Hi all! Well, I survived another intense county fair season in central Wisconsin. This year, my children and I participated in the Stoughton Fair, held in Stoughton, Wisconsin as well as the Dane County Fair held in Madison, Wis. While I did not actively do any showing of animals, I was the groom and chauffeur for my children and their animals.

County fairs help to define our summers as well as the summers’ of many local farmers who have fair-aged children enrolled in 4H or FFA or even Boy and Girl Scouts. Children and their parents start planning in the fall of the previous year what their projects will be. These range from quilts to cattle. Some fairs allow you to compete in classes that judge the best eggs or the best preserves or the best in shooting sports. Most fairs include entertainment that can include musical guests, dances or even pig wrestling. There is always a carnival to go on rides and eat deep fried food too.

Kids spend months preparing their projects, whether they are works of art, preserves, or animals and then spend one crazy, intense, HOT week showing off their projects in hopes of receiving a blue ribbon. We belong to the Brooklyn Mighty Mites 4H group and are lucky enough to have a variety of families that enjoy creating many different projects for competition at our local fairs. Many of our members go on to compete at the Wisconsin State Fair held August 5-15. We have members that are active in cake decorating, quilting, preserve making, woodworking, shooting sports, dog obedience, beef cattle, dairy cattle, chickens, turkeys, sheep, llamas, rabbits, horses and swine.

2010 was a good year for the kids of the Brooklyn Mighty Mites as they came home with many blue ribbons and championships in almost every category. My own family showed chickens, a Shetland Sheep, and horses. All but one chicken took home a blue, the sheep earned a blue and both my children earned a Reserve Champion Western Pleasure Rider/Horse in their age categories. It was HOT and I was worried we all might melt in the heat as it radiated up from the blacktop and concrete. Luckily, we didn’t and when Sunday night rolled around, for both fairs this month of July, and we had to break down all our stall decorations, a deep sadness set in as the reality of it being 12 months before we all get to socialize with our animals and our friends all over the county for several days again.

While my children were prepping animals for show or keeping their stalls clean, I walked around the various barns connecting with the parents of other fair participants. I talked to them about Local Dirt and how it could help them reach out to consumers wanting to source their food more locally. Most everyone was excited about the idea of being able to easily reach out to potential customers and the stickers we have saying “I’m Locally Grown” were incredibly popular. They ended up in every barn and on many stalls. There were even kids wearing them. I look forward to helping them become more active in using our site and encouraging my readers to talk to your local farmer and show them the site.

Now it’s time to contemplate if we will participate in the Wisconsin State 4H Horse Show held in September at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds and to get back into blogging about local food that I have purchased from some of the local farms that were represented at this year’s local fairs. Check out www.localdirt.com for a local farmer near you.