![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Maryland State Fair
We went to the fair yesterday and had a great time.
Unlike last year, we weren't lucky enough to see a birth in the birthing center. We did get to see chicks hatching and day-old piglets nursing, and we got to pet a piglet and a chick. Once again, they had a milking booth set up and Alex got to milk a cow for a minute or so. They had a sandbox filled with soybeans and dried corn, and Alex had a lot of fun playing there. While she did that, I browsed the agricultural displays nearby, which included a glossy free book explaining that organic food is worthless and that agribusiness makes our food ever so much cleaner.
/
Michael's company offered discount fair tickets this year, including an all day ride wristband for $15. That turned out to be a fantastic deal. It was great to be able to tell Alex she could ride any ride she wanted, as often as she wanted. They had about ten different little-kid rides that she went on, plus she and Michael rode the 100-foot Ferris wheel.
I had a really delicious softshell crab sandwich for lunch, with a pile of homegrown tomatoes on the side. Alex insisted that for lunch she wanted "chicken on the bone." By which she meant the giant smoked turkey legs. We told her that she wouldn't really eat one. She swore that she would. So finally we bought it for her... and damned if she didn't make an impressive dent in it. She couldn't eat the whole thing, of course - she split it with Michael, and even he couldn't finish it - but she ate a lot for a four-year-old.
This year I got to spend a lot more time in the Home Arts building. I have to say that I wasn't very impressed with most of the baked goods on display. Most of the cookies looked dry, drab, colorless. I'm thinking that next year I may enter my oatmeal raisin cookies. I had thought that you could only enter recipes you developed yourself, but it turns out that as long as you bake from scratch it doesn't matter if you use an established recipe. (And my oatmeal raisin cookies are from a recipe I modified, anyway.)
The fabric arts sections were just beautiful. And I had a nice conversation with a woman in the preserved food section, who told me all about the jelly she made from violet petals.
It was a lovely day. Tiring, but lovely.
Unlike last year, we weren't lucky enough to see a birth in the birthing center. We did get to see chicks hatching and day-old piglets nursing, and we got to pet a piglet and a chick. Once again, they had a milking booth set up and Alex got to milk a cow for a minute or so. They had a sandbox filled with soybeans and dried corn, and Alex had a lot of fun playing there. While she did that, I browsed the agricultural displays nearby, which included a glossy free book explaining that organic food is worthless and that agribusiness makes our food ever so much cleaner.
/Michael's company offered discount fair tickets this year, including an all day ride wristband for $15. That turned out to be a fantastic deal. It was great to be able to tell Alex she could ride any ride she wanted, as often as she wanted. They had about ten different little-kid rides that she went on, plus she and Michael rode the 100-foot Ferris wheel.
I had a really delicious softshell crab sandwich for lunch, with a pile of homegrown tomatoes on the side. Alex insisted that for lunch she wanted "chicken on the bone." By which she meant the giant smoked turkey legs. We told her that she wouldn't really eat one. She swore that she would. So finally we bought it for her... and damned if she didn't make an impressive dent in it. She couldn't eat the whole thing, of course - she split it with Michael, and even he couldn't finish it - but she ate a lot for a four-year-old.
This year I got to spend a lot more time in the Home Arts building. I have to say that I wasn't very impressed with most of the baked goods on display. Most of the cookies looked dry, drab, colorless. I'm thinking that next year I may enter my oatmeal raisin cookies. I had thought that you could only enter recipes you developed yourself, but it turns out that as long as you bake from scratch it doesn't matter if you use an established recipe. (And my oatmeal raisin cookies are from a recipe I modified, anyway.)
The fabric arts sections were just beautiful. And I had a nice conversation with a woman in the preserved food section, who told me all about the jelly she made from violet petals.
It was a lovely day. Tiring, but lovely.
no subject
no subject
no subject