This week started with we making the drive to the Whitney Point Fairgrounds in Broome County, the county that my 4-H team serves, I got lost and on my first trip there (thankfully, I ended up only about 5 minutes away from the destination I was supposed to be at). That Monday, I was busy helping Kelly with setting up the 4-H section of the fair, which displayed the projects of the various 4-H groups of the Broome County area, (each with their own creative names, such as the Fireballs and the Showstoppers), as well as helping with the evaluations for fair entries, which I absolutely LOVED.
The evaluations process was awesome, in essence, youth ranging anywhere from 5 to 16 years old would come in with projects they had worked on all year and were entering into that years county fair, with potential upside of qualifying for the state fair in a few weeks time. My job as an evaluator was to help them refine the presentation of their projects and give preliminary judgement on the quality of the work, as well as evaluate the merit of the projects relative to a set of tenets that are laid out by the 4-H organization, (this year, the broad categories were Head, Hands, Heart, and Health). I was honestly quite astounded by the work that some of the entrants brought in, especially since they were quite young, my personal favorite was a young carpenter at the age of 9 years old. (I was struggling just to do my math homework at 9! And this young lad is making bird houses, tool boxes, shelves, benches, you name it, he can make it!) The other part about the whole process was getting to see the youth talking about their projects and seeing the pride and hard work that they put into their work, it was really quite fulfilling work and totally worth the hours I spent at the evaluators desk.
Later that week, the fair was in full swing, I was unfortunately only able to come up for that Monday, Friday and Saturday due to my class schedule. On Friday I was helping out with doing Herdsmanship evaluations, which was the 4-H Agricultural side of the Fair, the process involved doing the rounds of all the farm animals that the youth and farm families had brought to the fair, and judging the animals in terms of how healthy they looked, the conditions they were living in (ie. cleanliness of the pens and cages + availability of food/water), as well as the decoration and organization of the animal/family name labels that were outside the animals enclosures. I found it quite fun to see how much time the youth put into all four categories in comparison to the older farmers (who mostly skimped out on the decorations), as well as getting to meet some youth and talk to them about their time taking care of the animals. As far as I’m concerned, they were all expert Herdsmen! (compared to me at least).
Saturday was probably my favorite day of the Fair, because for most of the day, I was helping out in the Horse show, which included all manner of work, from setting up the timing mechanisms (using electromagnetic waves! Right up my alley), to learning/setting up barrel patterns for the horses, to RUNNING the barrel patterns (Technically speaking, I had the best time in the Texas T pattern, not too shabby!), and then I finished up my day helping with the clean up of the fair. It was quite busy, and hot work, but all sorts of fun, and overall, I had a really fun time working the fair with Kelly, I can see why she enjoys it so much every year!
It was certainly a quick turnaround period for the two weeks to follow, I was getting ready for my summer class finals, as well as driving over to Orange County (a 3 hour drive) for the 4-H GIS Playdate Event on August 5th, which we were piloting to test and see if the Fluorescence/GIS curriculum made sense as an offered 4-H Program. I’d say thats about enough for this week, thanks for reading!
– Rob 🙂