07/17/2025
❤️ ... Fair season is upon us. We wish everyone a happy, safe and memorable fair season! Cherish the memories!
4H grows in the mess.
Written in 2024.
It best be described as a “struggle” as we prepare for county fair.
There is stuff everywhere. Craft and art supplies. To-do lists and paper work. Sewing materials and dirty dishes. Piles of laundry to fold. The porch is dirty with multiple pairs of boots and gloves strewn about. There are show halters to be saddle soaped and show sticks to shine. The nice boots all need a polish. The garden is full of weeds and the grasshoppers are trying to move in.
Wet clothes from swim lessons hang on the deck. Materials for washing cattle are laying around the open barn doors.
Country radio is blasting away while a line of animals lay tied to the fence.
Our ”city turned country” ranch dog trots through it all, asking to be petted while curiously watching on, as I try to empty and reload the dishwasher before we load all the animals and go to town for “show practice” tonight. A neatly pressed pillow case hangs on the door k**b, ready for first entry day tomorrow.
I don’t fare well when I feel like my house is out of control. And yet, I take a deep breath and smile, because this is how THIS house has looked at the tail end of July for almost 40 years.
4H grows here. It has, since I became the first in 1987. My siblings followed right behind, and with only a short lull (but not really because my folks have never stopped volunteering) this place is covered with all things 4 leaf clover and green as we steam towards August, of every year.
So for as much as the sticky and dusty and smelly mess that it all is, there is a stark and honest truth surrounding it all.
How many children would give their right arm to get to be a part of something as meaningful as 4H and fair. How many wish desperately for the opportunity to own or care for a living thing. How many wish they could learn to sew or bake or paint and craft. How many wish someone would invest in them that they may learn a life skill that would stick with them forever.
And, also. One day, far too soon, this noise and hubbub will quiet as the eldest goes to college, and then disappear completely when Tag a long finishes her journey. How will I desperately miss this frantic dash through the end of summer and all the beautiful mess that happens in this home.
May it be only for a little while, with the hope and prayer that this youth organization hang on for the next generation, that I may get to love and help and support my grand children, as has been done for my girls.
While I may wish away part of the mess, the stress, and the bickering that is also part of this passage, may I never ever wish away the season that this is. For it has been one of the greatest honors and blessings of my life.
4H grows here. 🍀
