On Friday we had a family trip to the county fair.  The county fair is a 4H fair, meaning only kids who belong to 4H can exhibit there.  It’s free and pretty low key, but nice for a outing.  This is the first year we’ve attended without having any of the kids involved (they’re not currently members). 

4H is a youth group that is geared towards agriculture/homemaking kind of skills and activities.  For the last three years, my kids haven’t been in 4H, but for the four years before that were very heavily involved.  Being a 4H member entails monthly meetings ten months a year, but can be much more.  At the main meetings, each year 2 or 3 of our kids had leadership roles – for example, as secretary or treasurer of the group.  In addition to the regular club, my two older girls joined the sheep club and chicken club, each of which met one evening a month.  They also joined a bee keeping club and made beeswax candles and lip gloss, in addition to learning all about bees – another monthly meeting!  Ds joined a rocketry club, and was also involved in the sheep club the first year.  Occasionally there were other trips that they went on – one that stands out in my mind is the trip to a small airport where we got to see small private aircraft and all the kids got a turn to go in a two seater plane. 

They volunteered at a local farm for most of their years in 4H, going three mornings a week our last year in 4H, and at least once a week before that.  At the farm they learned to care for sheep and chickens, as well as the horse that was there.  They went to livestock and hay auctions, and helped build a chicken coop and fencing for the farm.

They got increasingly involved in the county fair every summer.  There are numerous categories that kids can enter – crafts and homemaking skills of all sorts (for example: art, photography, educational exhibits, cooking, baking, flowers, vegetables, preserved goods, sewing – with subcategories in each), in addition to livestock entries.  The kids entered many kinds of baked goods, sewed clothing, and entered lots of other things – they have loads of ribbons that they won over the years.  They bought their own chickens (which they kept at the farm) and showed their chickens at the fair; they leased sheep from the same farm and were able to show sheep.  Yesterday when we were looking at the sheep, I remembered how ds12 showed her first sheep when she was 8, and it was huge – literally almost as big as her – she was scared she wouldn’t be able to control it but she did great.  When she came into the show ring with the sheep, people started commenting on the little girl with the big sheep! 

In addition to showing sheep, they also entered a competition called Shepherd’s Lead – that was a three part competition.  In preparation they had to sew a wool outfit, train a sheep on a halter, and write up a three part description – a paragraph about themselves, a paragraph about the sheep, and a paragraph about their outfit. Then for the competition itself, each would wear the outfit she made, and lead her sheep around the ring on a halter while the description she wrote was read aloud over a microphone.  They competed in age groups, so the girls were in different groups.  It was hours of work to prepare for a showing that took only a few minutes, but a great learning experience!

They were involved at the club level at the fair, too.  The fairgrounds are decorated with gardens, each designed and planted by a different 4H group – the kids were involved in that.  They participated in making the yearly club booth and banner displays, volunteered at the ice cream booth (part of the proceeds went to the club), and led groups as fair tour guides.  In the last couple of years they participated, they stayed overnight at the fairgrounds in a travel trailer with the club leader, and were busy all day long – it’s a very different experience being involved from the inside and as a visitor. 

And after a very intense week of county fair preparation, it wouldn’t be long before it was time to get ready for the state fair!  They didn’t show animals then, just entered their projects/crafts, but that was enough!  Three years ago life got very busy when ds3 was a few months old – we made a bar mitzva, bought a house, and bought a business within a few weeks. And that coincided with the county fair; by the time the state fair was over, I was seriously maxxed out.  Having kids displaying or showing at the fair involves a significant amount of parental involvement, and I made the decision not to re-enroll the kids in 4H for that year, in addition to cutting back on almost all of our other group activities and commitments.

It was a good decision, but as we were visiting the fair, the kids got a hankering to join 4H again.  Unfortunately, the club we were involved in is no longer an option for us to join, so I told them I’ll look into other clubs.  While at the fair I met a mother whose daughter joined the same time we did, 7 years ago.  Our daughters were friendly and did many 4H activities together.  She told me that the enrollment in 4H has dropped drastically in the three years that we’ve been out and several clubs have folded for lack of attendance – it was sad to hear, but reflected in the size of the fair.  There were literally 50% of the entries that there were when our kids were involved, meaning the fair was half the size it was then. 

As far as the fair itself, we enjoyed it!  We browsed all the craft and animal exhibits, but I think everyone’s favorite thing was watching the people throwing the ball at someone in a cage of water and trying to dunk her!  A couple of the kids wanted to try it, so I gave them each a dollar and they got three tries.  Ds10 hit the target and dunked her, which led to people all around him cheering.  Dd8 didn’t hit it at all.  Since ds7 didn’t want to do it, I told him to give his money to ds10, and then gave another dollar to dd8.  The guy manning the booth was very nice – he let dd have ten tries until she hit the target and dunked the lady.  The younger kids all got free balloon animals, which they appreciated and then we headed for home.

The kids want to go to the state fair, but that’s much more commercialized and it’s not my scene.  I told them if their grandparents want to take them that will be okay with me (I’m not putting ideas into the kids’ heads – grandparents already mentioned they want to do that). 

Avivah