Fair Was Awesome!

It was the best Fair I’ve experienced so far (as an exhibitor in the Animals of the World Barn, not to include the State Fairs as a parent), in spite of coming down with whatever this sore throat, drippy nose, heavy chest thing is.

The Fair Began Early for VF&G

Usually Bet and I go to the opening day of the Fair as fair goers.  Last year we even bought rodeo tickets for that day and we had a blast!  But this year Bet got hired on at the Fair’s Petting Farm and then at the last minute the Fair also hired Anna.

While the girls had tons of fun talking with children and their accompanying adults about farm animals and made a little bit of money, Dirt and I were doing all of Bet’s chores and tripping over Anna’s dogs while trying to get our own work done as well.

Bet pulled a lot of double shifts, essentially she worked from 8am to 10 pm, and since neither the twenty-one year old or the married nineteen-year old is in possession of a driver’s license, we took the trailer to the fairgrounds from the first day of the fair to the last..  Even if they had been able to drive I’m not sure I would feel good about them driving the forty-five minute trip back and forth. 

Fair Day Arrives for VF&G

Dirt and I had everything packed and ready to go so when we got up at 4 am, got dressed, made coffee and jumped in the truck, we ended up down to the fair by five fifteen.  Got all signed in with the security gate for our special vehicle pass and off to the center of the fairgrounds to the Animals of the World Barn.

Dirt rolled back the barn door…

And there it was a cleaned out, set up barn ready for the last five days of our seventeen day State Fair.  And the big empty spot just waiting for our turkey exhibit pens to be set up.

Our help rolled out of bed across the fairgrounds where the trailer was parked and joined us in the empty barns.  See the big smiles?  That’s ‘cuz they know that the best days of the fair are ahead of them

But first we have to set up the pens and my crazy idea of what an exhibit should look like.  I aim for eye catching, well actually first is the whole objective of keeping turkeys in and children out and then be eye catching. 

And yes, we are there with turkeys, but at home we are a lot more than that, so I try to express that in subtle and not so subtle ways.  The “education” at the pens is a mix of basic fun turkey info for the folks that will never grow them but appreciate what goes into making a different sort of bird than the ones found at Safeway, and some of the other things we do at the farm. 

I always try to improve from one year to the next.  Either improve for the public or for our own comfort while their.  One of my favorite new additions was the solid pen wall and bi-fold doors that enclosed the tack “room” and hid our mess and sometimes ourselves.

The other favorite new thing was the “Unwanted” posters, they were of course a last minute addition, thought of them a couple of weeks earlier but finally got to sit and make them on the Monday before we went in.  It isn’t the Fair unless I am sitting at my computer at early morning hours in jammies and coffee in hand, having ran to Costco the day before to get ink for the printer.

I saved everything in plastic sleeves this year so I shouldn’t have much to do or even room to come up with stuff for next year.  But we will be adding pigs to the exhibit next year so…

Junior Poultry Expo

The day after we get into the fair and settled, the youth come in with their poultry projects

  

 

Then right after they show they go down to another area and participate in a judging contest.  They judge poultry carcasses and place the four in order 1 – 4 as to best to least.  They judge a few groups of four hens for laying and four meat birds.  They also have to identify chicken body parts and meat cuts. 

Once they go around to the different stations they go up to a judge and give the placements of the birds in each group along with the reasons why they placed them the way they did.

Fit and show is a good thing to do and the kids have to do fit and show in order to get any premium money for all the other things they do, but quite frankly, from a farmers point of view, the judging contest, where the youth judge birds, figuring out who they would keep and who they would cull, that would be the most important contest, even over type class. 

Well the kids did pretty stinkin’’ good in the judging contest.  They did darn fine in the other contests as well.  And up at the Animals of the World Barn… VF&G (that’s us) won the herdsmanship award for creativity.

Aside from the awards that we received, this year was one of the best since we have been doing the turkey display, maybe because we got the fewest harassing visitors about being meat eaters.  I think a few years of crappy economics has made for a slightly more realistic citizenship. 

Or it could just be all the sunshine we’ve had here this summer Dear Reader, most of July, all August and then all of September so far, no rain.  We in the Pacific Northwest just don’t know what to do with ourselves when it gets like this!

Of course I am still way behind on what I need to have done around here.  I know I said I would come back to full blogging speed Dear Reader, but we’ll just take it easy for now.  If I get back here in less than a week, I’ll be thrilled!

See you soon!