It’s that time of year again! An unofficial holiday of sorts in the Hoosier land. Indiana State Fair time! It’s that season between the heat of summer and the start of school. Before the leaves start turning and typically some of the hottest days of the year. But I can’t think of a time that I’ve ever missed the State Fair! We always went as kids, sometimes more than once! Regrettably, it was always the signal that school was about to begin. But even as an adult – we would always go, too! Several years the kick off hot air balloon race would fly over our old house in the morning and we would watch as the balloons would fire their flames to keep up with the rabbit balloon.
But as a mother of four John Deere-loving boys – you can only imagine how much we look forward to the fair! In fact, I must confess that before I went to the fair with Jim I never even knew there was a tractor area at the fair! I kinda always just walked right by that area on my way to the midway. But now that I’m a mom, we don’t go to the fair to ride the rides – we go to sit on and see the gigantic tractors! That, and the wonderful kid farm area. The boyz have really enjoyed this attraction over the years. You grab a basket on your way in and then you learn about the process of farming as you walk along the winding path… you plant seeds, feed the livestock, milk a cow, drive a tractor, harvest your vegetable garden and pick apples from the orchard. Then at the end you separate all your harvest and earn “money” that you can use to buy a treat from the store – either apple juice, a cheese stick, a carton of milk, or the like.
This experience is always a highlight, but this year in particular, it was the highlight for me because not only is it adorable and provides many photo ops but as we were walking into the dairy barn set up they had a lady in the mini barn to help the kids pretend to milk the cows. One of the mannequin moo-ers was hooked up to an model of an electric milk pump that had a cord of blinking lights showing where the milk would travel the other hollow heifer was a manual milker where you could squeeze the rubber udder to “milk” the cow into a bucket. While watching the blinking lights, Kiefer stole the show when he asked if the first cow was “charging”?? We all cracked up!!
 |
| All the Boyz in the backseat |
 |
| A photo op outside the mini farm |
 |
| Couldn’t pass up an op to take a picture with the State Fair Queen!! |
 |
| Farmer Carter |
 |
| Farmer Kiefer |
 |
| Farmer Griffin |
 |
| Griffin |
 |
| Fletcher eating his new hat |
 |
| Griffin driving the blue tractor. (he tried every color to see which rode the best) |
 |
| Carter driving the John Deere, of course. Getting a little too big for this tractor |
 |
| Carter & Kiefer captivated by the antique tractor show (Carter begging me, “Please can we stay to watch the thresher work?” How did he know it was a thresher??!!??) |
 |
| Sitting on the REAL John Deeres |
 |
| Kiefer |
 |
| So serious! |
 |
| Grffin |
 |
| Carter |
 |
| Watching the Chain Saw Competition (and getting ideas of how best to throw an ax!) |
 |
| We LOVE John Deere |
 |
| On the Tractor Trolly with Gigi and Mom |
 |
| Captivated by the baby piglets |
 |
| Trying to pet them! |
We sat on nearly every antique tractor, and watched the antique farmers fire up the farming relics, we watched a chain saw competition (a fair first for me!) (And now I’m worried what ax throwing and log rolling techniques the Boyz learned while watching!) we rode the tractor trolly a full loop around the fairgrounds, we ate at the Dairy Barn and walked a worthy distance for “real” lemonade shake ups. We gaucked at the world’s largest boar and cooed over the 9 day old litter of piglets (Carter whispering in my ear “Can we keep one?”!!). We had a great time and more importantly, we shared it all with the grandparents and created memories at the fair for the next generation.
