vernon county fair

  

Last weekend was the local county fair.  It’s a big deal around here.  Schools are closed on Friday so everyone can go to the fair.  And if you have livestock in one of the barns you are excused from school on Thursday too!  When I was a kid, I lived for the fair.  For probably 4 years running I somehow talked my parents into borrowing a trailer and carting my horse to the fair. Horses stay in the horse barn for 4 nights and days and during that time you are expected to be there to feed, water, exercise, muck stalls etc.  So now I got to live AT the fair.  Dakota and I were never very good in the show ring, but I didn’t care. The pay off of spending 12 hours daily at the fair was just too big.

This year Iris really wanted to show her pony, but we decided to start out a little smaller for our first year of showing.  The girls joined a local 4H chapter and Iris started 4H sponsored obedience classes with Phinn.  He was mostly a rascal, but they both learned a lot (and he pulled off a surprising 1st place merit in his (beginner) class.  Disclaimer: there were only 4 kids in that class and all the dogs were rascals!).  Iris was thrilled and I could see by the way she carried herself (with so much poise in the show ring) that this was clearly a confidence builder. 

Elsa really wanted to show her cat (and yes they do have cat showing), but she wasn’t quite old enough to show an animal (next year!).  So she settled for entering a poster about her cat, as well as a knife she carved out of birch wood.  This was also a great learning experience.  Elsa had to meet with a judge and answer questions about each of her projects.  She really didn’t want to do that part.  But as we walked out of the youth building with a couple first place ribbons she said “I’m really glad I came”. 

And then there were the rides, and the fried cheese curds, and the ice cream, and the lemonade and friends and the inspiration of barns full of other kids projects.  We didn’t spend 12 hours a day there (thankfully) but the kids sure would have loved that.   The ball is rolling, we’ll see what next year brings….