Life in Maine

It happens every year about this time - Memorial Day suddenly turns to Labor Day, and the summer which once held so much promise is now just a memory. And so it goes with the summer of 1999. Like all summers, we all attempted to pack a year's worth of activity into three months worth of good weather. That, of course, is why the season always seems to pass so fast - we're too busy to notice the time slipping away.

For many people around these parts, the end of summer and the Blue Hill Fair are synonymous. The fair used to be an annual event for me as well, but over the past several years, I was off rock climbing during the long holiday weekend and missed the festivities. This year, with no climbing plans and perfect weather, I decided to check it out again. Blue Hill is a small coastal town tucked down on a peninsula south of Ellsworth. Normally quiet and quaint, the fair stretches this small town to its limits, with traffic converging from all directions, and fields and front yards surrounding the fairgrounds turned into temporary parking lots.

The first thing I noticed that was new since I was there last was parking available at the fairgrounds. In years past, the only place to park was in one of the makeshift parking lots that cropped up during the fair and charged anywhere from $2 to $5 to park. Mainers, being of the thrifty sort, often avoided these pay to park sites and instead lined the sides of the roads for miles in each direction. This year, there was plenty of free parking in the lots/fields adjacent to the fairground, and as a result the sides of the roads were devoid of cars. Apparently, not everyone caught on to the "free parking" offer, since the pay to park lots were just as full as they always had been. I guess some traditions die hard.

I have always like the Blue Hill Fair because, unlike most of the other fairs in the state, it has retained its agricultural heritage rather than becoming strictly a carnival and junk food orgy. Sure, you can still get your fill of fried dough, french fries, lobster rolls, Italian sausage, ice cream, pie, pizza, cotton candy, (are you getting ill yet?) lemonade, blooming onions, and hot dogs, but you can also wander through a healthy assortment of dairy cows, goats, oxen, donkeys, fowl, and llamas (like the amiable creature pictured above).

The Blue Hill Fair has been held for over 100 years, and many of the long-standing traditions still endure, even though they have been coming under increasing fire over the past years by animal rights advocates. Specifically, more than a few people have brought into question whether the oxen and horse pull competitions have outlived their usefulness. These competitions were, after all, originated in a time when horse and oxen were the primary method of hauling just about anything heavy around the farm and woods. Today, of course, machines have replaced the animals as the means for moving things, so the massive beasts are typically used just for these competitions.

I sort of have mixed feelings on the issue. Watching the horses snort and lung and strain to pull the 6000 plus pounds of concrete blocks, I can't help but have empathy for these creatures. Yet, at the same time, one senses that, like huskies that live to pull a sled, the horses and oxen that are bred to pull are happiest when they are doing just that. And when you consider that many of these animals wouldn't even be around if it weren't for these competitions, you begin to see that there are no easy answers to this controversy.

Maybe it's my selective memory getting the best of me, but it seems that there are signs that the innocence of the fair that inspired E.B. White to write Charlotte's Web is beginning to wear away. It's the small things, like the signs up everywhere this year announcing that no dogs are allowed on the fairgrounds, that are beginning to erode the small town appeal of the event. In the past, there was never a problem with dogs and a few, but not many, people brought theirs along to tour the fairgrounds. It's not a big deal, but these little things add up to make a "friendly" fair seem more like the "bottom line," money making affairs that most others have become. Fortunately, there are still unscripted moments like the birth of this calf (shown here at two days old) at the fair that help to remind fairgoers that its not all about filling up on elephant ears and spending $20 to win a gaudy stuffed animal that's destined to be the highlight of next summer's yard sale.

A highlight of the fair every year are the sheepdog trials, in which a collection of paranoia-inducing border collies take turns staring down a quartet of sheep while attempting to direct them through a course of fences, bridges, and pens. The sheep, which, I have concluded over the years, are not very complex creatures, seem rather annoyed by the fact that they are not allowed to simply graze their life's away like always. And no matter how many times these sheep are prodded through the course, they just don't learn it. Sort of reminds me of some of the computer courses I've taught in the past.

Perhaps the most educational portion of the fair for me is the livestock judging. Just watching the competition makes me realize that there is a lot more to being a farmer than meets the eye. I always thought a cow was a cow was a cow, but, apparently, that's not the case. It's a bit humbling being showed up by the little kids who nonchalantly lead their animals into the ring, knowing far more about the care and upbringing of farm animals than I ever will.