The Animal Fair

Linda Burton posting from Arkadelphia, Arkansas – I went to the animal fair. The birds and the beasts were there. Also the hand-sewn quilts and home-canned preserves and commercial funnel cakes and merry go rounds brought in for the week and traveling hawkers enticing you to try it all. Nothing more exciting than a county fair in September! Yet despite the allure of fried goods and haunted houses and the attraction of the more peaceful Arts and Crafts Building my favorite thing is and always has been the animal barns. I mean, sheer happiness! You can’t walk past those bunny cages without twitching your own cute nose, bunny like. And what looks happier than a pig stretched out belly up, totally content to be fat. Then there are the smiling young folks, with heifers they have raised from Day 1, and brought to show. Dedicated young folks; I’m talking about the FFA. From their website I learned there are 629,327 student members of the Future Farmers of America aged 12-21 in 7,757 local FFA chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Wow! And interestingly, while 73% live in rural and farm areas, 27% live in urban and suburban areas. The focus is “leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education.” More information from the FFA website: » read more