For the Fun of It - that time we almost won a pig

at the pender island fall fair.

Time for another storytime. First, let me explain what a fall fair is. It’s similar to a county fair, where there’s livestock and prizes to be had for the best pie. It’s a community event with food and music!

The Pender Island Fall Fair is an annual fair held at the end of summer, it has ribbons and prizes for things like the tiniest zucchini. A lot of towns have them! I visited the Rossland fall fair when I visited last summer. Here are some of my favorite exhibits.

We loved the Pender Island fall fair. We entered a lot when I was a kid, and it was my favorite part of summer. There was a parade (a few decorated cars and the fire engine), and food booths. But the best part was the raffle. Why? Because we could win STUFF. And the stuff changed every year.

How it worked was that you would buy raffle tickets, and they had a box for each prize.

You took one half of the ticket, wrote your phone number (or even just the last four digits, it was a small island!). and you got to pick which box you would put your ticket in.

My very kind and sweet parents would buy each of us a set of tickets, and we could go around and pick what we might want to win. You could increase your odds by putting in more tickets.You could even see how many people had already entered by shaking the box.

They would then call you the next morning if you had won something. We would wait patiently on the phone. We actually did win something most years (it was a small island!).

One year, after we went through the exhibits, we each got our tickets and went to see where we wanted to put them.

That's when we saw that there was a pig.

And before you ask, yes, it was alive. It was a live piglet in the raffle. And I can hear your other question. No, we didn't have a farm. We absolutely should not have a piglet.
But did we take that into consideration? No.

Here's the logic we had. If we won the pig, surely we had to take it and our parents would have to let us keep it. Also, pigs are the smartest animals! It would be JUST like a dog. Remember BABE??? PIG IN THE CITY??

We shook the box- it was pretty empty too. We put every last ticket in the pig box, all three of us.

Then we rejoined our parents. we asked They asked us where we put our tickets.

We smiled.
My dad said oh no did you put them in the pig box
And we said what do you mean oh no it would be really fun to have a pig.
My dad said oh no we cannot have a pig.

My parents discussed in hushed tones. They could probably give it to a farm. We loudly proclaimed that we would not be sending OUR pig to a farm.
So my parents did what any parent would do. They waited til the next morning and prayed that we wouldn't win.

AND LUCKY FOR THEM
there was no call.

We didn’t win the pig. Disaster averted.

My friend and mentor Dan Krall just started a Patreon where he’ll be sharing drawing prompts, and doing work reviews and all sorts of stuff. He’s an amazing teacher (I did a mentorship with him ages ago and he really is such thoughtful and clear teacher). You can also buy his art (original ink drawings from Coraline!!) here!!

I had another craft fair this weekend! Here's my little setup. This fair required you to be self-contained, so it was a great excuse to gather my setup!

Oh, did I mention I was at the weiner dog nationals? So there were many, many cute dogs.

I really recommend them! They’re run by RC Palmer and Co!. Maybe next week I'll write more about my booth setup, what worked and what didn't, in case you're interested in trying your hand at it.

anyway ok love u bye