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Sunday, August 15, 2010

It’s a Fair Day . . .

Take Us Out to the County Fair !

Grenville and I are city folk. There were no rolling farmlands where we grew up there and sadly the wind did not come whistling down the plain like in Oklahoma.  Now we live in what’s mainly an agricultural area,  so a 4H County Fair is a BIG (and fun)  event.
Saturday we day tripped to the Worcester Country 4H Fair held in Byrd Park, Snow Hill, MD, as they say here “jus a way down the road”.  Translated that means it was about an hour drive each way. 
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Curiosity about 4H led to some online research. The 4H tradition dates to the turn of the 20th century. In response to the industrial revolution, rural communities sought to get young people interested in agricultural vocations. The birth of 4H clubs is credited to an Ohio HS principal, A.B. Graham who, in 1902, set up local “out of school” youth clubs to meet this need. These clubs had a formal structure with meetings, elected officers, projects, and record keeping.  By 1914, nearly every state had 4-H clubs with similar reporting practices. 4-h_clover
The group had also adopted its 4-leaf clover emblem with an H on each leaf: head, heart, hands, health. The 4-H official emblem is green with white H’s. White symbolizes purity; green stands for nature's most common color and symbolizes youth, life, and growth.








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It’s not just all about farm animals at a county fair, but also about veggies – growing and preserving. Here are a couple of winners.
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And there’s also FOOD to eat , like ribbon  ribbon fries, barbecue pulled pork sandwich, nachos, hamburgers, fries AND Grenville’s absolute (positively) favorite – funnel cake.

   
 We watched some unusual craftsmanship – chain saw carving:
Tools of the trade . . .
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There were TRACTORS in 2 colors – yellow and green.
 
Are there ANY other colors? (red and orange don’t count in these parts).
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Lots more to see –CARS, some old and some not – photos in a future post. For now, here’s some good words – the 4H pledge:
“I pledge my Head to clearer thinking,
my Heart to greater loyalty,
my Hands to larger service,
and my Health to better living,
for my club, my community, my country, and my world.”

5 comments:

Elaine said...

I enjoyed seeing your fair. It has much of the same attractions as we have at our fair. I think we have the same food vendors as you showed, plus a whole lot more food that is bad for you but so much fun to eat.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Elaine, you are right about the food being both so good and yet not on the recommended food lists, but it somehow tastes much better when eaten at an event.

Anvilcloud said...

I taught in a town & rural school for a number of years, and there were some 4H-ers. There was also a pretty old-fashioned type of fair within the school's drawing area.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

I don´t think we have or have ever had anything like 4H here. We don´t have those kinds of fairs either. We would need them though since there´s not any big interest for living in the country side or being farmers nowdays.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

AC, this was a pretty small 4H fair, but attracted a lot of interest and it was nice to see the work the youngsters did, especially with raising the animals. Too often, you read and hear about negative things kids do and this was definitely a positive.

Hi Christer, it may be that 4H is strictly a USA organization. How do youg people learn agriculture and farming in Sweden - do they just grow up in a family that farms and raises livestock?