The Prince William County Fair

We took Baby Jack to the Prince William County Fair yesterday. Grandpa showed him cows, goats, pigs and sea lions. Seal lions? Yep, they were there sunning themselves and looking very bored. They were part of a carnival exhibit and show. Tomorrow I'll post some photos of Baby Jack with Grandpa at the fair. The Prince William County Fair is the largest county fair in the state of Virginia. However Prince William County no longer has much farm land because the land has been transformed into housing developments, business parks, shopping centers and school yards. In fact Piedmont where we reside used to be a dairy farm. So the Ohio girl from the dairy farm is back on the dairy farm. Not really! What I'm trying to say is that this fair is a small cry from the great county fairs that still exist in Ohio. Especially the Great Darke County Fair! There were a lot of suburbanites taking their small children to the fair to experience farm life. We saw a good reflection of our current county population there: Indians in saris, Japanese and Koreans with cameras, and Hispanics pushing baby strollers were making the rounds of the barns to give their little ones a farm experience. Just like we were doing for Baby Jack. But I must admit that this was a Disney sanitized and glamorized version of farm life. How could I tell? Because there wasn't enough fresh manure lying around in any of the stalls. You can't have manure lying around to gag the city slickers! I even saw something I couldn't believe. A man was using a baby wipe -n-dipe cloth on a cow's rear end to get every possible sign of the manure off the animal. Boy, we surely didn't use wipe-n-dipes on our dairy farm in Ohio. We just got used to the perfume of the farm.