“Animals and food in abundance at Evergreen State Fair”

Animals and food in abundance at Evergreen State Fair

Posted: 06 Sep 2010 12:07 AM PDT

Today is the final day to attend -- it's all over at 7 p.m.

MONROE -- "Take your sunglasses off the pig," Grace Spear yelled across the swine barn Sunday afternoon.

Her younger sister, Katie Spear, was sitting down across from Grumpy, a 220-pound, 6-month-old pig. Grumpy is one of six pigs the Arlington sisters brought to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe.

Katie Spear, 16, had gotten in the pen with three of the swine. She propped her flashy sunglasses on Grumpy's face and snapped off a few photographs with her cell phone.

"Sometimes I get bored," the Arlington High School junior said.

Today marks the last day of the annual farm-animal, fried-food, family-fun extravaganza. Doors open at 10 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.

It might not be a bad idea to pack an umbrella. The last day of the county fair is expected to be a rainy one.

Hundreds of hard-working young people and their families spent two weeks showing off their prized pets and impressing judges with their baking, sewing, photography and robot-making skills.

Stephanie Oare, 16, and her family have been at the fair since it opened Aug. 26. She's part of Dogs, Friends and More, a 4-H club. She has been showing her 7-year-old chocolate Labrador, Sparky.

Sparky doesn't seem to mind the fair, the Jackson High School student said Sunday.

"She really likes people. She just waits for people to pet her. I think she enjoys it," Oare said.

Oare said she likes meeting the people who stop by to pet the dogs. She answers all sorts of questions and hears a lot of stories about other people's dogs.

The Spears don't belong to a 4-H group but they've been showing pigs for years.

"I come here to have fun with other farmers," Katie Spear said.

But it's not all pigs in sunglasses.

There's a lot of hard work that goes into preparing the animals for judging.

"They get more baths than I do practically. It's like a beauty pageant," Teresa Jonasson said Sunday.

She and her husband own J&J Livestock in Concrete. They brought five Hereford cows to the fair. They enjoy supporting the young people involved in 4-H and let some of them show their cows.

"Number one thing it teaches them responsibility," she said. "They learn people and cow skills."

The livestock aren't the only ones who put in long hours during the fair.

Thousands of people flock to the food booths for their fair favorites such as giant turkey legs and gooey caramel apples.

It takes a lot of work to feed everyone.

Volunteers with the Lions service clubs from around the county shuck nearly 10,000 ears of corn, said Karen Fern, of the Granite Falls club.

Ken Zugner and his crew at the three Fisher scone booths will have made more than 100,000 scones by the end of today.

They'll only get a short rest before they head to the Puyallup Fair where they usually sell more than a million scones.

"We're jamming," he said Sunday.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.

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