another fair day

DH got sent home early on thursday due to lack of work. (A bottleneck further up the process that will deliver lots of parts and overtime suddenly in a big clump.) So we took Friday and went to the Clackamas County Fair. This is one of my favorite fairs. Clackamas is a predominantly rural county, so there are lots of 4-H clubs and lots of folks showing their veggies and flowers and critters and handwork. We went first to the women's building which I shouldn't call that anymore, because lots of men are competing now and maybe one year I can get DH to enter his marvelous chocolate cake that he makes from scratch. Anyhow, the photos and quilts and knitting was grand! I'm certainly not gonna compete against those quilts, but my knitting surely stands a And they started poetry competition. I am SO there!

Then we went to the bunny barn. Isn't this just the most adorable bit of fluff you ever saw?

What a darling dwarf!

Some bunnies have looong droopy ears.

And some have the cutest, perkiest ears you ever saw! Some of the bunnies would fit in the palm of your hand, and some would make a whole stew all by themselves. There were only a few angora bunnies. In previous years, some of the bunnies have overheated in the show sheds. This year, many of the competitors have begun bringing a small marble tile for the bunny to sit on, because marble is always cooler than the surrounding air.

Next, we went to the chicken barn. The colors and varieties never cease to astound me.

I don't know who the turkey tom was showing off for, but ain't he purty?

Then we met some nice young ladies taking their llamas for a walk.

This one should have been called Tyra Banks. Pose for the camera, darling. Now a profile. Oh, work it, baby!

The goat barn had more kids than I have ever seen before.

Does this look like a comfortable pregnancy? Bet she has backaches all the time!

Quite the slumber party. There are three kids piled on the hay bale, and two more tucked behind mom next to the feeder.

All three of these does had twins. And everybody was napping as hard as they could.

Laurie makes the world's best soap. I use nothing but her goatsmilk soap on my face, and absolutely must come to the fair every year to stock up. She sets up in the Pioneer village. When I used to work the village as well (with my loom and spinning wheel) she was a kindly godsend to me. (I HATE camping! The whole thing with the pioneer village is that you sleep on site. And DH, who has a real job, wasn't willing to commute and stay with me. I missed him SO MUCH! One night, Laurie found me walking around barefoot in the dark in my nighty. I was sound asleep, trying to find DH. Laurie steered me back to my tent and tucked me in with prayers. I stayed put after that.)

New to the fair this year is a wild animal exhibit. It's a sanctuary program. People get exotic pets because those darling little cubs are so cute, then they grow into 400 lb young lions, and the owners get scared of them. So the poor critters wind up in the sanctuary. Here's a young lion playing with his basketball.

I greatly appreciated the admonititory signs.

Isn't he a handsome boy?

Baby lion was pacing so constantly that I couldn't get a decent shot of him. He wanted to get to the baby tiger sleeping in the next cage.

Snooooozzzzeee

We wandered through all the vendors. DH looked up, attracted by the movement, and said, "There's a shot." He was right!

After the fair, we went home via the Canby ferry. I just love riding the ferry! It's operated by the state, and is a wonderful relic of history.

View up-river from half-way across.
Down river looks pretty much the same except without the flag. It's smooth green water edged by thick green trees and bushes. It was a sort of cool day - up to 78 in the shade by 1 PM, so the jet-skiers and raft rats hadn't made it out yet. W had the whole river to ourselves. Sigh! (Except for the guy in the van ahead of us who had more random tattoos than LA Ink and was accompanied by a little red pomeranian on a pink leash. All during the ride across the river, the guy held the pom in his arms and talked baby talk to him. I found it quite disorienting. If they wanted to fit together, he should have given the pom a mohawk haircut. Lapdog with an attitude.

Here is the falls at Oregon City. the river is really down right now. I have seen it when the river was so high that all the rocks were covered and the falls just looked like a big ripple in the current.

There is a wall to keep you from falling down the cliff at the overlook. I got a kick out of this old gent who clearly didn't give a rip about preventative walls.

All this on a Friday. What does the rest of the weekend have in store for us? I can hardly wait to find out!

PS we had lunch at Five Guys Hamburgers and boy was I pleased. None of that beef-greased cardboard like they flip off at MacDonalds. Real ground beef in their burgers, and real potatoes in their french fries. Have you ever seen one of those french fry slicers where the guy sets the potato on end under the cutting grid, then shoves down the handle and zzziiip, the potato is transformed to a handfull of quarter inch square shafts, skins still clinging to the outside pieces? I swear they have a couple of steroid dazed weightlifters in the back room, hammering away with a dozen of those things. The best french fries I've had in decades! And the burger - oh juicy and falling apart and covered with grilled onions and grilled mushrooms, sliced pickles, and just a crisping of lettuce. (Some places practically hide the burger inside the hand-sized leaf of tired lettuce they slap on the bun.)
I threw caution to the winds, vowed to walk every day next week, and feasted! Woman does not thrive by salads alone. Occasionally, she needs salt, grease, and grilled meat!! I am woman! Hear me nom!