The Carroll County fair
Aug. 9th, 2015 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabWeek of August 2: Carroll County Fair. We went early to this one - Sunday the 2nd was early in the fair. Some of the animals weren't even there yet, if their judging was later in the week. However, there were more activities on the schedule on Sunday, than on any weekday, so off we went. First thing to note: this fair does NOT have a carnival. If the carnival rides are what you go to fairs for, this one's not for you. Second thing: admission is free all the time; parking is free as long as you arrive before 4 p.m. So the price is certainly right. And from where we live, it's less than half the distance to this fair than to last week's fair, and a very pretty drive it is, too. We got there a few minutes before 11 a.m. - first scheduled activity was for noon, but all the animal barns were open (we had telephoned and checked on that, because the fair website http://www.carrollcountyfair.com/ does not anywhere list what time the "gates" open for the public; it just lists when special events and entertainment are.
When one enters the fair from parking, one is in the vendor area - mostly farm equipment vendors. There was also a mechanical bull ride set up there (with super-easy settings, so no minimum age or size limit other than being able to comprehend the instructions without a parent holding onto you) and a few farm-related, non-equipment booths. And a couple of churches. Anyway, one walks up a ramp to the "midway," the main paved corridor through the fairgrounds, and right in front of one is the first building. This one is actually three long buildings in a row. The left-hand one is the dining hall, which is one of the really nice things about this fair. For one thing, staff had told us on the phone, it's open even for breakfast, so if we had arrived at 8 a.m. Monday to see the rabbit show, we could have eaten breakfast there. We decided to go through the largest, middle building, first. This fair is entirely a 4-H & FFA fair, so all exhibits are by kids - no outside adult entries. There were pieces of restored farm equipment being judged, and lots of furniture, both made and restored/refinished (in fact, the restored/refinished was a very popular category.) Lots of the standard 4-H dioramas. Their theme this year is "Feeding Carroll County in More Ways Than One" along with a sub-theme of "4-H is open to all." By the content of the dioramas and displays, they mean that they are handicapped-friendly; nothing to do with diversity. Carroll County is, if I remember my census bureau stats correctly, the least diverse county in MD, over 90% pasty white, non-Hispanic, non-Asian, non-African-American, non-Pacific Island, etc. And certainly our time spent at the fair bore that out. So 4-H may be open to all there, but all is still going to be pretty homogenous. Anyway, at the end of that building, one could exit out the side and down a few steps to the Poultry Barn, which had a nice assortment of poultry. I love the various Wyandotte Laced, that's such a pretty breed. Some of the silkies, the ones that don't even look like birds. Some impressively sized Orpingtons - that's a large breed. Walking all the way through poultry brought us back to the first end of the first building we had been through, and it was almost noon, so we went into the dining hall for lunch. Now mind you, there was plenty of fair food along the midway. But we had heard about the dining hall and wanted to try it. It's a big, air conditioned hall, seats about 150 at long tables, and has a cafeteria line right in front of the kitchen. (Staff refer to it as the cafeteria, rather than the dining hall.) An $8 platter got us some excellent fried chicken, 2 sides (we both chose corn on the cob and baked potato) and a roll and a drink. They had unsweet iced tea in the big dispensers, as well as sweet tea. Larry reports that the sweet tea had lemon flavor in it, something he's not fond of and that wasn't mentioned on the signs. Other than that, we can say that that was a really good deal, and it's run by the fair - all the proceeds go to supporting the 4-H and FFA, rather than to commercial vendors, and the servers include some of the older kids, as well as a few supervisors. Friendly and chatty people. Given that admission is free and parking is free, if you happen to be in the area, go over and have lunch in the fairgrounds dining hall to support them, why not?
