Sheep Shots

One day, I'll bring all of you along with me, but for the moment, you will have to settle.

This episode is picture heavy.



And speaking of heavy:

This year there were elephant and pony rides.

For $5 (per person), you could get up on the back of an elephant and have a little ride. I have no idea where you would ride, there was serious fencing and cars, trucks and trailers everywhere that a person might ride.


It was five bucks to ride the ponies (around and around a little ring under a tent), too.





That was one sorry looking elephant!

I believe that this is Cora.








The big show in the grandstand this year is The Jonas Brothers who are somewhat local to this area.

The fairgrounds were crawling with preadolescent and adolescent girls in commercial and hand crafted Jonas Brothers tee shirts.

Half of the vendors were hawking Jonas Brothers merchandise --everything from shirts and bags to sunglasses.




Seriously, I guess it's no worse than our obsession with the Beatles. . .

A lot of these girls (note, I don't recall seeing any boys with this particular leaning) were toting posters (some of them huge) that I can only assume they plan to carry into the concert.

Sure am glad I'm not sitting behind any of them!









I don't recall there being this many fascinating cakes in the past.

This was the cake decorating competition. I have it on good authority that there's no actual cake under all that icing.

Styrofoam, likely.

Since much of this competition is for non-professional decorators, I doubt that any of these monstrosities creations will be seen here. But who knows, with a little practice. . .






This one took 3rd place.

The sentiment is nice. (Click and maybe it will get bigger so you can read the text.) The stripes, however are a bit uneven.

Oh, well, the sentiment is nice.







Mr. Frog is kind of cute.

I never knew that frogs had fat toes!

The fair is nothing if not educational.











And speaking of educational, here's a 4H exhibit on where eggs come from.

Fascinating to watch the yolk turn red and a few seconds later, an egg plop out of the chicken's butt!

It took a first, so I have to imagine that it's accurate.

I learned something!





Here's what else I learned:

Things that I have used in my kitchen are antiques--like the Mouli and the tin measuring cup.











and a prom dress circa (nevermind the year) around the era of my own senior prom!

I guess that makes the Other Half and me antiques, too!




And now, what you've all been waiting for! Drumroll, please

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Every single thing I entered took a ribbon! Every one of the 27!

And there were some that I had serious doubts about right up until I arrived at the fairgrounds.

Here's the scorecard:

The knitted doily (the one I gave all of about 2 hours to) the Bear Claw lap robe, the Pi Shawl that I entered as a carriage robe (which was displayed wrong-side out), the 3-piece garter stitch blankie, sweater and In a Flap Cap, the teal dress, the little kid socks, my Adult Surprise

Sweater, little Ellie (the elephant), the Christmas stocking, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus all took 1st place blue ribbons.

The pillow (eyes left), the pink baby sweater and socks, the Grrrr sweater, the cupcake hat, the Penny socks, the lime slice potholder (which was also displayed wrong-side up), and the Snowman pair all got 2nd place red ribbons.

The lopi mittens, the recycled wool shawl and the totebag from hell all took 3rd place white ribbons.

The self-striping mittens, the sweater I made for the Other Half from one of his old sweaters (and had enough yarn left to make the shawl mentioned above), the dishcloth, the triangle Santa ornament, and the Snowman TP cover all placed 4th (yellow ribbons).

Took a 5th for the Santa TP cover (no, they aren't, but they sure could be!) and the Silk Garden striped scarf took a 6th (lime green ribbon).

Were there surprises? Yep. I never expected the Surprise Sweater to place so high. I was disappointed with the 6th place that the scarf won. I really thought it looked better than a couple that placed higher.

That said, no way did I expect the TP holders (tm) to place at all. The tote bag was a royal mess, and I really wasn't sure at all about the yellow baby set--and it took a 1st!


And if my questioning of the judging of the knit and crochet judging isn't sufficient, get a load of what won one of the cake decorating competitions!

Put on your sunglasses and then, eyes left!

I am already planning next year's entries. I will not wait until the week entries are due to finish (and in some cases start) my entries.


Remember, you heard it here!

Labels: fair