Fair Follies

Behind The Scenes At The North Idaho State Fair!

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So, The North Idaho State Fair doesn't actually kick off until Wednesday, August 23rd-27th in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, but for families like mine that have kids who show animals in 4H or do other various 4H projects, the fair season kicked off on Saturday!

This week I plan on posting a different post daily that chronicles an aspect of the fair that happens behind the cotton candy scenes. I can promise bad formatting due to the posts being composed and submitted from my cell phone, at least an ode or two to funnel cakes, plenty of animal pics as we will be basically living in the pig barn, and hopefully some new behind the scenes perspective for you all, dear readers, as to just what it takes to carry out something like a state and county fair. Well, at least a look at the 4H family side of it!

Yesterday, my family took our travel trailer down and parked it in "camper village." This trailer lodging area for 4H families that show animals is more like a camper car lot than a picturesque camping village. Travel trailers, tents, and motor homes of all shapes, ages, and sizes are sandwiched in a chain link enclosed fair smell utopia between general parking and the grandstand. Don't get me wrong, this arrangement gives me no small amount of elation, for the funnel cake stand is like 50 feet from my fair domicile!

Another bonus is my proximity to the rodeo stock. Tonight, we wandered down to the fairgrounds for a couple of reasons that I shall cover in just a bit, but as I meandered towards the site of my evening's labors, I found a lone Lowline Angus cow in one of the stock pens. She was all alone and looked a little morose, so my husband I stopped to say hello. She got up and let me scratch her cute little head. Of course this meant that each time I walked to the swine barn from our trailer I had to stop and give my mooing, diminutive little friend a pat.

Speaking of the swine barn, half of our reason for being at the fairgrounds tonight was to help our club set up and decorate our pig pens. The fair's theme this year is "May The Fair Be With You" (Two guesses where that theme was derived from), so I have seen many, many Star Wars pig puns, light saber shaped crop holders, LED light up Death Stars, and star-bedecked backdrops this evening. Many.

The kids in the club actually do most of the decorating work, so while they were laboring away prettifying the pens, I helped my husband, who is a 4H shooting sports leader, take a pile of 4H shooting sports books and projects to the 4H building to be entered as exhibits. This bit of business happens during a 2 hour window on the Sunday night before fair. If you want your project entered, it better be submitted, paper work and requirements properly met, during this time. Talk about a hive of clover activity! Everything from baked goods to robotics projects created by local youth is entered, displayed, and judged during this time. By the time the fair's general entry gates are opened on Wednesday to the public, everything has already been gone through and assigned a victory place.

Tomorrow, my husband and the kids will take their pigs to fair and stay down at the fairgrounds for the rest of the week, as Tuesday morning is pig weigh in. In order for your pig to sell at auction it has to weigh more than 230 pounds. Talk about stress for some people!

This Kat has to run the library for the next couple of days, so I won't be venturing down to stay at the fairgrounds until Tuesday night. I might be a touch excited, for when you get that many people and animals crammed together, competing and entertaining each other, no short amount of stories can be observed!

And I would like to think that I will share more than a few of them with you all! Kind of the opposite of what I will be doing with my deep fried Reese's Peanut Butter cup! WOOO!

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Source
Totally relevant theme song!

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's sawdust and cow hair covered iPhone.

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