Funnel Cakes & Fireballs

Hello and welcome to a post-county-fair Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is July 25th. Next Saturday is already August, but let's not talk about that.

This morning, folks are either sleeping in after a week of adventures at the Roseau County Fair, OR are up and at 'em cleaning up.

From Tuesday to Friday, I worked both a booth and a few 4-H shifts, so got to see the fair from all the angles. From the 4-H side, it looked like project submissions were up, all of which received appreciative oohs and aahs by the onlookers strolling through the rows. A dad lamented that his girl's best-selling chocolate chip cookies only got a first-place ribbon instead of a grand champion. "She sells out every week!" I, myself, a self-proclaimed chocolate chip cookie-baking expert, offered to do my own assessment. I noted the browned edges, recalled my own second-place ribbon experience (because, really, even though the blue ribbon is called first place, we all know grand champion takes the real first place), and suggested she check her cookies at 9 minutes and aim for consistent coloring. I think the dad may have actually scoffed, whereas the daughter nodded and took my feedback well. You know, baker to baker.

The view from the 4-H Dairy Bar consisted of long lines of people stretching from the ordering window to the rock across the way next to the Magnusson Building and held steady from the start of my shift at 6:15pm all the way to 10:19pm when the 4-H youth workers slid the wood panel down and called it a night. Dairy Bar is a fair favorite and this year they brought their A-game with enough mint ice cream for chocolate-mint twists (my favorite) to make it all the way through the week. An A+++ for 4-H planners!

Here's a FAIR HOT TIP for next year's ice-cream goers: Kids get a free ice cream cone if their art is displayed in the Magnusson building. There's a white strip of perforated paper that they take off the art to claim the ice cream. Once they remove this white strip, have the kids hop over to the Secretary's Office to turn it in to get the GREEN coupon for the ice cream. I felt absolutely terrible turning away sweet cherub faces who had patiently waited in that long line only to find out they had the wrong paper. Adults reading this post, let's do our kids a solid in 2027!

From the booth side, I high-fived all the regulars who've been in the Billberg building with me the last three years. Familiar faces always give me a warm-fuzzy feeling. I noticed the political booth moved to a different building, and welcomed the Gideon Bible crew, who were my Lake of the Woods County Fair peeps, back in June. 

Speaking of Lake of the Woods fair booth peeps, I got a surprise text this week from Tracy from Leafguard. She sent a pic of an insanely delicious-looking funnel cake topped with powdered sugar, macerated mixed berries, cheesecake cubes, and vanilla ice cream from Valleyfair. She was on her way to the Wright County Fair the next day to tell people about the amazing design that reimagines gutters and gutter maintenance.

But Dan from Bath Fitters was at the Roseau County Fair. We chatted, catching up on the news since the LOW Fair back in June. I let him know what Tracy was up to. He let me know how business was going (good) and what he thought of Leafguard products. (Also good.) The irony of going to a fair on her day off gave us a good chuckle.

And no fair report would be complete without saying something about the weather - which was actually pretty good. The fair veterans taught me that a serious boother needs 3 things: a good table, a comfy chair, and a decent fan. Those buildings can get pretty sweltering in the summer heat. But this year, temps stayed down and the oscillating breezes provided good cheer to us all throughout the week until Friday, when the fair got obliterated with dowsing rains and hail that shut the place down for a couple of hours. For a hot minute there, the fairgrounds turned into a chain of lakes. We boothers were happy to get some people safely inside to take stock of what we had to share. The fur guy had awesome sales while at my table kids perfected their aim with the soccerbots.

Unfortunately, the much-anticipated demolition derby had to be canceled due to the deluge. Which made some folks pretty cranky. But all's well that ends well, as the skies cleared, the waters receded, and the stands and amusement park fired back up for the final night hurrah.