Our day:
A Fair just isn’t a Fair without the animals As much as I love Fair Food, I would have to say that wandering around looking at the animals is a very close second best thing about the Fair. Today we enjoyed the rabbits and chickens and cows and sheep. As we were looking at some recently shorn sheep, I realized that from a distance I would be hard-pressed to be able to distinguish some sheep from goats. I really should have spent more time with my Fisher Price “See and Say” as a kid. I was pleased to see a whole crop of unusual chickens this year, varieties I had never seen before. I think my favorite was one that looked like a pigeon ready to go to his prom in 1977. LOVE the ruffles!
Bee people are very enthusiastic about their work We decided to take a quick peek into the Bee Barn and were delighted to bump into the Honey Queen. Crown and tiara in place, she was a wealth of information about bees and honey and wax and pollen and “royal milk.” She pointed out the Queen Bee to us and gave us some honey candy. I liked her. We then noticed a guy in a beekeeper suit was outside in a cage so we excused ourselves to listen to a rather nervous young man struggle to explain all that he knows about hives. I just hope under that suit he wasn't covered in them (hives, I mean). He seemed very comfortable around the bees; it was the audience that seemed to make him want to run away with his arms flailing. I felt bad for him but I did appreciate…sort of…learning two key pieces of bee info: 1) Swatting at bees aggravates them. Instead, it is better to blow at a bee since bees really don’t like our breath…Onionaire burger or not; and 2) Honey is really just bee puke. And that is a direct quote.
Finally, a use for my old prescription bottles! It was probably just a way to entertain the 4-H kids between official judging competitions, but we quite enjoyed watching the “Goat Pop Bottle Milking Contest.” All the 4-H goaters were divided into “experienced milkers” and "non-milkers.” They then competed as teams to see who could be the first to overfill a large jar with fresh goat milk. The catch was that the non-milkers got to milk into a Pepsi bottle (then pouring the milk into the large jar) whereas the experienced milkers had to milk into an empty prescription bottle. This meant that the experienced milkers could only get a few squirts out before their milking container was full and they had to run back to their large jar to empty it. Although it was somewhat of a slow process in the beginning, the end was to the last drop with the non-milkers just barely beating the veterans. The prize? Rice Krispy treats. Gotta love kids!
4-H presentations are fun! We wandered into the Cat Barn to find out what “4-H Cat Demonstrations” are. I was sort of hoping for impersonations or perhaps a show-and-tell involving cat nip. Instead, we sat in on a very informative PowerPoint presentation by teen twin sisters about “Little Known Cats.” They discussed perhaps 15 different varieties of felines in the wild, most of which I had never heard of. The PowerPoint consisted entirely of photographs, no text. Very impressively, the sisters had memorized their entire presentation word-for-word. It was probably 20 minutes long and was very well-written and well-spoken. I am a bit fearful, though, that we threw them off a bit by being in the audience. I suspect we were the only non-parents there.
I won’t make that mistake again OK, so I might need to fess up a bit here and admit that my tummy has been in something of a rebellion the past two days. It is clear I have shocked it with my head-first dive into grease and sugar and things made with lard. So I thought perhaps I would ease back a bit for my first feeding today and elected to have a “Beef Eater” salad from the new “mostly healthy stuff” food vendor. It was something I certainly would have ordered a week ago, as well as a week from now. It was fresh greens with lean steak slices, gorgonzola crumbles, marinated onions, and dressed with a light balsamic vinaigrette. So I munched on it while Zeke enjoyed his deep fried Cap’n Crunch on a stick (hey, it was breakfast so it made sense). And you know, it didn’t taste right. The healthy choice, I mean. Surrounded by the sight and smells of fat-laden, greasy, sugary, calorie-packed goodness, my salad was an unwelcomed interloper, lost and confused and awkward and embarrassed. So I finished most of it and then got back with the program. The pudding was chocolate.
Today's Food Parade! A little bit of a shaky start and I really should have gotten something to go for dinner. I love that I am still on a learning curve with this odd little hobby!
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| The misguided salad |
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| Deep fried chocolate pudding. A bit of a disaster to eat but it was basically like a pudding-filled donut with a better pudding-to-donut ratio. Mmmm! Definitely would have again. |
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| Yay -- I remembered the corn!! |
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| Vicodin and a full-strength Pepsi. I forgot how sweet the real stuff can be. |
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| "Yes, yes, I do believe this is the very best piece of pie I have ever had." Mixed berry pie (blackberry, raspberry, and marionberry) from the church ladies. Oh. My. |
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| The goat-milking Red Rope ended up being dinner. And now I'm home and hungry again. Darned salad. |
2 comments:
I love the Little Lost Salad --- I think it'd make a great children's book. Something with a nice message like "eat healthy so you can really enjoy treats"
The Little Lost Salad -- how cute! And yes, that IS my general approach to this: make good decisions most of the time so the occasionally bad ones are extra-special. :-)
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