eKeehn: A Day at the Fair

We went to the local Goodhue County Fair today and had a great time. The girls wanted to go straight to the rides, but I wanted to go straight for the fair food. We started our outing at the pork producer's building and got delicious pork sandwiches of every kind: riblet, porkburger, and bbq. We rounded the meal out with the absolute king of fried cheese curds from the Dairy producer's tent. They also had 25 cent cups of chocolate milk for the kids. I'll be dreaming about those curds, though.

Next we avoided the ride area by herding the girls through the animal exhibits. We started with the poultry. They had all kinds.

I don't think I've ever seen a chicken with feathery legs before. We've been chicken-sitting this week and muling over all the possiblities of becoming chicken owners and this building gave us lots to think about. There are some very pretty chickens out there. And all sorts of eggs, too.

We also saw really large, really noisy geese. Maggie really didn't want to stand next to their cage, but I made her. They had just hissed at Rob and Beatrice.

The next building had rodents. The girls were really excited to see Guinea Pigs and I couldn't pass up a picture of this little baby white one. Her name was Lu-lu. There were wonderful bunnies and one exceptional Angora Rabbit, too. We also saw a couple of rabbits that were nearly as large a that goose up there! Way too big for rabbits. There were also the little dwarf bunnies and rabbits with fur that looked like velvet. We spent quite a while in the rodent barn.

We spent a few minutes with the cows and the pigs. These guys were lined up just like the sausages they'll one day be. : (

Then we went to my favorite barn, of course. The sheep and goats. These two were cuddling sweetly. You just know that sheep are wonderful animals. We saw one curly haired goat and also a goat that had two sets of horns. But no llamas at the fair this year.

We looked at the other exhibits, too. Rob discovered that there was only one person entering beer in the homebrew competition. Next year he's aiming for the blue ribbon! I also saw some beautiful knitting and some decent photography. We'll be thinking about things we can enter in the fair all year long now that we know what a small showing there will be. Heck, I might even enter one of my marigolds - they seem to be the only thing taking off in my garden this year. We also saw a whole cow skeleton that some boy had put together. Maggie was even more reluctant about standing next to that than she was about the geese. We bought lolly pops from the Watkins vendor and took a starburst from the representative for the Democratic Party.

The children loved the petting barn. (That little boy in the red was the "4-H representative in charge". I didn't realize it at first because he looked like he was about 6 years old and he kept following us around. Then he climbed in with the rabbits and mentioned that they were available for $10 each. I was thankful that M didn't overhear that one. She might just have $10 squirreled away somewhere and she's been talking about a bunny.) You can see here that the girls are as interested in chickens as their parents are.

After the petting zoo we sat for a few minutes of a really lame magic show. Maggie thought it was pretty funny. I thought it was funny that the "lovely" assistant went back stage after the first trick and magically showed up beside the stage smoking a cigarette for the rest of the show. Ah, carnies. After we drug Maggie away from Bob the Magician we took the kids to the bouncy house. They bounced a lot!