Farm Fair

Barbara Hoddinott stood in the kitchen of her home in Street, slicing peaches into half-inch pieces. Practicing for the 19th annual Peach Pie Contest at the Harford County Farm Fair, she moved through the familiar series of steps: peel the skin, put the pieces in a bowl, add sugar, stir. One thing was not familiar: Her husband, Keith, stood nearby watching. Usually, he's in the contest too, so they must arrange separate kitchen times to keep their creations secret. But the rules say Keith must sit out the 2006 competition because he won last year, leaving him free to wander around the kitchen while Barbara gets serious.

For the 30 years that Bill and Ginny Coats have lived in Bel Air, they said, they were too busy working and never made it to the Harford County Farm Fair. They came from their retirement home in North Carolina last week to attend the 19th annual event in their former hometown. "I want to see pigs, and I love the smell of hay," Ginny Coats said while wandering around the exhibit barn. "I never knew you could win a ribbon for a bale of hay." Exhibitors won ribbons for dried fruit, chocolate cake and a photo of a hummingbird at the farm fair, which runs through today at the Equestrian Center in Bel Air. The four-day event showcases the efforts of hundreds of 4-H members and highlights Harford County's agricultural tradition.

The following are the results of the 2011 Harford County 4-H Livestock Sale held at the Farm Fair on Saturday, July 30. Results are listed by animal category, and include the name of the seller first, the buyer and the price paid. Lambs Andrew Wood, The Borkoski Family, $339; Anne Maxwell, Brothers Berries, $305.10; Josiah Beichler, Brothers Berries, $297; Ashley Beichler, Dr. James and Rose Brayton, $347.10; Alisa Schaedel, Cool Rein Farm, 657.90; Emily Klein, Cows on the Loose, $472; Matthias Beichler, Charles Daughton, $201.60; Emma Stump, Charles Edwards Family, $325.50; Melissa Grimmel, Giant Rock Spring, $816.75; Maggie Holloway, Dr. Andrew and Kim Holloway, $759; Rachel Wakefield, Henry Holloway, $366.30; Taylor Dawson, Family of Robert Hooper, $648; Chelsea Dawson, Family of Robert Hooper, $625; Katie Stump, The Kelly Group, $441; Ned Maxwell, Bryan and Kathy Kelly, $257.50; Cassie Daney, Bryan and Kathy Kelly, $427; Kelly Foulk, Bryan and Kathy Kelly, $424; Emily Klein, Madonna Veterinary Clinic, $304.80; Amos Beichler, MidAtlantic Farm Credit, $297.60; Maddy Fraiji, Nelson Bus Company, $452; Amelia Beichler, Nutramax, $218.40; Maddy Fraiji, Ruff's Chance Farm, $302.40; Margaret Stump, The Mill Bel Air, $479.70; Brooke Rickey, Troyer Farms LLC, $277.20; and Anne Maxwell, Neil and Carol Helfrich, $378.

It's the time of year for folks in Harford County to ask other attractions to moo-ove over for a few days to make time for the annual Farm Fair. The event officially opens Thursday, though there has been plenty of activity so far this week at the Harford County Equestrian Center off Tollgate Road in Bel Air. From the beginning, the event's organizers have sought to keep agriculture as the core attraction of the fair, hence its name, the Harford County Farm Fair, as opposed to just the county fair.

Farm Fair week has arrived in Harford County. Although the 2011 Harford County Farm Fair doesn't officially open until Thursday morning, there is plenty being done in preparation for the event, which runs through Sunday evening at the Harford County Equestrian Center, 608 N. Tollgate Road in Bel Air. This past Sunday, the fair committee held its first ever pre-fair events at the fairgrounds on the Harford County Equestrian Center, a 5K...

The 24th Harford County Farm Fair ended Sunday, but our coverage continues. With more than 380 young people in 4-H exhibiting their animals, the annual livestock sale and popular events like Dock Dogs, pig races, tractor pulls and a first-ever appearance by a Lone Ranger, fair officials said this year's fair had great attendance and elicited plenty of positive comments from those who braved the heat to attend one or more of the four days....

There have been some rumblings in the past two or three years that moving the Harford County Farm Fair from its home since it was re-established nearly quarter of a century ago might become necessary. Certainly, the farm fair is one the more well-attended events in Harford County, with the Fourth of July festivities in Bel Air being one of the few things that's consistently a bigger draw. The farm fair is a big event and has been since it started, and it has been associated since the beginning with the Harford County Equestrian Center on Tollgate Road in Bel Air. Granted, there had been a county fair of sorts previously, but not on the scale of what's evolved at the equestrian center.

Everything that the Equestrian Center in Bel Air needs to transform into the Harford County Farm Fair arrives early this week, well ahead of the opening of the 19th annual event Thursday. And as they have since 1988, Aimee O'Neill and her husband, Jim Torre, will be involved from the prayerful start until the last pig races. The 7 a.m. prayer breakfast starts four days of fair activities. "We have always started with nondenominational prayer," said O'Neill, who has helped organize and volunteered at all 19 fairs.

At 13, Oscar Streaker Jr. learned to use his father's 1923 Rumely Oilpull Tractor to power equipment on the family farm in Howard County.Some 57 years later, he stood proudly beside that same tractor as it noisily ran a belt-driven wheat thresher on the hot and muggy opening day of the fourth annual Fawn Grove Olde Tyme Days.The small-town fair, which started Friday, is a three-day celebration of the old-fashioned kind of farming that 70-year-old Mr. Streaker grew up with. The fair raises money for the volunteer fire company in this rural southern Pennsylvania town, just north of the Harford County border.