Whidbey Island Fair

Whidbey Island Fair

The Island County Fair was last weekend.  In spite of it having changed its name to the awkward and all-inclusive Whidbey Island Area Fair, it is still the best little country fair around (I say, as if I’ve been to all the others). 

A friendly fair.

 We do an annual pilgrimage around all the animal and 4-H exhibits and I wait for the familiar line from the 4-H er working in the barn  “welcome to our cow/horse/chicken/goat barn.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask” Something about that always makes me smile.   

Georgia Gerber sculpture

We reminisce about the days of the “Barnyard Scramble” which our kids enjoyed a couple of times before it was finally decided that letting a bunch of small animals loose in an arena and allowing hordes of children to chase them until they catch one is probably not very good practice. 

vegetable animal

We walk through the agricultural exhibits where our daughter won a ribbon for her organically grown zucchini nearly 20 years ago.  We see little piles of what were once a handful of home grown raspberries that have withered in the heat, but still have friendly, encouraging ribbons attached to them.   There’s beautiful art and craft exhibits, and the commercial building where modern, digital businesses seem oddly out of place amongst the barns and horses and dust and carnival rides.  I find that very comforting for some reason.

This little piggy...

Then, of course, there’s the pigs, all shined up and ready to sell off as “organic pork” as advertised on Drewslist.  They look so much more glossy and well-cared for than Izzy, but since she’s the piggy who stayed home, that’s probably ok with her.

    

The Timebenders

We finish our rounds of the exhibits and then settle in for our annual musical pilgrimage.  The Timebenders is my second favourite  Canadian band (after Great Big Sea from Newfoundland).   They are an unusual act of talented musicians who also do hilarious impersonations and engage outrageously with the crowd.  Those of us who have seen them for the past 14 years (an Island County Fair record by about 11 years!) miss the days when their leader, Tom Watson, did more of the performing.  He is bringing on the rest of the group really well but no-one can compare to his comic timing and genius.

 

Eggplant art

As we sit up high in the bleachers, we see familiar faces and old friends walking by, and children who are transformed each year - they seem to reach a certain teen age where their looks and maturity change so rapidly, you can hardly recognize them. 

 

That happened a few weeks ago at another Whidbey Island event.  We met a friend whose daughter I would not have recognized if she hadn’t been with her mother.  She raced off suddenly and came back with a group of friends who all stood looking at us very cheerfully and slightly expectantly while we continued chatting. 

Later, my husband commented that he thought we were supposed to know who they were, but we didn’t recognize them.  The puzzle was solved when I ran into my friend’s daughter at a barbeque on my way to the fair.  I asked her if we'd known them but not recognised them.  She laughed - it turns out she had gone to get them to have them come and listen to my accent!  

Thanks for listening…

Rosie