A Day at the Fair,
A Night on the Farm

This fair was not just for farm geeks—well, mostly for farm geeks but once you’re there you sort of become a farm geek. First and most importantly, the number of exhibits was small enough that a family with school aged children could see mostly everything in a few hours before entering the dreaded emergency ice cream and cotton candy fix zone. Second, the animals exhibited for judging are beautiful specimens, the obvious result of hard work, good nutrition and the genuine love of the adults and children who raised them.

I hope you will browse through the pictures I snapped on Thursday afternoon August 1, 2019.

The chickens, yes the chickens, we met at the Fair were unique in their beauty contest caliber looks. Also note the cows and pigs, often penned in groups and looking like they belonged in a Wayne Thiebaud painting—each one with its own jauntiness and just slightly different from his or her pen mate.

I also want to recognize the imaginative pre-teens and adolescents who entered their watercolors, sketches, needlepoint, and Lego sculptures into the Fair’s student art exhibit. Their subjects were upbeat and diverse covering much more than life in a farming community.

What would the county fair be without deep fried Snickers, pork chops on a stick, corn dogs and ice cream? I confess, I sampled all.

Tired, hot and happy, my husband and I paid a quick visit to the tractor display before turning homeward to Ravensfield Farm. Putting the chickens in tonight, I let the Black Copper Marans know that the competition out there was fierce. Check your attitudes you chickens, or more aptly check the pecking order.

Regrets? Yes. I left the Fair without acquiring a prize bunny as a new pet and my husband Marschall left without a new tractor.

Did we stay too long at the Fair? Definitely not,

And the duck quacked.