After lunch, we headed down the other end of the grounds, to the Shipley building, the largest one - it contains an arena and is the main livestock barn. What we noticed right off in livestock is that there were a lot more sheep and swine than we'd seen at the first two. Goats are still the most numerous livestock; at least in MD, 4-Hers seem pretty big on goats. But there were a good number of sheep. The swine were mostly asleep; pigs sleep as much as cats do, it seems. Not all the cattle were there yet, but the area for them wasn't that big - goats would be more numerous even were all the cattle stalls filled. When one goes out the far end of the Shiply building, one comes to the Rabbit Building, and since the rabbit show is Monday morning, all the rabbits were being checked in this Sunday afternoon. Really a large bunch of them, biggest we've seen so far, and I think probably at least as big as the rabbit selection at the MoCo fair. I don't like the cages they use - not enough ventilation - but they had a lot of them, and all in good condition, and the building IS air-conditioned, so not going to get as hot as some. We saw a few lionheads, and a couple of Rhinelanders, as well as the usual assorted lops and so on. As I say, looked like it was going to be a large rabbit show. Walking out of that, we came to the truly large farm equipment, the stuff too large for the vendor lot. The stuff that costs in the six digits. That was the largest combination furrower-seeder I have /ever/ seen, and Larry wondered, what farm anywhere around here is big enough to need that big a piece, and who can afford it? It's not like the Midwest where there's miles of corn on one farm.
From there, I hopped a ride back uphill on one of the many "gators" (small cross between a golf cart and a pick-up truck) and Larry walked up, back to the midway ice cream booth. Where we had a BIG serving of ice cream, better bargain for the money than the Cecil County one, of the same Turkey Hill flavors. We then walked into the last third of the long building, which was the Home Arts stuff, and it was a small selection. Every single jar of canned something had a ribbon - it was a little silly-looking, so many ribbons it nearly obscured the shelves. I'm not sure about that as a teaching tool. And we walked over to the pig races, back in the vendor lot, and watched a couple of those - cute. It turns out that the main motivation/training tool for the pigs is: Oreos. That's right, the pigs love 'em. Then we went back over to Shipley, to watch the pet show - the juniorest division of 4-H is called the Clovers, and they are little kids new to exhibiting, so a general pet show is easy on them. Everyone gets an award and their picture with the King and Queen of the fair. Cute stuff, nothing cuter than a five-year-old hugging her pet chicken for dear life. We could have stayed for more shows after that - there was going to be poultry judging, and then an animals-in-costumes contest - but it was getting quite warm for us. So we took a short-cut across the track/stadium/thing-where-big-outdoor-entertainment-will-be, which was more level ground than going back up the midway, and a last pass through the vendor area to the handicapped parking. It was very easy to spend some 4 hours there, and we would have been happy to spend more time if we weren't getting too hot. If one wanted to buy tickets to the big-name evening entertainment, one could easily arrive shortly before 4 and find several hours of things to do before the show starts. (One could also buy a LOT of kettle corn, from various vendors, though we resisted.) Verdict: the price is right, and if you're in one of the nearby counties, certainly worth a visit, as long as you don't mind the lack of carnival rides.
When one enters the fair from parking, one is in the vendor area - mostly farm equipment vendors. There was also a mechanical bull ride set up there (with super-easy settings, so no minimum age or size limit other than being able to comprehend the instructions without a parent holding onto you) and a few farm-related, non-equipment booths. And a couple of churches. Anyway, one walks up a ramp to the "midway," the main paved corridor through the fairgrounds, and right in front of one is the first building. This one is actually three long buildings in a row. The left-hand one is the dining hall, which is one of the really nice things about this fair. For one thing, staff had told us on the phone, it's open even for breakfast, so if we had arrived at 8 a.m. Monday to see the rabbit show, we could have eaten breakfast there. We decided to go through the largest, middle building, first. This fair is entirely a 4-H & FFA fair, so all exhibits are by kids - no outside adult entries. There were pieces of restored farm equipment being judged, and lots of furniture, both made and restored/refinished (in fact, the restored/refinished was a very popular category.) Lots of the standard 4-H dioramas. Their theme this year is "Feeding Carroll County in More Ways Than One" along with a sub-theme of "4-H is open to all." By the content of the dioramas and displays, they mean that they are handicapped-friendly; nothing to do with diversity. Carroll County is, if I remember my census bureau stats correctly, the least diverse county in MD, over 90% pasty white, non-Hispanic, non-Asian, non-African-American, non-Pacific Island, etc. And certainly our time spent at the fair bore that out. So 4-H may be open to all there, but all is still going to be pretty homogenous. Anyway, at the end of that building, one could exit out the side and down a few steps to the Poultry Barn, which had a nice assortment of poultry. I love the various Wyandotte Laced, that's such a pretty breed. Some of the silkies, the ones that don't even look like birds. Some impressively sized Orpingtons - that's a large breed. Walking all the way through poultry brought us back to the first end of the first building we had been through, and it was almost noon, so we went into the dining hall for lunch. Now mind you, there was plenty of fair food along the midway. But we had heard about the dining hall and wanted to try it. It's a big, air conditioned hall, seats about 150 at long tables, and has a cafeteria line right in front of the kitchen. (Staff refer to it as the cafeteria, rather than the dining hall.) An $8 platter got us some excellent fried chicken, 2 sides (we both chose corn on the cob and baked potato) and a roll and a drink. They had unsweet iced tea in the big dispensers, as well as sweet tea. Larry reports that the sweet tea had lemon flavor in it, something he's not fond of and that wasn't mentioned on the signs. Other than that, we can say that that was a really good deal, and it's run by the fair - all the proceeds go to supporting the 4-H and FFA, rather than to commercial vendors, and the servers include some of the older kids, as well as a few supervisors. Friendly and chatty people. Given that admission is free and parking is free, if you happen to be in the area, go over and have lunch in the fairgrounds dining hall to support them, why not?
