We made it to the other side of County Fair Week, but this column was written on my living room chair while we were gathering all the projects and doing the last minute packing and paperwork.

I didn’t know what to expect our first year in the livestock show ring and Edie’s first year as a regular 4Her, but had a great fair, full of lessons and fun.

I’ll tell you more about it next week, but for now here’s this week’s column!

County Fair Week

It’s County Fair week and I’m writing this at 6 am between my first two sips of coffee and before I wake the girls up to get dressed and gather their supplies and their two goats to head to town for four days of trying to convince the judges that we’ve actually practiced leading these animals around every night despite the doe’s tendency to brace up, stick her tongue out and scream. And I know that was a long sentence to start us off here, but this is the vibe right now. Screaming goat.

After spending two hours filling out the animal record books with only ten minutes to spare yesterday, I asked my daughters if they could just erase those past few hours from their memories because, turns out record books make us all want to scream like that goat. It’s our county fair spirit animal.

On Tuesday we brought my daughters’ projects to town. My nine-year-old, Edie, is big enough to be a real 4-Her this year, which means it’s no more rainbow participation ribbons for her, but the chance to earn a blue, or, if the buttercream frosting lands right, a pink or purple. We spent the day before decorating cupcakes and making fudge and putting tags on jewelry and drawing and pottery and photography projects. I helped Rosie put together a cute little fairy garden complete with a duck pond, a bridge and as many tiny animals as she could fit and still include a geranium and then we left it under the eaves of the house that night during a thunderstorm that drowned those little ducks and whipped the pedals right off that geranium. And so, we did that project twice. (Cue goat-like sigh). Rosie made sure to tell the judge, all about it.

And that judge (who’s our neighbor down the road) told Rosie that her fudge was better than Gramma’s and that might have made my daughter’s life, and she’ll certainly never let my mom forget it. “Gramma, maybe you should stick to Rice Crispy Bars from now on,” she joked to her over the phone.

It’s County Fair Week and I think our community has more kids participating than ever. More goats, more pigs, more steers and more horses in the show since I was entered in the olden days, hoping that after her only shampooing of the year, my horse wouldn’t roll in the dirt before the halter showmanship . Which she did. Every time. And yet, that event remained my favorite. The girls are going to try their hand at showing these ranch horses for the first time this year. We’ve been practicing and brushing and loving on the animals in preparation, which is the most fun part. Taking them to town is the most nerve wracking. Because there’s nothing that tests your patience more than an uncooperative animal, because sometimes, even with all the practice you could fit in, things just don’t go right. But sometimes they do, and there’s nothing better.

Yes, sometimes your caramel rolls win grand champion, but then sometimes they land face down in the parking lot on your way to the interview. Sometimes your steer is so tame he just lays down in the ring and you’re too little to get him up. Sometimes the chicken escapes your grip, and you have to scramble to catch it, but then you’re standing next to your best friend and the two of you get a kick out of telling the story for the rest of the week, and maybe years to come.

And sometimes the two hours you spent in the kitchen with your mom trying to pipe perfect rosettes on your cupcakes creates such a sweet memory for both of you that your daughter says even if she gets a red she’s proud of herself and that makes you tear up a little for some reason, probably because it’s county fair week and the kids are growing up and now it’s 7 am and I have only had four sips of coffee and we are officially running late, per usual.

Good luck to all the 4Hers this summer! May your bread rise perfectly, and your goats (and your mothers) remain calm.

Fair season is winding down up here in the great hot north. I hit up my third fair of the year last weekend, this time without the kids, to sing under the watchful eye of the world’s biggest Holstein cow. On the other side of the building 4-H kids stood, shoulders back, showing off the sheep or goat or steer they’d been working to feed up, groom and halter train all summer, unaware of just how many life lessons were packed into that project.

We took the long, impromptu trek to the state fair a few weekends back with, meeting up with a bunch of family. I bought my two-year-old a wrist band and she fearlessly jumped on every ride she was tall enough to sit in.

I mean, she didn’t even bat an eye at the thought of reaching the top of the Ferris Wheel. She just grabbed her cousin’s hand and off she went growing up and I stood below, watching and wondering if I should start worrying now about her sense of adventure.

Like, should I be hiding my husband’s dirt bike already?

I suppose she comes by it honestly when it comes to carnival rides. When I was a kid, the bigger and faster, the better. And so when I had to accompany her on a ride that spun and jerked around a bit, I happily obliged, even though the seats were ripped and like five out of the ten carts were out of order. We squealed and laughed and then squealed and laughed some more as it jerked us around and spun us in circles…for like six hours. Seriously, the ride lasted forever. It gave us our first opportunity at a mother/daughter ESP moment as we looked at each other, wincing, both trying to will it to stop while I seriously questioned my parenting choice of hotdog before spinny ride.

But we lived and we headed to the livestock barns to check out the pigs, goats, and cattle and grab an ice cream.

Oh I love a good fair. The county fair was my favorite weekend of the summer growing up, because I was and always will be, a project person. And so I did projects. And showed horses and looked forward to one of the few times in the summer that I got to stay long hours in town and hang out with my friends.

And so I was eager to take my two-year-old to her first county fair this year…and, well, here’s how it went.

In the name of the fair
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It was 175 degrees and 200 percent humidity. I knew because my hair told me soon as I sat up in bed.

The higher the hair, the closer to God, and I got closer to God with each passing, sweltering hour.

It was 175 degrees and 200 percent humidity, so I did what any good and reasonably sane mother would do: I loaded up the kids and went to the county fair in town.

Because this was our only chance before they packed up the carnival and quilting projects, put the horses away, sold all the 4-H steers and took the show rabbits off of ice and back home to safety.

Plus, they were selling giant glasses of freshly squeezed lemonade, which taste really good after lugging a 30-pound 2-year old across the parking lot because she suddenly wants to “hold you.”

Yeah, if only she could hold me. “One day child, one day,” I said quietly to myself, her sweat melting into my sweat as she began sliding down my legs at the food stand where the two of us had a 175-degree decision to make between pizza or hamburgers while my nephew spun around us in the wheels he strapped to his shoes so he “wouldn’t have to expend so much energy.”

Kid had the right idea. So did the lady who took one look at me as I trudged across the asphalt dragging a wagonful of children as if I was on the last legs of a yearlong trek across the Sahara. She handed me a handful of Popsicles and saved my life.

Ah, the county fair. It’s always hot at the county fair.

Unless it’s hot and windy.

Or windy and raining.

I stuck one Popsicle down my shirt and handed the melting children the rest and continued our journey past the livestock sale toward the carnival for a flashback to all of the sweat that trickled into my eyes when I was a 4-H kid standing in my long-sleeved white shirt holding on tight to the halter of my clean-enough horse.

Which reminded me of the once-a-year horse-washing ritual I would perform on my mare in the grassy backyard, complete with hose, Mane ‘nTail and a ShowSheen finish only to wake up to an open gate and a horse that escaped to the nearest mudhole. That happened more than once.

But still, we persist. In 175 degrees or 175 mph winds. In the name of the county fair. And big, godly hair.