Laura Yuen, Central Kentucky Bureau, Lexington Herald-Leader -- About the Kentucky State Fair

LOUISVILLE -- The Kentucky State Fair might as well be its own planet, or a surreal island where hogs can sprint and cows are blow-dried and spritzed. Country kitsch and secret recipes rule, and there is a wondrous, whimsical feeling that Nothing Else Matters. Scenes from the beginnings of this 11-day Americana fest whirl like a dream. Some excerpts:

SNAKE HUMOR
It's 10 p.m. Thursday, the night before the junior dairy cattle shows. In the cattle barn, about 15 teens and pre-teens are sitting in lawn chairs on one side of a walkway, all in a row, looking bored, and too innocent to be true. A man with a baseball cap saunters down the aisle until one of the boys screams, "Watch out for the snake!"

On the floor is the reptile, slithering. The man sees it and hops as if on hot coals. About 20 yards away, he looks back and realizes that the snake is rubber, with a transparent string connected to Jonathan Scott's fingers. The young people are howling. They keep up the mischief for about four hours.

VACATION AND A FIRE
In the morning darkness, there are no such outbursts. Dana Carl, 13, of Bracken County is slumbering in a cot next to her spotted Holsteins. Her dad is asleep, too. Her big sister, Amy, 17, is nodding off in a chair, trying to keep her eyes open as she makes sure her clean, groomed cows don't soil themselves. The girls' mother, Cary, starts cooking eggs and sausage on a makeshift stove. The family members have been camping in the barn for a couple of days; today is their big show.

About 8 a.m., the father, Phil Carl, is called down to the dairy office for an "immediate phone call." In fact, there are two, he learns. On one line is his uncle. The other, a cousin. The message is the same: Your silo is on fire. Members of their community of Chatham in Bracken County are at the farm, making sure the blaze won't spread, he is told.

"There's nothing I can do," reckons Carl, who has been doing shows since he was a 4-H student in the 1960s. "We'll worry about this and deal with that later."

"This is our vacation," explains his wife. "We don't go anywhere else during the year. This is it."

EGGING ON THE ROOSTERS
David Hillerich is a city boy. The Louisville 9-year-old has never known or held a chicken, except for whatever shows up on his plate.

So his uncle Tom, who raises show chickens, tells David to pick one from its cage to enter in the annual rooster-crowing contest. David picks a little grassy-back Old English game, No. 9 on its leg band. At 2 p.m., eight contestants, including David, are holding the chickens before a judge who orders them to lock the birds in their cages. The top competitor seems to be a brawny, and most likely bellicose, white rooster named General.

But when the 15 minute-contest begins, it's No. 9 who starts crowing. Not a booming cock-a-doodle-doo, but a shrill cackle that goes off again and again.
David's eyes widen as he counts the judge's tick marks on a scrap of pink paper. His fingers grip the railing tighter. "He's going to win!"

Another sight, as interesting as the birds, is the alert faces on the audience members. They could very well be watching a tennis match. With just a few minutes left, General musters his strength: "Cocka-cocka-roooooo!"

The crowd roars in appreciation. But it's too late. No. 9 has 61 calls. "Time's up!" a judge announces.

David is declared a winner. And he's still unaccustomed to roosters.

Posing for a picture, he says, "I hope it doesn't lay an egg on me."

MAKING THE COWS PRETTY
Max Perry, 68, travels around eight states from fair to fair, manicuring cows.

"A cattle groomer," says the 20-year veteran, "is like the lady who gets your hair fixed." He is working on Frosty, an enormous heifer. First, Perry delicately maneuvers the clippers across the coat to show off definition and fullness. He brushes up a line of hair along Frosty's spine, evening out the tips to make a straight line. A blow-dry helps to hold everything in place. A few sweeps of the brush illuminate the coat.

Strands of fresh-cut white hairs are scattered across the black. Perry douses the heifer with a spray paint, which reminds one of the aerosol cover-up for bald men. But somehow, in this luxurious mist, Frosty looks as if she's being pampered with Chanel.

"She's ready."