It's county fair week this week. That means the fairgrounds will be humming with activity, and I'll be spending a lot of time taking pictures of kids and animals.
I've been covering the Seward County Fair for a long time. I don't like to think about how many pictures I've taken of champions and reserve champions since I've been here. The last couple years the animal shows have been my focus, which frees everyone else up to wander around and find the features at the fair. It's fun, though. I've been able to watch most of these kids grow up, improving their skills in the arena and becoming more confident as they've improved.
I never did animal shows when I was growing up. I was only in 4-H for a couple years, and my projects were more the sewing and cooking kind. Cooking wasn't bad - at least I could eat my mistakes. Sewing, though, that was was a completely different animal. I really didn't want to sew in the first place but figured it might be a handy skill somewhere down the line. Shockingly, I won a purple ribbon on a play apron I made for Alissa. I also remember a purple ribbon on peanut butter cookies one year and another on a set of storage cubes I decorated.
We didn't live too far from the fairgrounds, so we'd go one night to look through all the exhibits, ride a few rides and maybe take in a show, if there was one. The performers weren't famous, but still, it was fun.
I was always a little afraid going through the large animal barns. I feared being kicked by a horse or a cow - don't ask me where that idea came from. Most of the time, the cows stand with their back ends toward the walkway, so kicking seems like a logical thing to happen. I know, it's random. I still worry about that (why, I don't know), so every year I make myself walk through the cattle barn, past all the cows. I haven't been kicked yet.
I'll make the trip again this year, checking out the cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, poultry and goats. I'll take hundreds of pictures of the champions and reserve champions, learning the names of the young kids who are just getting started and remembering the older kids from previous years. I'll look through the static exhibits - the sewing, cooking, photography, flowers, vegetables, crafts, rockets, etc. - wondering how those kids come up with the projects they've created.
Good luck to everyone.
