Fair is Fair

Well, it's County Fair season...and since Cooperative Extension is involved with County Fairs I figured that it would be a good idea for the Web Action Team to go out to the fairgrounds and see what the heck it is that we support!

We started our trip to the fair with a quick awards ceremony.

Bryon was deemed a 'Super-Hero' because of some work he did programming the ANR Portal recently.  The Super-Hero award trophy was a jumbo corn dog.  Congrats Bryon. (Bryon- if you can explain what you did to win the award in fewer than 10 words, I'll buy you another corn dog, AND 3 tacos.)

After Bryon's corn dog extravaganza, we went over to the garden area to visit with our Yolo County Master Gardeners.  Every year they have a table set up to answer questions about plants, gardens, the MG program etc. etc.  They also have quite a few different displays as well as a small demonstration garden.  (This year's theme was 'Superheroes.'  Unfortunately they did not ask Bryon to take part.)

We wanted to introduce ourselves to the Master Gardeners, so we went up and started talking.   Getting them to understand who we are is tough- because many Master Gardeners  have no idea who/what ANR is- even though our logo is on many of the items they are handing out.  So our introduction took a while.  

I knew they finally understood who we were when one of the lovely ladies looked at Dave and said, "Oh, you're a Nerd."




Next stop on our trip was the Fruit and Vegetable building.  To me this is one of the more interesting parts of the fair, because it is where they display the freakishly large watermelon, butternut squash and 3 foot long carrots.

There were a LOT of posters from ANR programs.  VRIC, FNRIC and quite a few others had space.  We signed up for the Small Farms Program newsletter and we read all about County Extension in Yolo County.  

I wish ANR had the ability to put some staff in the building to answer questions because fairgoers don't seem like the poster reading type.  Yes- I volunteer to be the person that stands there next year. Or even this year- call me on my cell! (And by 'volunteer' I mean I would gladly do it while getting paid)





The rest of us were getting hungry by this time (even Bryon- because Super-Heroes cannot live on only a single corn dog) so we stopped to eat.  A longtime favorite food at the Yolo County Fair has been the pupusas.  We each ordered a plate of 2 pupusas, shredded cabbage and salsa.  I thought the habanero pupusa was the best, but other people were saying good things about the pork.




Even though this was a Web Action Team field trip, we brought along two members of IT- Damon and James.  (The IT people are the *real* computer geeks.  The Web Action Team are the stylish computer geeks.) The other two members of IT aren't available- but I hope they feel that they've missed out on something.  Maybe not something good, but something.



So that's it.  We spent a little more time together, but never made it over to the animals as a group.  Sorry 4H!  But the fair really is an interesting place to visit as part of ANR.  It's one way to see what we do in action...to see our programs interacting with the public...To hear old ladies call Dave a nerd...