It’s Hub Man’s birthday.
After making cream puffs which he has been teasing me about making for a coon’s age. We went to the county fair.
We began our tour by visiting a pair of pigs entered in the fair by a young relative. Evidently they are famous porkers. They have taken first place in one category, second in another and third in a final competition. “Bacon” and “Sausage” (their real names), looked contented in their pig pen, being sprayed by an overhead mist of water in the stock barn. One of them, I don’t know if it was Bacon or Sausage, nibbled on the skirt of my dress as I leaned over to get a better look at what a prize winning pig looks like. They are odd looking creatures up close and personal like that. They look naked. Vaguely indecent. It’s very strange.
It would have been peaceful evening in the hog barn except for one disgruntled swine who was loudly protesting the fact that his pen mate was standing with his two front feet firmly placed in the feed bucket, chomping away, making sure that the squealing one could not get a bite in edgewise. The din did not cease the whole time we were in there.
I took a few moments to wander through the milk goat area, because I used to have goats of my own. I found the LaManchas finally. That was the breed of goat that I had way back when. Lovely mellow temperaments they have too. Anyway, I was trying to explain to Hub Man, the finer points of what constitutes a well-constructed udder while watching his eyes glaze over. I got my turn at glazed eyes later on when he was explaining the finer points of the turn of the century, gas powered, one lung engines. I know goats. He knows engines. It’s a nice balance all in all.
One cannot write about a trip to the county fair without talking about food. I had a raspberry sno-cone. (They advertised it as shaved ice, but it was just a sno-cone) I was a little surprised when it was handed over that it was a neon shade of blue. It almost looked radioactive. But it was raspberry flavor all right. At least it didn’t give me a blue tongue or anything. Hub man ate a barbecue beef sandwich and then we had kettle corn, which is salted popcorn coated ever so subtlety with sugar. Very addicting stuff. I bought the small bag thank goodness.
We wandered around checking out the exhibits. There was a fairly impressive array of ribbon festooned stuff including such things as tomatoes, green beans, red onions the size of small cantaloupes, jellies, pickles, cakes, cookies, quilts, paintings, photographs, pottery and flower arrangements. It’s my favorite part of county fairs. There was one plate in the baking display with a pair of chocolate frosted brownies that captured my complete attention for some time. It’s a good thing they were behind glass. Else I may have had to sample a bite to make sure that they really did deserve their blue ribbon. ( An unbiased second opinion is always a good thing!)
But now, I’m tired. It’s late. Time for sleep.
I wonder if that pig is still squealing?