County Fair

Yesterday I took my 2 dozen cookies in a decorated box and entered them in the "Contain Your Cookies" contest at the county fair.  Since it's a people's choice contest, I won't know how I did till next Monday.  No worries.  It was fun to enter. The theme was "Fair sights, Midway lights and rodeo nights."  Someone built a two-foot tall ferris wheel with a kid's construction set, with cookies on every seat.  The base of the wheel was set between Leggo construction barns and corrals with horses, piggies, sheep, and a couple of cowboys.  The cookies were works of art, too.  The competition was extreme.

In the knitting department, though, the contest was much easier.  I got a red ribbon for my goldfish hat (second place), a white ribbon for my sweater entry(third place), and a yellow ribbon (5th place) for a scarf.  Blue ribbon in scarves went to a cobweb weight lace confection that probably took three months to produce.  It was awesome!  I think I'll start a competition basket to stash finished projects that turn out nicely.

Yesterday was Kid's Day.  Kids got in  free.  I almost didn't make the deadline for submitting my cookies because I had to wait at the entrance to the parking lot while the Learning Tree day care decanted about 30 kids who had to be corralled and walked safely across the street, followed immediately by the YMCA Summer Day Camp with about fifty kids.  Small crazy people in red t-shirts and yellow t-shirts swarmed all over the place.  Swear to DOG, I will never be a day care worker! The whole fair was hip-deep in kids, and the poor farm critters were all cowering in the far corners of their pens. There's a limit to how much sticky-fingered poking even a hog is willing to endure.

I wandered around and enjoyed all the sights and took no photos because the best shots were too fleeting.  The 4H Goat peeing nonchalantly on the judge's shoe.  The tall, handsome young cowboy(maybe 16) in snug, beat up jeans and a tank top, straw hat set square on his head, carrying a bunny cage for a much younger boy, smiling down at the excited little guy who was telling him all about the judging.  The Rodeo princesses in their crowns and sashes, shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops, sharing a sundae in the shade of the Dairy Wives booth.  It was a warm day.  Those dairy wives were selling cool treats as fast as they could scoop them out and take the money.

And then there were the baby pygmy goats, about the size of chihuahuas and so cute and frisky that you could hardly stand it! They were playing king of the hay-bale and the crowd around them was so thick that I had to stand on tiptoe to get a glimpse.  It's not often that you get a clot of people in the goat barn going, "Awwww!"  I'm surprised some hollywood starlet doesn't keep a baby pygmy goat as a pet.  Totes adorbs!

I stopped at the Pioneer Village, bought my annual supply of Laurelstone soap, (handmade, and the only soap I have used on my face for 20 years.) And my annual indulgence of kettle corn.  I strolled through the art displays. (Our county has a gifted young welder doing astoundingly beautiful sculpture)
and through the kitchen cupboard competition.  People go to an astounding amount of trouble to make their entries pretty.  Pickled asparagus spears all exactly the same size lined up inside the jar alternating stem up, top up, perfectly green and beautiful.  Pickled beets sliced into identically sized coins and layered into the jar in pretty spirals.  Green beans - how many green beans do you have to go through to get a jar full of beans that are all exactly the same size?  I ain't entering any canning or pickling contests.  I don't have the eye for persnickety detail.