4H – Pierce County Fair

Let this post stand as an explanation for why we have not posted anything since last week…

Evie and Lydia (the bird) patiently waiting their turn for her Fitting and Showing.

Ellie and Gemma. This is the first year Elli is ellie-gible for Fitting and Showing. She was a tag-along last year, but this year she is a cloverbud.

As a cloverbud, she gets Rainbow color ribbons, but she hungers for the glory of Rosettes and other such trophies reserved for older classes. Poor Ellie. It’s hard being younger.

The Chicken Judging Lady took her job very, very seriously.

Snack break between rounds.

Let the judging commence. The children have to demonstrate control of their bird, meaning it has to be able to stand still on the carpet square without being held; they have to answer poultry-related questions (which includes questions about ducks, geese, turkeys, pigeons, etc); and they have to stand still and look the judge in the eye (the most challenging part for some).

Lydia was fitted and shown successfully. The Pierce Co. Fair uses the Danish ribbon system, in which colors of ribbons correspond to a percentage of points out of a total. Blue is roughly equivalent to an A, Red is a B, White is a C.

Duties also include sweeping around the poultry barn, cleaning cages, watering the birds, and being available to answer any and all poultry related questions for any fair-goers who happen to walk by, which, by Saturday and Sunday, is a considerable amount.

Spraying the fowl with water to cool them down was a favorite chore.

Of course, the four-day fair wasn’t all work, work, work. There was a balloon twister just down the hill from the poultry barn.

The girls picked hearts and flowers. Seppi picked a sword. It popped five minutes later because he tried to fight people with it.

Of course if there is anything turtle related, Ellie is going to be all about it.

A noble, if slow, steed.

This picture was taken half a second before Evie knocked her fire-fighter sillhouette over flat because it was just a bit too tall for her. The other one was too tall for Ellie, but she had a stool to stand on

They also took part in cooking and sewing judging. This is an event where they are presented with series of scenarios and they had to pick the best solution and explain their reasoning. Cloverbuds were not required to explain their reasoning, but Ellie insisted on explaining her reasoning, and, despite the fact that this involved talking to a stranger, she knocked it out of the park.

Evie took part in the sewing judging event, and got the highest score at the fair, Grand Champion!

Yes, ladies and gentleman, she can explain her reasoning like it’s nobody’s business.

She also got Grand Champion and Best in 4H for her photo “Snout Hair.”

Meanwhile, Ellie was getting tired of Cloverbud Rainbow ribbons, until…

At last, a rosette for her Chicken photo “Waiting for Feed.” And that made her weekend.

The fair is a long, hot weekend and the two littles only put in intermittent appearances. When they did it was more for the sake of running around and looking at the animals. We saw sheep, goats, piggies, cats, dogs, poultry (of course) but the real star of the show, as far as Winnie is concerned, are the “tows.”

She thinks they are pretty.

And she is not wrong.

So there you have it, a long, hot weekend. Mommy worked incredibly hard, and, incidentally, brought home a few canning and photography ribbons herself.

Since then we have been trying to re-order the chaos, clean the house, start the school year, recover from the exotic illnesses brought back from the weekend’s festivities, not to mention harvesting, canning, etc. But you’ll read all about that in subsequent episodes.