How I spent My Summer Vacation by Miss Merry

Where have I been? Well, as much as I enjoy blogging, my summer is very busy with preparations for our county fair. This has been my sixteenth summer as a 4-H club advisor. This year I started with 31 members and our projects ranged from quilting to cooking and sewing to photography, woodworking, and even rockets. Members cared for rabbits, lambs, hogs, chickens and feeder calves. I am also a superintendant for our Junior Fair FCS building (formerly known as Home Ec to those of us who remember the olden days). Our County FCS agent retired in January and, due to budget cuts, was not replaced. The 4-H program assistant was going to try to fill those shoes, but was unfortunately stricken with a very serious illness in the weeks leading to the fair. (hugs and prayers!) Her daughter and I were left as the "third-stringers" to try to pull it all together. Although it was mindboggling and seemed to be 25 hour long days, looking back at my pictures, I think the fair got along just fine with the backup team. We had lots of help from our junior fair board members, aged 14-18; they were always right behind me ready to lend a helping hand and their support. I hope you enjoy some pictures of the 2010 Huron County Fair.

Before the fair began, my 4-H club members designed and painted a quilt block on a twelve inch floor tile. Here are our tiles spread on my lawn to be varnish before the fair. The tiles will be placed on the floor of our club booth which will showcase 4-H sewing projects. Below you can see the tiles on the floor of the booth.

I want to start singing " My Girls, My Girls, talkin' bout My Girls, My Girls". These are some of my 4-H FCS Board Members, who were my faithful assistants and hardest workers. They are great examples to our younger 4-H members and I am so proud of each and every one of them!

The ladies are wrapping our "stage" in paper and decorations in anticipation of the fashion show on Monday evening.

The final top layer must be stapled in place by a barefooted member to keep it

clean and white for the evening festivities. 

You can just peek behind them to see the rabbit judging contest. 

Turned out pretty nice, don't you think?

The paper taped in the middle asks the fairgoers to "Please Do Not Touch"

It is just too inviting to sit down on our pretty stage and dribble your onion blossom, or walking taco, or Italian sausage or fried . . .anything!

Also too tempting to tiny feet who want to practice their talents!

Here are our 4-H Clothing Project winners at the end of the evening!

This includes "Total Look Outfits" that the 4-H members sewed as construction projects or selected as consumer projects. Our best of show in Clothing Construction is the young lady who created the 1770's outfit, complete with undergarments for her Creative Costume project. Our best of show in Selection Projects is the young lady fourth from the left, middle row, in a peach top who selected her total look to coordinate with the necklace that a relative brought to her from Italy.

Here is our stage "re-designed" for our Fair King and Queen Contest

on Tuesday night.

And here are our lovely contestants. The King and Queen are chosen by three criteria. First, they submit an application containing their 4-H and other fair accomplishments, their resume of leadership and public service activities and a short essay on why they should be Fair King or Queen. Next is a pre-fair interview with the judges. Finally we have the contest on Tuesday night which involves a prepared question and answer as well as the famous fish bowl question. I will not tell you who were chosen as royalty because they are all winners in my book! It takes a lot of courage to compete in front of your peers and the entire community and they all did an outstanding job!  My own daughters were past Fair Queens. We like to tease that they were not "Great Queens", just "Fair" Queens.

(They really are pretty great, though!)

I am exploring some new blogs this week and am linking to Spotlight Saturday at http://www.kindredspiritmommy.com/  and with Weekend Bloggy Reading 

at  http://www.serenitynow4amanda.blogspot.com/
Please visit to discover some new friends, too!