Hymers Fall Fair

Sunday, September 7, 2015

Our plan today was to attend the Hymers Fall Fair.  We mentioned that in a previous post, but as promised, it was raining when we got up.  In fact, it rained much of the night with lots of lightning and thunder.  So we decided to do laundry.  It cleared up by about 2PM, so we headed to Chippewa Park where there was an early vintage carousel, along with other vintage rides, like tilt-a whirl and dodge-em cars. 

 

They also had a wildlife display of animals that had been injured, nursed back to health but are unable to be released back into the wild.  Very few of the animals were out.  The temperature had risen to the upper 80s with high humidity, so they were hanging out in the shade, except for their very fat bear which was laying near water in the shade.  She didn’t even get up to drink, she did it laying on on her side.

Monday, September 8, 2015

It did not cool much overnight, but the humidity dropped.  We woke to a cloudy morning, but no rain, so off we went to the fair.

This was a truly old fashioned farm fair.  No carnival rides, no beer tents, just the good old stuff that fairs used to have.  This fair is in its 103rd year.

Ribbons for the biggest and best in all things agriculture. Peas, corn, squash, pumpkins, and other crops.

Crafts such as quilts, sewing, spun yarn, and flower arrangements were judged.  There was even a kid’s craft section.  Here it was apparent every child got a ribbon.  A “Good Effort” ribbon was given to those whom did not “place”; pretty neat.

Ah yes, there were animals, we saw judging for the best Holstein calf, shown by kids.  We weren’t sure how they were judged, but it was a riot watching the kids trying to get these calves to walk around the arena.

The horse judging today was for the heavy work horse category.  These are draft horses; think Clydesdales.

They were judged on maneuvers, like backing up, negotiating a slalom of cones, flaring to right and left. It was amazing to watch these big animals doing that.

Hymers did have a version of a wet tee-shirt contest.  It was judging which Holstein cow had the nicest udders. Hmmm!

Something Dan enjoyed were the antique engines.  The Kakabeka Falls Tired Iron Club brought a big collection vintage engines.  It was fun to watch these things run.  The smell and sound of these old engines chugging along was great to experience.  The owners were more than happy to talk about them; very cool.

We finished the day off with a traditional Hymers Fair turkey dinner; cheap and quite tasty.

This finishes our Canadian segment of our adventure.  We next head into Minnesota.  We have met many really nice people along this part of our journey.  It has been so easy to strike up a conversation with folks everywhere. In minutes you know all about them, their family, and they ask about our journey, where we’ve been and where were going. Pretty neat!

But we will not miss the Loonies, liters, kilograms, French, milk in bags, and weird brands of stuff.  We just never adapted.