There are staggering amounts of junk at the Washington County Fair – junk food, junk rides, junk candy, and just plain junk. There is also a lot of good stuff, including the heart of the fair, it’s inspiring agricultural tradition. Every year, I look for the same symbol, a young man or woman dressed in white dragging a cow into a big tent where months, even years of good and hard work will be rewarded, or not.

Lots of success, lots of failure, but one does see what farm and animal work does to young strength and character, these kids usually sleep in tents and trailers alongside their cows for most of the week it is great to go see them. I hate to sound like an old farm, and I don’t mourn the old days, but the Facebook generation does not know what it is meaning.

These kids have so much strength and focus and character, it is always a beautiful thing to see, I’ll go back in a couple of days. We went to see Ed and Carol Gulley’s spectacular barn exhibit, by far the best in show. More later. Tornado and severe storms warnings are up, so I might go dark for awhile. I have a lot of good books to read.