Brussels Fall Fair unites community under sunny skies

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

Most assuredly, each and every agricultural fair in this great, girthsome nation is special and unique in its own way, but there was just something a little bit extra awesome about the Brussels Fall Fair this year. 

 

Admittedly, Brussels puts on a top notch fall fair every year - it always has a great parade, the homecraft competition is a wild and wide-ranging battle and the livestock show is one of the best around. Brussels also gets bonus points for carrying on with the proud tradition of the mid-week fair, when so many others have capitulated to the whims of the modern age and moved their fair to the weekend. But still, the 2024 edition of the beloved annual event had an additional aura of amusement that made everything even more entertaining than normal. And that aura was emanating straight from the very heart of the fair: its annual theme!

 

For those readers not in the know, every year, the fall fair has a different theme, and this year, Brussels bucked the current trend of choosing an autumnal rhyme (ie - Scarecrows and Pumpkin Rows) as their theme, instead going with the very unexpected “Pork and Beans”. With this single, well-chosen theme, the Brussels Fall Fair enriched its entire experience.

 

The annual parade, which always has a casual community vibe that you just can’t find in your larger parades, was punctuated by children representing the pork portion of the theme by wearing snouts, ears and curly tails. A parade with people dressed like pigs is almost always better than one without, as they say. The pig was also well represented in the homecraft competition. There were cardboard pigs, cake pigs, knit pigs - just a plethora of pig crafts. Beans, of course, have always been a fall fair staple, but beans are generally less amusing than their porcine counterparts.

 

While the 4-H livestock show was the one part of the fair that didn’t go whole hog, it did have some talented young people showing off some beautiful cows and sheep. Newly-crowned Brussels Fall Fair Ambassador Emily Biemen won over judges and the public with both her public speaking prowess and her sheep-showing skills, winning two of the sheep categories. She attributed her impressive performance to her family, her community and her involvement with 4-H. “4-H allows me to learn to do by doing. It’s allowed me to gain a lot of new skills that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve,” she explained. It looks like the agricultural interests of Brussels are in good hands again this year.

 

The peameal bacon sandwiches on offer for lunch were both theme-appropriate and delicious.