MISQUAH — The county fair is three weeks out, entries close August 1, and the machinery of the thing has begun to turn: calves are being washed, jams are being pre-judged in kitchens by the only critics who matter to their makers, and out behind two houses on opposite sides of Loon Lake, two giant pumpkins are being tended by two families who are, as is traditional at this time of year, not speaking.

Entry books are available at the fair office, two dollars an open-class entry, all categories, ribbons as merited. The 4-H barns are the heart of it, and the barns are filling early this year — record enrollment in the beef and swine, a strong showing in poultry, and the usual crowd of small children walking large animals in slow, patient circles, learning the oldest lesson the fair teaches, which is that you cannot rush a cow.

The giant-pumpkin competition, which occupies a tent of its own and a place in the town’s heart out of all proportion to its size, has resumed its rivalry ahead of schedule — this year on the letters page of this very newspaper, where a member of the Aakre family took the opportunity to remind a member of the Bjornstad family of last August’s result. For those who need reminding: the Aakre entry took the blue at 611 pounds, beating the Bjornstad pumpkin by nine, a margin the Bjornstads appealed on the grounds that the scale “read heavy for some people.” The appeal was denied. The scale has since, at everybody’s request, been recertified. The families have not since, at anybody’s request, reconciled.

The weigh-in is the fair’s closing act, the final Saturday at 10 a.m., on the recertified scale, and it draws a crowd that comes for the spectacle and stays for the tension. This newspaper takes no side, notes that both families grow a remarkable pumpkin, and observes only that a rivalry this durable is, in its way, a kind of civic treasure, and cheaper to maintain than most.

Quilts, canning, baked goods, produce, photography, and the open-class categories round out the entries, and the fair board reminds everyone that the scale used for the pumpkins is not the scale used for anything else, a clarification it has been asked to make, and has made, and would prefer not to make again.