August 15, 2026

By Simon J. Lau

I have a soft spot for fairs. As a kid, I went to the California State Fair almost every year. My favorite part was always the farm animals.

Since we’re in Santa Rosa this weekend, we happened to stumble onto the Sonoma County Fair. I’d never been to a county fair before, so we decided to give it a try. It’s smaller and more intimate than the State Fair. And by intimate, I mean it’s small enough that you can visit every exhibit. At the State Fair, that’s nearly impossible.

There were plenty of farm animals to see, especially goats and cows. The cows, in particular, were enormous, and watching the handlers feed, clean, and move them around made me realize how physically demanding the job is. Even routine tasks required a lot of work.

However, the animals I really wanted to see were the pigs. Surprisingly, they’ve been hard for me to find. Of the last three years I’ve gone to the State Fair, I’ve only seen them once. It’s possible they’re there during the first week, while I normally don’t visit until the final weekend.

Sadly, I missed the pigs here too. We even walked to the far end of the fairgrounds to visit the “swine barn,” but instead of swine, we found a mostly empty barn with a few pygmy goats scattered around. They were neat, but not nearly as neat as pigs

Maybe next year.