Down On the Farm

Last week, a friend and I took another road trip with Middle Child. We drove an hour away to go berry picking. I've been strawberry and blueberry picking quite a bit over the last five years, but I had never been to a farm that grows blackberries and red raspberries exclusively.

Here are what the rows looked like. The farm owner said that in the fall, he cuts back the bushes and uses the wire device to lay down the plants to prepare for the many feet of snow that they will receive.
 

Middle Child and I picked six quarts of berries. I froze most of them, but have been using some in yogurt and a chocolate raspberry cake. Aren't they beautiful?

Afterwards, we drove another half hour to attend a county fair. It has been 30 years since I've been to a county fair. My husband and I concluded, at that time, that it was the worst date we had ever been on together (partly because of his sister and her boyfriend who were with us). But my friend wanted to try one out and I thought my daughter would also enjoy it, so off we headed to the fair.

For those who've never been, it's a lot of animals and contests and bad odors. Long buildings with stalls containing horses, cows, goats, sheep, rabbits and even guinea pigs. Every size and color imaginable. I think most of the animals were raised by 4H students. It was fun to see the names the kids had given their animals. We read the judges tags and felt bad when we'd see a big, red DQ on the slip for 'Disqualified.' Most were due to the animal being entered in the wrong class, but some were because of a physical defect on the animal, which sort of made us mad!

But is there anything more amusing than these guys?
 

There was a hay bale contest with many creative entries. This was my favorite.

 There were many gardening contests, such as flowers in recycled plastic water bottles and large vegetables on small paper plates like this. Very low tech!

 

The recipe contests were very strange to see . . . bread, cookies, slices of pie, all with one bite taken out.

We sat in on a sheep auction and worried about the kids who seemed to be selling their pets. We watched a blacksmith make something unidentifiable. We witnessed a bizarre contest in the rodeo ring where groups of kids (looked to be about age 11) stood two-by-two and pretended to lead each other around the ring like they were horses, complete with fake tails.

 

As Middle Child told my husband when we got home, "It was quite different!"