The Valley, May 2014
Life in the East End by Rebecca Harrop Wo-hoo!! Fishing season is here! I love fishing season almost as much as hunting season. My little cousin Matt caught his first fish this year. Good job Matt! I’ve been out fishing a couple times. My brother has been out several times already. He’s a fishing fanatic. I’m hoping I can get more fishing time this year. I get teased because I don’t really like eating stream caught fish. I love Long John’s fish, I just don’t care for wild fish. Oh, well I make up for it by eating lots of venison!! Darn, talking about venison makes me hungry for some. Now I’ll have to check with Dad to see if we have any canned venison left. Maybe we can have some for lunch. Dad bought a new zero turn lawn mower with a 60 in. deck. It shouldn’t take as much time to mow the yard now. I usually do the mowing. Mom likes to mow too, but she doesn’t get much time anymore. Rachel likes to mow the grass also, but since she is working in New Jersey now, she won’t get too much time either. Dad mows sometimes, but he has a habit of mowing Mom’s shrubs off. Trust me that is not a good thing. Mom doesn’t take it very well when her shrubs get mowed off. Dad says we’ll have to teach Mom to use this mower, but I’m not so sure about that. Zero turns
can be a little hard to get used to. So I guess the mower is all mine. Although, I will have to figure something out to mow around the grain bins. I already checked and this mower isn’t going to fit between the bins. We do have one of those DR trimmers, so I’ll just have to use it instead. Anyway I’ll be “cruising” on the mower this year. Election Day is coming up soon. It’s time to find out about the races and who is running. We all need to take time to learn about the candidates and where they stand on the issues so you are an informed voter. Then on May 13th, Primary election day in PA. If you are registered, make sure you get to the polls and vote. Like my Dad says, if you don’t vote you can’t complain. As promised, I have some more info on the Mifflin County Youth Fair history this month. You may remember from last month that the Fair started in 1954. The FFA club started exhibiting at the Fair in 1958. So while FFA wasn’t exhibiting with 4-H in 1954, only four short years later they were a part of the Fair as well. Both 4-H and FFA have contributed to the Fair’s success over the years. Some of the early exhibits and projects were dairy cows, conservation, shooting and tractor driving. My Pap Goss
GRANGE FAIRGROUNDS - CENTRE HALL, PA
Saturdays 8AM - 12 Noon April 26th - October 25th FREE PARKING - FREE ADMISSION
Vendors Wanted!
showed his prized Ayshire heifer, Favorites, when the Fair was at Kish Park. He also showed her at the Farm Show. I saw some of the pictures of him and his heifer. I noticed all the pictures of Ayrshires had horns. There were some pictures of the Jerseys also with horns. The Jerseys looked really neat because they had these chains with little bells on them hung around their horns. The bells hung down on their forehead. I was surprised that they had horns because most cows are dehorned as calves today. I asked Pap about that and he said Ayrshire and Jersey cows were shown with horns and the Jerseys had bells. The tractor driving contests were very popular back then. We still did a tractor driving contest until a few years ago. My brothers were in it a couple of times. I came across several articles about plowing contests and I’m not sure if they were a 4-H project or something else ,but I thought they were pretty interesting. The sewing, vegetable and flower gardening clubs were very popular as well. I saw lots of articles and photos of entries from past fairs. The county Dress Revue was a pretty popular event. The horse clubs have been a steadfast part of the Fair as well. The horse club has a lot of competitions that are held throughout the year. The beef and hog clubs have always been very active. In 1966, the first Livestock Auction was held at the Youth Park. The receipts from that auction were $5,530.37. Before that, the 4-H swine were sold at the local sale barn. Today we have goats, sheep, meat chickens, meat rabbits, and dairy feeders, in addition to the beef and hogs sold at the auction. We also sell a gallon of milk from the Dairy Club. There is always some fierce bidding on that! A quick update on the activities planned for this year’s Fair. We are adding a “RibbonCutting” Opening ceremony to Monday night’s schedule. At 6:30 pm, at the stage, the ceremony will take place. Several State and local dignitaries or “Digs” as Mom’s been calling them lately, will be participating in the ceremony. This years Fair is going to be really great so I hope you all will try to come at least one night but every night would be great! That’s it for this month from the East End. a
CENTRALPAFLEA.NET www.thevalleynewspaper.com
35