When I was a kid I used to spend a week each summer down on the border of North and South Dakota on the ranch with my aunt, uncle and cousins during their preparation for the county fair. Now, my cousins didn’t do the lite version of the 4-H experience. Their version was a deluxe version of showing steers, sheep and horses, plus executing baking demonstrations, sewing projects and entering meticulous projects as static exhibits. My cousins won trophies. All-around titles.

Anyway, I’m thinking about this now because I have just completed my own experience being a mother of 4-H kids with livestock and horses and projects at the county fair. The entire four days I was in the livestock barn I was thinking about my aunt Kerry with a greater understanding about why she pulled my cousin’s braids so dang tight in the kitchen every morning before the fair. Because here I was,  doing the same to my oldest with a quiet, overwhelmed rage, running perpetually behind and trying not to pull her eyelids to her hairline in the process. Let me tell you, this 4-H stuff can be a county fair roller coaster, a lot more dramatic than the one you find at the carnival.

During Edie’s first hour in the show ring with her goats, we went from an experience where I entered her animal in the wrong class, resulting in a red ribbon for a goat who sealed the rough experience by leaping, jumping and flopping her way through the show ring.

We got back to the pens and everyone was crying, including me. I felt terrible. But after a big hug from our goat show expert friend, there was no time to dwell, because it was time to show the whether, and my goodness if that little goat didn’t earn Edie a purple ribbon in her class, clearing up those tears pretty quick so that she could skip off into a full two hours of carnival rides with her best friend on a high note.

It was the worst of times and then it was the best of times and so it went…

Because our time in the show ring didn’t stop there as we continued the next day with the sale of that little whether, something I apparently hadn’t adequately prepared my youngest daughter for because she proceeded to go into a full-on sob for around an hour declaring to the entire livestock barn that she didn’t want the goat to become hamburger. I sent her up to the bleachers to sit on Papa’s lap for the rest of the sale and, well, guess who bought the goat? Edie exited the ring, and her friend called her over. “Edie, Edie, your grandpa bought Hulk. Now you can keep him!”

It was the best of times.

After the sale we had to rush home to beat the impending thunderstorm to scrub and detangle three ranch horses who didn’t know what to do with all the attention. We got them into the barn before the first raindrop hit. It was a 10 pm bedtime and  5 am wakeup call for the horse show the next morning and if you’ve ever tried to get a half delirious child to listen to instructions at 7 am about staying out of the dirt in her white shirt and watching the judges and setting up a horse without touching it while simultaneously keeping your cool when your child responds with “I know!’” when they clearly don’t know, well, then, we can talk about it over a drink at the Legion later. Because the kids don’t know. But by day three of the fair they are about as sick of hearing your voice as you are.

It was the worst of times.

But we weren’t done yet! Edie had one more task in the arena to show the judge how much she did know about showing her goat, which turned out to be more than I thought. A big smile and a blue ribbon later and we were back on top of the world with Hulk the goat. We were so thrilled it was all over we became delusional enough to think we should head to the state fair next month. I mean, we could keep the goat after all.

(Goat photos by Judy Jacobson)

But here’s the thing, we talk about all the lessons that the kids learn from an experience caring for animals, the heartbreak and triumph of competition in the show ring and the life lessons of selling them, but I think as a parent, I got just as many lessons in patience and perseverance, time-management and tongue-biting out of our first big county fair experience as my children did. Maybe more. Mostly, I learned that saying less is better and that our biggest and most important allies are other parents who have made the same mistakes before and the big kids at the stalls and in the ring leading by example and lending a hand (and a halter and baby powder and horn shining spray…) and showing them with patience and coolness about how it’s done. And then demonstrating how to smile and shake hands when it doesn’t go your way. And how to be humble when it does.

At the end of the week, I stood outside the ring and watched as all the 4-H kids gathered to line dance and two-step and play Red Rover while a DJ played music and helped them celebrate. Every single kid kicking up woodchips that Saturday night had overcome a challenge, helped a friend, wiped tears, and cheered for themselves or others at some point throughout the week. For all of them, there were highs and there were lows, tough competition, underdogs and heartbreak. But at the end of the day, well, they were dancing together. Some of them even danced with their moms, evidently forgiving them for the tight grip on their hair earlier that morning.  I looked over and witnessed a big kid putting down his crutches to demonstrate how to two-step to the younger kid standing in front of him. A teenage girl put my seven-year-old on her shoulders. My friend spun his wife around in a fancy jitter bug move I’d never seen them do before. A thirteen-year-old girl danced with her baby goat. Someone brought their bunny. The steers stood sleepy at their pens. The goats, sheep and pigs fell asleep to the drone of the music. I grabbed my daughters and husband and we swung each other around. The music played until midnight.

And we may not have won the trophies, but boy, it was the best of times