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Fair is a special time for county agriculture

If you are reading this and live in downtown Marietta, you likely already know it’s fair weekend. Marietta’s largest parade, the Washington County Fair parade makes its way down Front Street this morning to officially get the fair started. Youths and adults alike have been moving their animals into the barns at the fairgrounds for the past few days and the midway is set up and ready to go.

The Washington County Fair has been around for a long time, more than two centuries to be exact. It harkens back to a time when most people lived in rural areas. Primarily meant to celebrate farming, including livestock and agriculture, fairs in general are designed to celebrate the American farmer.

I’m not a farmer, but for the last 30 years I have lived in the middle of a farming community where people make at least part of their living raising and selling pigs, cows, goats, hay, corn, soybeans and wheat.

In all likelihood, my neighborhood is larger than yours because in the country sense, people consider each other neighbors when they live miles away. My “next-door-neighbor” is around a half a mile away. When I first moved to the Churchtown area I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that my wife called people that live three miles away neighbors, but after a while it started to make sense.

Of course, in the country you have neighbors that are both human and hoofed. They can both be interesting, but in the interest of neighborhood harmony, let’s talk about the later first.

Near the start of COVID-19 lockdown I was working at home, absorbed deeply in the project I was working on, I nearly jump out of the chair when I heard the loudest bang ever on my front door. I looked through the door to see who was about to kick my door in only to see a goat standing there looking at me and his owner running across my yard to catch it. The farm across the road had recently purchased a herd of goats. Goats sometimes escape and this one, for whatever reason, decided to knock on my door.

Escaped livestock is not really that unusual. The neighborly thing to do if you know where they came from, is to simply put them back. That is not as easy as it sounds. Cattle when they get out tend to get scared and when they get scared, they run. Do not chase them unless you have a plan. They will outrun you.

Our house is at the corner of a long field. The yard is like a magnet for cattle out for a joy trot. On more than one occasion I have looked out the window when getting ready for work only to see cattle staring back at me. Once it was 13 “teenage” cows who were just hanging out. I did what any self-respecting city boy would do. I made a phone call. Soon several neighbors arrived on their four-wheelers (the modern-day horse) and the round up began. As I left for work, they were driving them down the road like a trio of cowboys. Sometimes they will travel so far in the middle of the night that you have no idea who they belong to. This happened a few years ago. With some help from neighbors, we pinned them into a fence. I left for work and let others sort it out.

Two of our neighbors are Harley and Gus. They are horses, and they like to visit us at the back fence because they know we have a pair of apple trees. They are a joy to have around.

The human type of neighbors is pretty special too. I know neighbors in town are willing to help each other out, but country neighbors come with some serious tools. Backhoes, tractors and posthole diggers are just a few of the things they can help you get out of a bind. I once drove a neighbor’s giant wheat combine, which is an opportunity you may never get if you live on Fourth Street.

It’s appropriate that our fair is held Labor Day weekend because the farmers in Washington County work hard to make sure they raise crops and livestock that we all enjoy consuming, one way or another. If you get a chance, visit the Washington County Fair this weekend. The children and adults showing their animals worked hard to raise the perfect example of the breed. Tell them one of their neighbors sent you.

Art Smith is online manager of The Times. He can be reached at

asmith@mariettatimes.com

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