Agricultural Fair Weekend

We found ourselves at the local agricultural fair yesterday; we've gone all three years that we've been here so far.  In fact, I can remember the first time we went, only a few days, maybe a week, after the move - we were still in that first 'everything is new, everything is nerve-wracking and everyone is deeply uncomfortable' stage of moving.  No one could sleep properly because the night noises were different, no one could find anything because the boxes weren't unpacked, and each person who came to the door was a stranger.  I really dislike that stage of moving.  I especially dislike how I can't navigate the world effectively because each task needs to be re-learned to a certain extent - where do I buy milk?  Someone is sick and we don't have a doctor, what next?  Do I have to bring a quarter to the grocery store to get a cart out?

Anyway, that first time, three years ago, the fair was another uncertainty; was it a country fair as in rides, cotton candy, games for children and ponies?  This is sort of what I think of when you say the word 'fair'.  It turned out to be not quite that, but an agricultural fair, which I wasn't as familiar with.  Lots of chickens and rabbits and such, big tables of handwork (quilts, flower arranging, jars of jam, etc.) and vendors selling things that they had made along the lines of knitted dishcloths and mittens.  This sort of fair is much more popular in the rural area I live in and it's what I anticipate now in 'going to the fair'.  We have been to several of them by this point and they have a common gentle entertainment flowing through them.  The children play on a play structure or swings, or perhaps ride a small train in circles; the food available tends to be hotdogs, coffee, cotton candy, and at our fair there is a milk booth that sells nothing but ice cold milk.  You can watch a tractor pull, or working horses, and you can have a glass of milk and go look at what everyone spent the last year crocheting and see whose child won the photography contest and which chicken looks the weirdest.

It is entertainment from a different era, really.  Every year I tell myself that we will enter some of the categories, not because I think my knitting can compete with anyone else's there, or that my jalapeno jelly is the best, but to support this sort of thing, this gentle kind of event that seems to be disappearing.