A Place I Live: The County Fair

 

I haven’t been to the OC Fair in about 10 years. What I remember is rides with flashing lights, carnival games and cowboy style crafts. Nowadays the rides are pretty extreme and the food bigger than the big top. They had 18 inch corn dogs! The carnival games don’t take paper tickets anymore and the balloon dart game was disappointedly played with a hacky sack ball.

The one thing that has stayed is the animals and I was super excited to see all of the babies. We first visited Centennial Farms where we pet a little brown calf and saw a litter of 7 piglets. There was a short presentation on vermicomposting where we learned that you can germinate your seeds in the worm generated compost for the extra nutrients. We’ll totally put this to use when we plant our fall garden.

We made our way to the other side of the fair where the show animals were on display and caught the end of the Alaskan Pig Races. They were pretty cute running their little track. At the petting zoo we fed goats in the mom and baby pen. One of the handlers lifted up one of the kids so we could get a closer look. That was the tiniest animal we saw that day. I’m pretty sure the largest animals were the pair of oxen that each weighted about 3,000 pounds.

I was very impressed by the “There’s No Place Like Home” exhibit that was next door to the wood crafting area. I snuck off with my sister Stacie to check out the cakes and chocolates on Sweet Street while Jeremy voted for his favorite woodcraft.

Already on a sugar high just from the smell of all the sweets, I was wide eyed as we passed the last of the cake displays and I took in all of the vintage eye candy. They had a wonderful display of vintage kitchen appliances in beautiful pastel colors, accessorized with Pyrex bowls and mixers. As I looked around I realized there was literally vintage from floor to ceiling!

Vintage aprons hung from the ceiling with twinkling lights and colorful Bundt pans were displayed on makeshift walls. It was magical! There was a place setting competition with very elaborate themes. My favorite was Alice in Wonderland by far.

The beer competition entries were displayed in the same area and included many vintage elements like a Chevy trucks, charcoal grill filled with beer bottles and hub caps and license plates hanging from the walls. Jeremy was impressed by the amount of entries and is looking forward to finding out about a local home brewery for his beer reviews at J’s Workbench.

Although we didn’t experience any of the extreme rides and Stacie was the only one to win a prize, we had a fantastic time ogling the vintage displays and petting the larger than life animals. They have a really cool deal on Saturdays and Sundays…$2 entry!  We just might have to go again.