Lightening Online

Every 2 years, the town nearest to where we live almost bursts at the seams as people flood in for an Agricultural Field Days event.

It’s quite a big deal around here and injects quite a few funds into our community. It also requires ENORMOUS amounts of work so it is a busy time within the community.

There are people to accommodate and feed as well as gates to be manned, sites to be manned, cars to be parked, rubbish to be collected (although this is outsourced now) and so the list goes on. Before and after the Field Days there are tents to be erected and then pulled down again.

It can actually be a bit overwhelming if you’re involved in too many community groups and end up on too many rosters.

But for the most part it’s lots of fun.

For many years it was the only week we had mobile phone coverage. Towers were put up for the Field Days and then taken down again afterwards. THAT was very frustrating. These days we have better coverage out here so that’s not quite the issue it used to be.

On Sunday we went for a little tour of the site and Trailer Boy was pointing out all the tractors and other shiny machinery items he intends to buy. LOL. Not sure where he thinks he’ll get the finance from but he can dream.

Here are a couple of photo’s I took of the Field Days site.

Not that they can really do justice to the size of the place.

What would have been even better was if I’d taken a shot of the site before the tents went up. Each year more sheds and things are being built so it’s not quite as dramatic as it used to be. Once upon a time it would go from looking like a paddock to looking like a temporary city in a matter of weeks.

Of course, all you citified people wouldn’t think much of the size of it. But given our town usually houses only 1000 or so people, it’s a significant size. Funnily enough, two years ago the Field Days fell right at the same time as the Census. I’m sure that made for some interesting statistics.

The main purpose of the Field Days is to showcase new innovations in the agricultural industry. They do also have what is referred to as the “general interest” section (kind of the “farmer’s wives” section really ).

There are also cooking demonstrations, fashion parades and talks on various topics such as gardening and finance.

The kids love going to all the various sites and picking up freebies such as pens, rulers, notepads and hats. Although the freebies are getting less and less each time and with the seasons we’ve been having, I suspect they may be even sparser this year.

On Wednesday the local school closes so that all the students can go to the Field Days. We’ll go as a family on Wednesday but for the other two days, Farmboy and I will be pretty much separate. Between our different shift times (for working on various group food stalls etc) and different interests, we probably won’t see much of each other on those two days. Although we do have a lunch put on by our bank on Thursday that we’ll go to together.

It should be a fun, albeit busy, three days.

I’ll try and take some photo’s to bore you with show you later in the week.