1986 Plainfield Farmers' Fair by Janet DiGiacomo

Living in a small town in northeast Pennsylvania in 1986, did not offer one the opportunity to find the perfect job. Since I had lost my position with Easter Seals of New Jersey, I found myself working a part-time job and time on my hands. It was then I decided to enter some flower arrangements in the 58th annual Plainfield Farmers' Fair.
Plainfield is located between Stockertown and Bangor, Pennsylvania, along Route 191. The fair is a small country fair with the main attraction being the demolition derby and tractor pull. Local farmers and young members of the 4-H Club show their cows, calves, sheep and goats. There is a nightly chicken bar b-q and 25 cednt bingo. The public is invited to enter the different competions such as, floral design, baking, canning, needlecraft, photography, horiticulture, sewing, and arts and crafts, just to name a few.
Since I have had success in the past with entering floral arrangements in the Blue Valley Garden Club Flower Show, I thought I would try to make some extra money by participating in the fair. Two weeks before the fair began, I waited in line with about twenty others, to purchase my entry number, exhibt tags, entry form and fair book. The fair book contained various advertisements, a brief history of the fair, rules and regulations and a listing of all exhibits one might enter. Not bad for two bucks.
Under the floral exhibits department, Section 5 Artistic Arrangements, I found five catagories: Island Paradise, Country Living, Over the Rainbow, See You In September, and Here Comes the Bride. First place paid $12.00, second paid $10, third,$8, fourth,$6, and fifth prize paid $4, plus ribbons. All I had to do was to come up with five arrangement ideas that fit each category.
Some ideas came easy, but it really depends on the containers and props you have on hand. One does not want to spend a lot of money on the making of the arrangements if you want to make money. It can become costly if you have to purchase flowers from a florist, I tried to use what I had growing in my garden. For the Island Paradise class, I used a large white seashell as my containerand filled it with a couple of daisy chrysanthemums, astromeria and seeded eucalyptus, which I thought resembled coral. For the County Living class, I filled an old aqua blue canning jar with a simple bouquet of carnations, daisies and blue thistle. I place it, along with a small canning jar filled with dried red beans, on a slab of black slatef.
For the "See You in September," arrangement I used a black and white composition notebook as a base and taped a yellow #2 lead pencil, a small box of crayons and an apple to it. I then put a line of daisies, red carnations and some purple status in an empty tuna can inside a brown paper lunch bag with the top rolled down.
I used a basket filled with colorful flowers and blue ginghan bow to represent the dress Dorothy wore in the "Wizard of Oz" for the "Over the Rainbow" class. I knew the reference to Dorthy was a stretch, but I couldn't think of anything else. For the final floral entry, "Here Comes the Bride," I made a simple white arrangement using a wedding cake top with two white doves.
Besides the floral arrangements, I decided to enter a vegetable quick bread and an angel food cake special state wide contest. Since I had fresh pumpkin in the freezer, I decided to use that as my main ingredient in my vegetable bread. I used a standard angel food cake recipe that called for 13 egg whites. My only concern was how to decorate it, since 10 points were awarded for appearance which included the icing and decorations.
After dropping off my floral arrangements at the fair grounds, I went home and started baking. I found several recipes for pumpkin bread, so I just picked one and added buttermilk, cloves and brown sugar. After baking the angel food cake, I placed the cake pan upside-down on an empty wine bottle and let it dry over night. The next day I prepared an orange flavored glaze for the cake and decorated it with red, white and blue sprinkles. After dropping both cake and bread entries off at the fair grounds, I went home to clean up from my baking and hoped for the best.
After all that was said and done, it was just a matter of time to see if all of my hard work had paid off. Originally, I had entered the fair to win money, but now I was not so sure if I would win anything. There were a lot of entries besides mine. Then I realized that I had accomplished something more. To think that people had been attending and participating in the Plainfield Farmers'Fair for the past fifty eight years was amazing! Now I was one of them. I also thought about the good people who put the fair on each year, they volunteered their time and effort, these dedicated people of Plainfield Township.
That evening, after the judging had taken place, I found out I had plced 5th for the "Island Paradise" entry, 3rd for "Over the Rainbow," 2nd for "See You in September," and 1st in "Here Comes the Bride." Another big surprised came when I found out I had placed 2nd in with my Angel Food Cake, which paid $40.00 in prize money and 1st place with my pumkin bread, which paid $50.00! All together I won $134.00 at the fair, but the biggest pay off was beigh part of an age old American tradition, the farmers'fair.