After lunch, we headed down the other end of the grounds, to the Shipley building, the largest one - it contains an arena and is the main livestock barn. What we noticed right off in livestock is that there were a lot more sheep and swine than we'd seen at the first two. Goats are still the most numerous livestock; at least in MD, 4-Hers seem pretty big on goats. But there were a good number of sheep. The swine were mostly asleep; pigs sleep as much as cats do, it seems. Not all the cattle were there yet, but the area for them wasn't that big - goats would be more numerous even were all the cattle stalls filled. When one goes out the far end of the Shiply building, one comes to the Rabbit Building, and since the rabbit show is Monday morning, all the rabbits were being checked in this Sunday afternoon. Really a large bunch of them, biggest we've seen so far, and I think probably at least as big as the rabbit selection at the MoCo fair. I don't like the cages they use - not enough ventilation - but they had a lot of them, and all in good condition, and the building IS air-conditioned, so not going to get as hot as some. We saw a few lionheads, and a couple of Rhinelanders, as well as the usual assorted lops and so on. As I say, looked like it was going to be a large rabbit show. Walking out of that, we came to the truly large farm equipment, the stuff too large for the vendor lot. The stuff that costs in the six digits. That was the largest combination furrower-seeder I have /ever/ seen, and Larry wondered, what farm anywhere around here is big enough to need that big a piece, and who can afford it? It's not like the Midwest where there's miles of corn on one farm.
From there, I hopped a ride back uphill on one of the many "gators" (small cross between a golf cart and a pick-up truck) and Larry walked up, back to the midway ice cream booth. Where we had a BIG serving of ice cream, better bargain for the money than the Cecil County one, of the same Turkey Hill flavors. We then walked into the last third of the long building, which was the Home Arts stuff, and it was a small selection. Every single jar of canned something had a ribbon - it was a little silly-looking, so many ribbons it nearly obscured the shelves. I'm not sure about that as a teaching tool. And we walked over to the pig races, back in the vendor lot, and watched a couple of those - cute. It turns out that the main motivation/training tool for the pigs is: Oreos. That's right, the pigs love 'em. Then we went back over to Shipley, to watch the pet show - the juniorest division of 4-H is called the Clovers, and they are little kids new to exhibiting, so a general pet show is easy on them. Everyone gets an award and their picture with the King and Queen of the fair. Cute stuff, nothing cuter than a five-year-old hugging her pet chicken for dear life. We could have stayed for more shows after that - there was going to be poultry judging, and then an animals-in-costumes contest - but it was getting quite warm for us. So we took a short-cut across the track/stadium/thing-where-big-outdoor-entertainment-will-be, which was more level ground than going back up the midway, and a last pass through the vendor area to the handicapped parking. It was very easy to spend some 4 hours there, and we would have been happy to spend more time if we weren't getting too hot. If one wanted to buy tickets to the big-name evening entertainment, one could easily arrive shortly before 4 and find several hours of things to do before the show starts. (One could also buy a LOT of kettle corn, from various vendors, though we resisted.) Verdict: the price is right, and if you're in one of the nearby counties, certainly worth a visit, as long as you don't mind the lack of carnival rides.
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