The rain and gloom stayed away for most of Thursday afternoon, enough for Mike Keil of Johnson Township to take his three-year-old son Kurt for a ride on his 1952 John Deer tractor.
Keil said he appreciates that the fair gives children a peek into life as a farmer. “We grew up on a family farm and I know personally that a lot of kids in town have never seen that side of life firsthand,” he said. “This gives them just a little taste of it.”
The Vanderburgh County Fair, like most local fairs, are very good for that — giving children — young people and adults the chance to experience a lot of new and different things in one place, like working with animals and competing in a wide range of areas like crafting and gardening.
Of course it’s also fun to just check out some old farm tractors.
“I think of these older tractors are special because that's kind of what our country was built on,” said Jeff Ziliak, president of the Vanderburgh County Fair Association. “You know, a lot of people grew up with agriculture and using horses and tractors. And now there's less farmers with bigger tractors that can do more work. But back 30, 40, 50 years ago, there was lots of farmers with smaller tractors. So a lot of farmers like to preserve their heritage by restoring tractors and showing people how things used to be done.”
While Mike Keil is idling his tractor, a chilly competition is about to get underway — the ice cream crank-off.
Teams bring their raw ingredients, their drum-shaped ice cream makers and have an hour to make ice cream for the judges from scratch, on the spot.
Denise Rodgers of Evansville has been competing here for about 25 years and it’s a family event.
“The recipes that we won on, (we’re) not qualified to do that again, if you win on one you have to retire it,” she said. “So we're always trying to come up with new recipes because we have won several times and then the ones that don't win well we don't want to use that again.”
Ziliak said, “you get anything from flavored to good old plain vanilla and the judges determine the winners and then there's also a crowd favorite as well so you can come and taste test them and see what you like can turn in your favorite.”
Everyone begins by getting a big bag of ice from the same ice chest, and they of course start by smashing it into the ground.
Then they feed the ice into the ice cream maker drum, and then the salt and eventually the flavoring itself. Hopefully the flavor wins over the palettes of the judges and the public.
Just across the driveway, Jason Emmons of French Lick Indiana is preparing to put on a live chainsaw demonstration under the banner of Bear Hollow Woodcarvers.
“We put on one hour demonstrations, each carving that I do here, go start to finish one hour, and then all the pieces will then be auctioned off,” he said. “And the proceeds stay right here with the Vanderburgh County Fair, so it becomes a fundraiser for him.”
Naturally he’ll be carving a bear. Twelve will be carved in four days. He starts by getting his piece of wood, which is about four-feet tall, and makes sure it’s stable enough to stay upright by taking off large chunks where needed.
“We'll start out with the bigger saws, and then get down to smaller saws and then some Sanders and Grinders at the end to kind of put the eyeballs in and the finishing touches,” he said.
Emmons luckily was under a tent as it started to rain at about 4:30. Ziliak said the rainy weather hasn’t been good for attendance.
“The wasn't weather hasn't been awesome for our fair, but it's been awesome for the farmers who need the rain for their crops,” he said. “But as far as the turnout, we did have to cancel one event on Tuesday night.”
The Vanderburgh County Fair still has events all day Friday and Saturday including farm tractor pull, comedy illusionist, lots of 4H activities and demolition derby.
Go to VanderburghCountyFair.com for more information.