Trip to Maine - Aug 2010, Action Fair Activities (3)

Another reason for the timing of my trip to Maine is that in the last week of August the event of the year takes place near my hometown - Acton Fair. Acton Fair is one of many agricultural fairs held between late summer and mid-autumn. As a kid Acton Fair marked the end of summer. It was a chance to go out have fun, see friends from school you hadn't seen all summer, eat unhealthy food, in a rural country atmosphere.

When I was in elementary school my family was very involved with the fair. My older brother Eric had oxen that he trained to compete in activities at the fair. I used to try to beat the old grannies with my blueberry muffins recipe, thanks to Marjorie Standish's great cookbook I won more than one blue ribbon ;-).

My mom and dad entered in flower arrangements and my dad's prize glads (flowers) into the flower competitions. I also remember as a kid we always took part in a competition just for kids where you had to be creative with vegetables and fruits to make figures like this one (which, sadly, is far better than what I came up with 25 years ago...)














Going back to Acton Fair as an adult is also a fun experience because then I can see how little things look. The rides looked so much bigger when I was a kid, and the whole fair which seemed to take days and days to explore, takes really only a couple of hours to walk in and out of every place. Its also quite interesting walking around and running into the parent's of high school friends and old teachers. Walking around with my Dad is always a slow process since he is one of those teachers and former students and their parents seem to stop him every 10 meters or so.

There are lots of activities for kids at the fair now that I don't remember being there when I was a kid but they seem pretty fun and give you a bit of insight into what 'country' means at Acton Fair. Two events now involve llamas. One is a contest by llama owners of dressing up their llamas (see pic below). The other event is a llama obstacle course in which the llamas are lead by their owners (teenagers) to do different things like jump over something, kiss someone, look in the mirror, etc.















Another activity involving kids is the tractor pulling competition. I had no idea this was such a serious event, the kids were all revving and shining up their mini tractors prior to the pulling competition. Here is a pic of the gal that won (yep she beat the boys!) in the youngest age group category. You go girl!


















Lastly, there was the country kid olympics or something like that going on that I stayed around to watch a bit of. This pic is of musical hay bales, like musical chairs but when the music stops you have to find a hay bale to sit on or you are out of the game!












Then there was a hay bale throwing contest, like shot put? Half bales for the little kids and full bales of hay for the bigger kids. They all had fun and participated in an ice cream eating contest at the end! Fun!