Week 5 - Fair

If there was ever one week that summed up the craziness in my life on a day-to-day basis, it's fair week. Now that it's finally over and we've started picking up the pieces around the house, I thought that I would elaborate a little about the one thing I never miss every year. Sure, it's smaller than it was when I was a kid, but it's the same people and the traditions of the fair that bring me back.

My first time to the fair that I can remember was when we were driving back from vacation out in the Rockies. Mom and Dad stopped into town in the area where we were born and we roamed the fair for a while. I distinctly remember leaving with a company advertisement hat shaped like an Indian headband with a red spraypainted feather tucked in the top. The ink peeled off on my fingers and made a huge mess in the car on the drive back to Michigan, when those things were just starting to drive me absolutely crazy.

A couple years later when we had just moved back, Grandpa took my brother out roaming and they come home with a trailer and a steer in the back. We always joke that he forced the family back into 4-H, and whether this was 100% accurate or not, I am forever grateful. It was this organization that shaped me into my career path through my experiences and learning, as well as by the people I met along the way. Big cattle weren't for me, although I enjoyed feeding my brother's steer, and I settled on a Jersey Wooly rabbit (Fluffy) and a Castor Mini Rex (Brownie). The following year I got into rabbit breeding with Woodina (another Mini Rex) and so it began. We bred rabbits throughout my years in 4-H and my family still has rabbits today. They intrigued me from a genetics standpoint and I strived to breed the best I could in order to compete with everyone else at the fair. There was a certain pride I attached to winning with something I had bred and raised at home.

The inevitable happened though, that as I grew I wanted to finally tackle the challenge of an animal 10 times my own size. Happy beat me around, as did all of the animals after him, and I went through the stage of being attached to my animals, indifferent about their futures, and back to attachment, year after year. Spending so much time with some of those animals for a full year prior to the fair, up to 7 hours a day, they became your best friends, but ultimately their purpose was to sell for food and to make money to purchase the new animal. I still feel bittersweet on Wednesday evening at the fair as I remember all of the cattle I worked so long with and said farewell to, or the ones who disappeared while I was gone and I never got to say goodbye.

Me with my first steer, Happy.

Lots of other great things happened at the fair too; it's chock full of memories. There was one year where I held the record for most flies killed in the barn (over 500, counted individually). Another year we had the hurricane force winds rip through and I have video of us pitching Cheez-its in the air for people to catch downwind about 20 feet. There were the stormy Wednesday nights with tornado warnings, and the drunks on Thursday tripping back from the horse race. I gambled for the first time at those very same horse races and gunned a golf cart through the grounds once they were abandoned. Relationships were started in the parking lots after a long day of fun and talking, and relationships were ended down at the racetrack staring into the vacant silence.

Picture of us from the old days.

As I get older and further detached from the livestock aspects of showing, it becomes more enjoyable to sit and watch the shows and appreciate all of the hard work that kids put into the show. This year was especially wonderful, as my younger brother had the fair of a lifetime. He works hard and it finally paid off with a Grand Champion, multiple showmanship awards, and a huge selling price which complements his work ethic and the pride other people have in his dedication to learning and teaching those around him. I am so very proud of him for all of his hard work and I hope that these memories stick with him for a lifetime.

Horse races this year were probably more exciting than some I've seen. Many of the races were closer and the odds narrower than before. We tried out some new bets and I continue to work on talking the track talk, and understanding what all of the figures in the programs really mean. Nearing the end of the week, my wife was getting sick from all of the long nights she put in helping with the sales, and so we spent less time watching the motor sports at the back track than usual. She was even sick enough to skip half of the football game on campus, walking out after halftime, and I don't know if I've ever seen her bad enough to skip football.

We did make it to our most redneck event of the fair - the schoolbus races. For those of you who have never seen a schoolbus race, the concept is full-length buses racing a set number of laps around 2 stacks of tractor tires in a figure 8 pattern. It seems pretty lame until the buses get spread apart (about 2 laps in), and then it becomes a game of schoolbus chicken as drivers try to intimidate the opposite direction into yielding at the pattern crossover. Needless to say, there were some great collisions and enough fuel smoke to make even the most careless Prius-driver cry, besides clouding our entire view of the track.

Schoolbus racing at the county fair.

Apple-picking is my new favorite fall activity.

 The last thing we did this past weekend was go apple picking out on the east side of town. The orchard was picked pretty clean at this point, but they had saved back enough rows that we could get in still yet this past weekend. I have to admit that while I might have been apple picking before in my youth, I don't remember ever having done it before, and I was like a kid in a candy shop. I ate myself pretty sick on apples, although I didn't realize that until the day after, but I couldn't help it with so many beautiful ones hanging and begging to be picked and sampled. All told, we picked 70 lbs. of apples for both of our parents and for some applesauce (which turned out amazing!) and a booze project of mine. Out there in the crisp evening air with the apples and the clear sky, it finally felt like fall. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I want to be outside every day of this season.

Beautiful sunset on the way home. Camera couldn't get all the vibrant colors.