La Conner residents win ribbons at county fair

After a vigorous week at the Skagit County fair, two leaders with La Conner roots are taking it easy.

As 4H dairy supervisor for the whole fair, Chelsy Mesman of Mesman Farms helped 18 young people between the ages of nine and 18 prepare and show their cows.

"It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of kids," she said.

Valley Green Acres 4H Horse Club supervisor Lauren Hedlin of Hedlin Family Farms worked with 10 young riders who performed in the horse arena.

All county 4H clubs arrived two days early to set up their barns and bring their washed and groomed animals in. The day before the fair, veterinarians made sure each animal's vaccines were up to date and that none were carrying easily transmittable diseases like ringworm or pink eye. Animals that did not pass the vet check were sent home.

This year, concerns about avian flu were so high that chickens did not even get checked. All of them were told to stay home.

Once the fair opened last Wednesday, Mesman supervised dairy demonstrations and competitions and Hedlin and her fellow leaders "put on a great big horse show," she said.

Young riders competed in obstacle races and to demonstrate their skills and posture in different kinds of saddles. In costume contests, 4H-ers dressed up their horses as dragons and beachgoers or sprinkled them with glitter. Over in the dairy barn, you could see one cow dressed as a fly and swatter and another dressed as a Snapchat filter (whatever that is!).

Behind the scenes, volunteers covered the hundreds of tasks needed to make the horse show run, said Hedlin, a Valley Green Acres 4H member when she was growing up in La Conner. In the arena, some parents "tack checked" to make sure reins were safe and helmets secure. Others set up and took down events or raked the arena between events to make sure it was level and safe for the next set of riders.

Fewer helpers were needed in the dairy barn, but La Conner High School teacher Peter Voorhees volunteered to judge the dairy food demonstrations, in which 4Hers make ice cream, a smoothie, or a similar item using a dairy product. Professional paid judges evaluated the cows. A cow starts with 100 points – what "the ideal cow" would win, says Mesman – and points are subtracted as the various parts of the cow are judged.

"It all adds up to a cow that milks well," said Mesman. "Everybody has their own opinion about it, which makes the show fun and different every time."

For the kids, it's all about the prizes and about qualifying for the State Fair in September. Riding her horse Kiwi, Valley Green Acres 4H member and recent La Conner High School graduate Mia Carlton racked up a number of awards for her equestrian skills and earned a spot on state teams in three different divisions. No 4H dairy participant came from La Conner.

A Wisconsin native and 4Her until she aged out, Mesman met her husband Ben Mesman at the National 4H Dairy Conference in Madison, Wisconsin about 12 years ago. Soon she'll be supervising their son John, a first grader at La Conner Elementary, when he begins showing cows in 3rd grade.

Now that all the sawdust has been swept out of the show barns, Hedlin and Mesman can relax until January, when they will start finding judges, awards and donations and urging club members to commit to the process of showing an animal.

Other La Conner participants in this year's fair were the Rexville Grange, with a display depicting the Tulip Festival, and Clayton Meyer, whose blue ribbon Best of Class Quad Berry Jam included strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and tayberries.

How did the fair feel? Hedlin says 4H participant numbers are down a bit. Whether that's due to COVID-19 or the changing nature of the county is hard to tell.

Once there were so many riders that Valley Green Acres kids split into two fair shifts. One shift showed for the first two days of the fair and then hauled out their horses so that the other half could come in and show. That was not necessary this year.

"Our county is getting less rural over time, and horses are a really big investment these days," she said. "It's more of a commitment that it used to be."

She's still a big fan of 4H animal projects and what they teach young people.

"It's not about cows or horses, it's about learning by doing," she said. "You learn how to be a leader by running a 4H meeting and making presentations, and you learn how be confident, calm and kind while handling a thousand-pound animal by getting out there and trying it."