Fair Week

The Washington County Fair is now behind us. I went to the fair 3 days this year and must admit, at first I thought it was going to be a washout. But once again the weather man’s 5 day forecast couldn’t get past day 1 correctly- thank goodness. The opening ceremony had cats and dogs raining down but after that the sun came out and it was perfect fair weather for the rest of the week.

I have been to a few other county fairs and I think ours is the jewel of all county fairs. Our Ag connection remains strong and I think this connection makes it the fair that it is.

All of us locals know which end of a horse is what but many “city folk” attend the fair and are amazed at the size of the animals and that you can pet them and talk to a real live farmer. It makes it a personal experience for them and they learn that milk comes from a cow living in the country, not the store.

I was entered into the milking contest on Friday night with the Washington County Dairy Princess (Hartford’s Mary Foote) as my partner. We had 2 minutes to hand milk a cow and afterwards the contents of our pail was weighed to see which of the 6 teams won. Mary and I had milk shooting out of the teats like laser beams and we felt sure that we would win. But we came in 3rd. At least we did better than Congressman Scott Murphy, who came in last place and barely managed to cover the bottom of his pail.  

I am already looking forward to next year’s fair, are you too?

Dana