We’ve hit the point in the summer when things start to turn hot and sticky. Which also means that we’ve hit the beginning of the county fair season.
While the people living in the cities tend to only care about the state fair at the end of the summer. The rest of us know that to get there first we have to go through all of the county fairs.
When I was a kid I clogged at the Goodhue county fair every year until I left for college; right over in the small entertainment tent across from the beer garden. Every year before and after I clogged I spent my time wandering in and out of all of the fair exhibits.
Now that I’m grown I pretty much do the same things no matter which county fair it is. Because we all know that you have to hit up the 4 H building, all of the barns, plus the craft and agriculture buildings. After all, how else would we know which locals would be going onto state at the end of the summer?
Personally I think that the barns are always some of the most interesting to visit. After all you have wide variety to go to. You have the dairy barn, the goats, the pigs, the rabbits, the poultry, and of course my mother’s favorite, the horses.Every year my mother has tried to use the county fair as a means to get us interested in one of her childhood interests. Horses.
This includes this year’s visit to the county fair. When we were in the horse barn looking at all of the horses participating this year she was excited about me correctly identifying a Shetland pony. It was once she started pointing out all the reasons that I could tell it was a Shetland pony that I had to admit that I knew none of that. I was doing what I often do when telling people about whatever is right in front of me and was reading the sign telling what I was looking at.
Needless to say she was less impressed with me upon my admittance of this. However, this was soon remedied with the Minnesotan fair staple of cheese curds and a turn around the poultry barn.
