Day: August 22, 2017

If it were up to me (it will not ever be, thankfully), I would dedicate the Washington County Fair to the 4-H farm kids, who leave their Facebook pages and smart phones behind for weeks and months at a stretch to keep their fading world alive. It is difficult to even catalog the work involved in bringing a cow or sheep or goat to the county fair, the hours of training, grooming, trimming, leading, brushing, cleaning, hosing and practicing that goes into showing animals here.

Everyone else is mostly a part of commercial America, the fair could no longer survive only as a cow fair, but that is the heart of it, what it is was initially about, and more than anything, I love to go there and watch the kids.

I’m not here to say they are better or worse than any other kids, I don’t do that, that is unfair and judgmental and a disservice to the young. They are great in many different ways, and a gamer online with his team can be as creative and hard-working as any kid in a shower barn at a county fair getting ready to show.

But this world is precious and special and timeless and endangered, and so it is deserving of special attention. These young people are not angels or saints, but they often have character and confidence that is rare. They look you in the eye, shake your hand, ask questions, learn what they can learn.

Their eyes have the glint and gleam of people who know hard work and have the confidence and poise of someone who has dragged a thousand pounds of animal across a ring with their parents and grandparents and neighbors and a thousand strangers watching, and keeping their cool as the cow balks, bolts, lies down, looks away, backs up.

They have been living with their cow, sleeping alongside them, grooming them and leading them for months, now they are all alone, out there with all of it on the line. It is as stirring as any football game or soccer match to me, and a lot more nourishing and exciting than lurking on Facebook or Twitter.

The small family farms do not have long to go, they are all being squeezed to death by corporate farming and government arrogance and incompetence, there is no doubt it is a fading culture. The kids on these farms will  not give it up, they will be at the county fair all night every night, growing and cleaning and hoping, until the very last cow comes home.

I am privileged to take a few photos of them every year, they are heroic to me.

There are a lot of parts to  Ed Gulley, there is no space here to list them all – father, husband, grandfather, dairy farmer, butcher, breeder, artist, tractor repair man, crack shot, animal and dog lover, bovine midwife, collector, hoarder of farm tools, sculptor. He worked all summer making a Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion for the county fair, I think he plans to sell all of them.

Ed is the loving and creative side of the Duck Dynasty.

Only Ed would think of such a thing and have all the parts he needs at his fingertips in his many barns, all stuffed to the gills with industrial farm tools and implements. He has never thrown a single thing away in his life, and he is using many of those parts now.

Ed comes from another time, a self-described dinosaur, one of a kind. I think this is so, I have never known anyone like him.

We keep telling him if his work was in a New York City gallery, he would be rich. We count the Gulleys among our closest friends, and Ed freely credits Maria with inspiring him to make his art and show it to the world.  She is a great admirer of Ed and she spotted the potential of his work right away.

Ed works 15 hours a day on his dairy farm and so does Carol, but he makes time for his art, his creative spark is lit.

I’ve probably urged a 1,000 people by now to start a blog and light their creative spark and show it to the world, I would estimate about a dozen people have actually done it, and Ed is one of them, to his very great success. Check out the Bejosh Farm Journal, and check out Ed and Carol Gulley.

At the county fair, we stopped to see the big draft horses, which Maria loves. She was drawn to the big grey mare with the most soulful eyes. They had a conversation.

The County Fair is only a day old, but the Gulley family are already big winners, one of their Swiss Steers, Silly Sally, won a blue ribbon, and their Wizard Of Oz display – featuring some of Ed’s greatest creations (and his daughter Maggie’s great floral arrangements and painted signs) was already the talk of the fair.

Ed made a new Tin Man, left, a Scarecrow (hidden),  Carol made Dorothy out of a mannequin, and Ed made a Cowardly Lion. Maggie made a dozen hand painted signs quoting from The Wizard Of Oz and some beautiful floral arrangements. In the old days, Ed and Carol used to sleep on the hay alongside the cows, but this year, they’re leaving the grandkids sleeping in a rented trailer a few yards away.

Ed and Carol and some other farmers keep the true spirit spirit of the old agricultural affair alive, the cows are now dwarfed by corn dog and fried dough stands and trinket booths and a huge carnival. But the agricultural heart is still there, and still visible, and still very much worth the trip.

it is always a wonder to me that the fresh and bountiful food the farmers create is almost never shown or sold at the farmer, only fried oreo cookies and sweet corn dipped in melted sugar.

Ed worked incredibly hard to get ready for the fair, it was very important to them. Ed will be showing his sculptures at our Open House in October and on his blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal, now seen all over the United States and in 45 different countries.

Ed is a  brave and creative man. Late in life and with little encouragement, he freed the artist inside struggling to come out and let it out, both in his words and art.  He is selling his farm sculptures, wind chimes and metal flowers all over the country. f you’re anywhere near the Washington County Fair, look for the Gulley’s farm display on the side of Barn 2. You will not regret it.

There are staggering amounts of junk at the Washington County Fair – junk food, junk rides, junk candy, and just plain junk. There is also a lot of good stuff, including the heart of the fair, it’s inspiring agricultural tradition. Every year, I look for the same symbol, a young man or woman dressed in white dragging a cow into a big tent where months, even years of good and hard work will be rewarded, or not.

Lots of success, lots of failure, but one does see what farm and animal work does to young strength and character, these kids usually sleep in tents and trailers alongside their cows for most of the week it is great to go see them. I hate to sound like an old farm, and I don’t mourn the old days, but the Facebook generation does not know what it is meaning.

These kids have so much strength and focus and character, it is always a beautiful thing to see, I’ll go back in a couple of days. We went to see Ed and Carol Gulley’s spectacular barn exhibit, by far the best in show. More later. Tornado and severe storms warnings are up, so I might go dark for awhile. I have a lot of good books to read.