I had a couple of errands in town that couldn't wait, and since I was going to the town with the (tiny) dinosaur museum that my two youngest children had been asking to visit again, I took them with me.
This is a giant ammonite. The green hand on the display indicates that you can touch it. The touchability of many of the displays is one reason my children like this museum.
Since my washing machine is still in being repaired--there were several machines waiting for repairs already, so I knew this was not going to be a fast turnaround--I took the opportunity to stop at the single laundromat in town to wash three baskets of clothing.
It was a surprisingly nice laundromat for what is admittedly often a kind of sketchy town.
The children were enthralled with the novelty of a laundromat, as they had never been in one before. I hadn't used one in years myself. We only used the washers, though, eschewing the dryers in favor of just bringing everything home wet and hanging it on the line at home.
We went to the grocery store, of course, before coming home, where the son with me was excited to see a kind of spicy Doritos he had tried before and liked. I told him he could buy them himself, and he did.
This is definitely not something I would ever bring home on my own.
We've been at the county fair for the past three days*. I always enter several things in the open class contests at the fair. Basically whatever I find in the garden, plus something baked and something canned. I don't grow or can anything specifically for the fair; I just enter whatever I have.
This year, that was cucumbers, tomatoes, collard greens, mint, parsley, carrots, green tomato chutney, currant jelly, and a Bonnie Butter cake.
I also had the idea for a very large wildflower arrangement that came to me while I was circling the village during my trudgery. I went out the morning the fair started and gathered all the likely-looking plants I found.
The raw materials.
The hot weather had finished off most of the more colorful flowers, so I was limited to white and yellow. Also, the liner in my container kept leaking and I had to keep taking everything out and re-lining the outer container with other things, which meant I rearranged it at least three times.
I was still pretty happy with how it turned out, though.
And it won Grand Champion in the Floriculture division.
One son won Grand Champion in the Arts and Crafts division with this chair he made.
He didn't even use a plan for it, instead just making it up out of his head and some two-by-fours.
Another son did a really cool stone shaping and chiseling project. It turned out very well, although they had some trouble figuring out how to categorize it. I think it ended up in the "carved sculpture" category. And of course, there were Poppy's brownies. Both of those things got first place ribbons, so our family was well-represented at the fair this year.
The last fair event is always the community dance on Saturday night.
All ages, all two-stepping in the livestock pavilion.
There you have it! My life, snapshotted.
* And every time we go to the fairgrounds, I have to put this song on in the car.
