Farmers' Country Fairs




Every August our local grange holds a farmers' fair mostly geared toward 4-H-er’s but with something for everyone, including country bands, carnival rides, magic acts, puppet shows, tractor exhibits, and tents filled with vendors from local landscapers, gutter specialists, spas and whirlpools, furniture makers, county service divisions, and even democrats and republicans.

I look forward to seeing the cows, calves, heavy horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, geese, rabbits, flowers, vegetables, and the photography, painting, and craft exhibits the most. I have to go on the first day before the grass gets all crushed and smelly, the agricultural hall is full of wilted and molding specimens, and the weather fouls things up.


I could sit in the cow barn all day. I’m jealous of the children clomping around in their wellies, strands of straw sticking out of their hair, leading reluctant or completely nonchalant barnyard critters to and fro, from stall to judging ring to grooming area. I love the smells, the rolling eyes, swishing tails, and occasional bellows. Billy goats butt heads through the fencing, or sleep in heaps. Pigs squeal and burp and roll in their dirt. Roosters crow and hens scratch saw dust out onto passers by.
I try not to think of how lovely they taste as I watch a quail hen poke around her cage. Droopy eared rabbits chew carrot sticks and temp children to poke their fingers into their cages to pet them, even though the signs say not to. The sheep barn usually smells the worst and we hurry through, pausing only to pet those who look like they want it, and stand in line at the end of the row to wash our hands of lanolin and sheep spit.


The row of stalls relegated to the Belgian draft horses from A Better Way Farm is my favorite place. We meet Duke and Doc, both 11 years old and 1900-2000 pounds. Captain and Cutter are happy to have their noses rubbed. Cutter weighs 2200 pounds! I look at their feet and wonder how easy it is to keep yours out from under them.
I so want a barn full of them myself. Steel-toed boots, check. But they eat more hay a day than I could even afford, much less carry. When I lived in Ohio for a couple of years and drove to Michigan in the summers, I passed hours worth of Amish farm fields dotted with draft horses, plowing fields or grazing peacefully with their young.

The photography exhibit is exceptional, as usual. I am amazed at the types of photos children have taken and the Kodak moments they didn’t miss. There’s a cicada emerging from his shell, a picture of a happy dog hanging out the back window taken through the side mirror with “objects are closer than they appear” printed across his image, ears blowing back and tongue hanging out in sheer delight. Other pictures are of birds, and buildings, and landscapes, and people. Charcoal, water color, and acrylic drawings and paintings line the walls from top to bottom, some unbelievably detailed, others delightfully abstract.

In the building dedicated to horticultural projects, sunflowers rise to the ceiling, bales of hay, straw and alfalfa waft their sweet scents, zinnias, glads, dahlias and roses droop and fade in jars of clouding water, still hinting at their original beauty. Red, blue, yellow, and white ribbons flap in the breeze, bestowing the level of glory and pride their cultivators can boast. There aren’t as many weird anomalies in the vegetable section this year, the zucchini’s are impressive considering it’s been so rainy this summer that everyone’s zucchini pretty much gave up and went to mush. Not a bad year for peppers and tomatoes, potatoes and horseradish, garlic and onions. The habaneros look dangerous, the wine grapes delicious.






Nothing unusual in the canning division but we want to sample them all. The cakes all look too cute to eat. Astonishingly beautiful quilts, blankets, and needlepoints hang from the rafters. Posters on bee keeping, changing the oil in a lawn mower, a study one budding young scientist conducted to see which toys all the neighborhood dogs like best complete with analytical charts and graphs (and a surprise—the ball didn’t win!). We’re too tired by now to read them all and make notes-to-self to hit that barn earlier next year, before our feet wear out. I'm always grateful that local children and parents are still into agriculture, horticulture, crafts, and animal husbandry when so much has changed in life and so many things compete with these for their time.


Now it’s off to the food stands for corn on the cob, lemonade, pulled pork sandwiches, French fries, and good cold soft custard. Or crab cakes, grilled chicken, and peach pie. The other big reasons for the annual trek through the Grange fair. You gotta have some fair food every summer!