Wednesday, October 15, 2008

County Fair

The late summer months are County Fair time in the rural South. Ours, the Stone County Fair, was a week-long affair in mid-September.

Stone county is sparsely populated (at last count, around 16,700) and very agricultural. Although our primary crop is telephone poles, we also have a lot of cattle ranches, goat farms, and a few sheep and hogs. The fair is such a big deal that public schools give the kids a day off on Friday of fair week, and everybody goes to the fair.

Unfortunately, mommies who are in college don't get Fair Day off, so my husband and I had to wait until Saturday to take our three year old daughter. She had never been to a fair, and it had been years since either my husband or I had gone.

Sofia loved the animal barns and wanted to pet every single goat, pig, sheep and cow, including the large bulls. We had to explain to her that not all of them were amenable to being petted! We all melted with tender smiles at a calf so young it still had a bit of dried-up umbilical cord on its belly.

En route to the midway we walked through the show ring and were only slightly surprised that our extrovert daughter seemed to know half of Stone County: "Hey, y'all! Oooh, look, there's Andie & Emily!! I love your boots, Emily! Oh, there's Bralee! Hey!"

She got her first carousel ride with Daddy, which was precious to watch...

And the rest was enjoyed with increasingly large grins, in spite of the love bugs!