and then- miracle, she is called. Her place? First. I burst into tears, so relieved at the confidence boost this would give her- way to go Georgia and Peach!!!! Our club members were so great, parents coming over to congratulate and hug, and a whole gallery of momma and popparazzi. Georgia was thrilled. “Now, that was fun!” She said. So much so, that she promptly agreed to enter the Walk Trot Horsemanship class and go again! An hour later, there she was doing her thing again. Happily. She posted on the wrong lead for some time, but corrected herself eventually, and in another large class, earned herself a second place ribbon. The steward came over later and told her the judge had her in first, but moved her to second because of the incorrect lead. Georgia conquered. She floated the rest of the day, through the sweat and the pen cleaning, she enjoyed. LOVE that.

Mom tries to give encouragement, just before abandonment.

 Madeleine had spent the morning working as a Junior Fair Board member at “Weigh- in”, where all the market livestock projects are weighed to assess if they are of required weight, and in which class they are slotted to show, then she spent the afternoon working the dog show. She was so surprised and pleased for Georgia’s success in the horse arena. Lovely. Hamilton was, well, he could have been worse. He did decide to put eggs from the hens in my bag, unbeknownst to me, where they smashed and slimed, he disappeared during the horseshow right before Georgia’s first class, so I had to abandon my crying broken footed daughter to locate my heathen son, and he got in a water fight with our only drinking water, but he tried to behave. Really.

We had a few minutes watching the dairy show before it was time to line up with the rest of the club for the Parade. The evening Parade on the first day of the fair is the official kick off. The clubs have floats, or line up with a banner, leading their llamas, driving their goat carts, doubled on horses, etc. and parade around the fairgrounds, ending at the King and Queen Contest. Kids who sweated all day scrubbing their hogs and blow drying their steers get into evening gowns and suits and sit on the wood stage, answering questions like “What would you tell a younger child who was interested in 4H or FFA?” ( FFA= Future Farmers of America) and they answer into a poorly amplified microphone. This year, Saddle and Sirloin had a champion in Kobi Sethna, King Candidate. The whole group, in matching shirts, marched in front of a pick up, with Kobi standing in the back, cheering for him. He was the youngest of the candidates, having just finished his junior year of high school, but he is a good kid, and a bright kid, and got a wholloppin’ cheer when he was named First Attendant. As we checked all the critters before leaving for home chores, we passed a teen in a lemon yellow gown and heels holding up her train to keep it off the barn floor as she checked on her turkey. The Fair.

After home chores and showers, we noted how far the neighbors had gotten in the hay fields today, with hundreds of huge round bales in a seeming random pattern in the field, and the lightning bugs started rising out of the corn on the longest day of the year. We arrived back to the fair to the roar of the crowd, and the combines at the Combine Derby. Large gaudily painted combines battling to the death in front of the grandstand. Elmer Hines had two massive orange combines this year, good to see, as Elmer had a bad accident with some farm equipment last year….I saw his wife, Mary, during booth set up, she does the packer bid for the market chickens and dresses them out at the bargain price of $5.00 a hen! But I didn’t bring up Elmer, as I wasn’t sure if he was still with us. The kid I bought my monster truck from showed up in a big flat black combine, and there was a rather dented pepto pink combine in the battle as well. It showed up dented, it left in pieces. This morning, Georgia showed up in pieces and left restored. The Fair.

Triumphant!