Fun at the Fair

Each month at Our Redeemer Lutheran Chruch (ORLC) there is a FISH event. FISH stands for Faith Integrity Service Honor. For this month’s (September) FISH event the youth are doing their annual scavenger hunt at the Alaska State Fair. In order to create the scavenger hunt one must first scout and find things to scavenge for, so that is exactly what I did.

Jamie (the DCE from Palmer) has done this event several times in the past so I accompanied her to the State Fair. It was a beautiful day, which was unusual since it has been raining 6 out of 7 days this past week but we happened to catch the ONE sunny day.

One of the streets at the state fair...not too many people :)

How the scavenger hunt works is that Jamie and I take pictures of things at the fair. We then crop the pictures into something more abstract ie:If the picture was of a sign we crop the picture to just the corner of the sign, and the students must find that object at the fair.

The layout of the State Fair is quite simple really. There is only one building that houses all of the animals; chickens to cows. For those of you reading who are from Worthington, MN there are more animals at the Nobles County Fair than here at the Alaska State Fair. It makes sense though. Even with the dwindling 4-H livestock in Nobles Country it cannot compare to the amount of livestock here in Alaska.

The one and only livestock building it looks big but lets walk inside..

Inside there are two rows of animals. Each row as 2-3 kinds of animals. There is also the arena.

Pioneer Peak 4-H poster

Sign on outside of winners arena.

In addition to the livestock there was also a building with all of the 4-H projects ie: Quilting, photography, arts, and GIANT VEGTABLES.  Since Alaska summers get constant sunlight and plants feed off of sunlight the vegetables if properly watered have the potential to grow to exponential sizes. The growing season for pumpkins is brief in Alaska. The titans at the fair grew for only three months, gaining 20 to 40 pounds a day.

Some of this year’s highlights included a 61.80 pound Zucchini, 117 pound cabbage, 87 pound kohlrabi, 93 pound Kale, 62 pound celery and  1723 pound pumpkin which surprisingly could not be judged and was disqualified because of a deformation so the lighter 1,287 pound pumpkin won this year’s largest pumpkin check out this excerpt from the Anchorage Daily Newspaper…

"Lucy Lu," a 1,287-pound pumpkin grown by John J.D. Megchelsen of Nikiski, took the title as the biggest pumpkin ever grown in Alaska at the Giant Pumpkin Weigh In at the Alaska State Fair on Wednesday.

A 1,723-pounder grown by Dale Marshall of Anchorage, "Patrick," was disqualified because of a hole in the bottom that went through to the core of the gourd. It will, however, be placed on view in the farm products display starting today.

There was a great deal of curiosity over whether Marshall's pumpkin would break the world record currently held by a New Jersey grower, 1810 pounds. A sullen silence fell over the crowd as judges crawled under the giant vegetable, suspended from a hydraulic hoist, to inspect the flaw, less than 3 inches across, probing it and deliberating for several minutes.

There were groans when officials finally announced that the specimen from Sand Lake had run afoul of the official rules of the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, the international group that makes the rules and keeps the records.

Had it qualified, "Patrick" would have been only the fourth pumpkin in history to have topped 1,700 pounds.” (ADN © 2011)

the 1723 pound pumpkin that was disqualified for the rotten hole on the bottom.

LARGE VEGGIES! That's a 117 pound cabbage in the back middle.

10.85 Zucchini, this was not the largest but just the "best"

61.80 pounds

They do not have 4-H club banners like in Minnesota but they did have 4-H club scarecrows. It brought back some good ole memories

4-H scarecrows! 

One thing that is unusual about the timing of the State Fair is that school is going on. School used to start after the state fair but then it got moved up a week earlier, and the next year a week more! Now it is virtually impossible for students to attend the fair unless they go on the weekend. With that said Jamie informed me that many parents take their children out of school to go and see the fair to avoid the crowds on the weekend.

 

This is what a Grand Champion Ribbon looks like

As we were standing in line at the fair gate I couldn’t help but notice many parents with their children. I also found out that 4-Her’s with livestock either have to skip school to tend to their livestock or have their parents watch after them. As Jamie and I made our way through the one and only livestock barn I found several 4-Her’s camped out in their own sections and even saw one boy sweeping as the herdsmanship judge walked by.

Of all the livestock (animals) Nobles county would have more except for the rabbits. As you can imagine it is much easier to raise a rabbit in Alaska than say a cow, sheep, or horse so there were hundreds of rabbits.

Each year the Alaska State Fair brings in some sort of traveling exhibit. Last year it was reptiles. This year it was all Australian animals. There were kangaroos, pelicans, Macaws, and Emus.

Kangaroo! In Alaska?

Mr. Pelican. 

While at the fair I experienced my first Husky Burger which is like a hamburger except better, and had my State Fair must—Dipin Dots.

All in all it was a good day. I can’t wait for the actual FISH event which will take place this Sunday afternoon. Pray for good weather