Journal: Platte County Fair

 

Last Tuesday was a pretty, sunshiny day, with a high of 89°.

I sent a friend my recipe for Farmers’ Almanac Peach Cobbler, then told the following story about that same scrumptious peach cobbler:

The only time it didn’t turn out good was back when I had an oven that had to have the preheat turned off manually – otherwise, the broiler element stayed on.

I forgot to turn it off.

Why do these things always happen when one is making something for a special event?  I was planning to take it to our church’s annual Fourth-of-July picnic, which, back then, we held at our city’s large Pawnee Park.

After the requisite baking time, the timer beeped.

I picked up my oven mitts and opened the oven door.

The top of the cobbler was almost black.  😧

But it was a thin black, as the cobbler had bubbled, and only that top very fine layer was burned.  I tasted the stuff, and it was mmm, gooood.  People like blackened catfish and salmon, right?  People will like blackened peach cobbler.

Wrong.

We brought that big pan of peach cobbler home intact, except for the little piece I had previously removed for a taste test.

(In retrospect, maybe I should’ve taken out an entire piece, in order to convince everyone that someone must’ve thought it looked good.)

I put it into the refrigerator, thinking to fix it... somehow.

When we got ready to eat it the next day, I discovered that the thin layer of blackened crust could be lifted right off without any trouble at all, leaving golden peach cobbler underneath. It didn’t have the slightest vestige of burned flavor, evidently because the bubble effect had lifted the burned part away from the rest of the cobbler and the peaches.

We devoured it with gusto.

“Could you leave the preheat on again next year?” asked Larry after the last mouthful.

(I did not.)

I took some clothes to the dry cleaners.  When I got home, I headed upstairs to my sewing room and began sewing batting together for the Crinoline Ladies quilt.

Hannah sent some pictures from Colorado, where the family is vacationing.  Some pictures looked hazy from smoke from wildfires.  I reciprocated by sending a wildfire map, complete with an Air Quality Alert.

Fortunately, the smoke was not bothering Hannah, as it was some distance away.

Some of the family had gone hiking on Guanella Pass.  Here are Joanna and Levi.

“We usually see a lot of Bighorn Sheep on that Pass,” I remarked.

“We saw...” Hannah paused for effect.  “One.”  😅  “There were also two mule deer and a marmot.”

“😆 Maybe you’ll have to count slower,” I replied, “reminiscent of Pooh and Piglet collecting rocks in a sock with a hole in the toe.”

“I hoped you’d think of that, 😅” laughed Hannah.

Once when we arrived in Grant at the south end of the Pass (the north end starts in Georgetown), several inches of little bitty hailstones had just dumped from the sky, and we thought it had snowed! – never mind the fact that it was August.  The village of Grant is at an elevation of 8,606 feet, after all.  It can snow any ol’ time! – though it is a bit rare in August.  But the sky was gunmetal gray, and it was quite chilly.  So we thought... snow. 

I learned otherwise when we stopped at a small convenience store and I got out and picked up a handful of the white stuff.

It was grainy.

It was tiny hailstones.

Here’s one of my pictures of bighorn sheep on Guanella Pass.  Since there was no traffic, we came to a near stop, the better to watch them.

The herd of sheep then slowed accordingly.  See the lambs?  One of them decided that if his mother was going to lollygag, he would just have lunch, thank you kindly.

The ewe, a little more concerned over our slowly-approaching vehicle than her lamb was, stepped right over his head and kept walking.

“BaaaaaAAAA!!!” protested the baby.  😆

Levi went high up on the mountainside and got this panoramic view.

By 8:00 p.m., the batting was all sewn together, and quilt top, batting, and backing were loaded on the frame.  Let the quilting begin! 

Mañana.  Let the quilting begin – mañana.

I headed for my recliner to work on pictures and to answer emails and posts and messages.  I had barely gotten all sitchee-ated and comfy when —

— the dryer buzzed.

I grumbled (albeit silently, since there wasn’t anybody to hear me)... then got up and took clothes out of the dryer, put the wet clothes in the washer into the dryer, started another load in the washing machine, and went to put away the dry things.  The maid wasn’t going to do it, after all.  😏

Wednesday, it was 81° by 10:30 a.m., on the way up to 90°.  It was sunny in the morning, but it would not stay that way.

I refilled and rehung the bird feeders, put the last load of clothes into the dryer, showered, shined the bathroom back up, played the piano, and made myself a tall mug of Blueberry Crumble cold-brew coffee.

I curled my hair, then went to eat something.  There was bacon in the refrigerator!!  And jumbo eggs!  And Nature’s Own® Perfectly Crafted Multigrain Bread!  Yum.

After breakfast, I washed the dishes, put away the now-dry load of clothes, and headed upstairs to start quilting the Crinoline Ladies quilt.

Catching a glimpse of something bright yellow flashing by the window, I peered out – and spotted an Eastern Yellow Swallowtail fluttering about the tall lavender phlox.

Did you know there are about 17,500 species of butterflies in the world, and around 750 species in the United States?  Amazing, isn’t it!

There were baby Mourning Doves on the back deck that morning.  

The day before, the bigger baby Eurasian Collared Doves had been on the deck.  They were as big as the parents.  The way one tells which are the parents and which is the fledgling is that the fledgling is the one chasing hot on the heels of the parents, dogging their every step, screaming, “Mom!  Mom!  Mom!  Dad!  Dad!  Dad!” and trying to grab seeds right out of the parents’ mouths. 

One youngster got brazen enough to actually peck a parent on the back – “Feed me NOW!  NOW!” – and got himself pecked in return, hard enough to nearly upend him.  He behaved himself after that.

By 4:30 p.m., it was 91°, with a heat index of 101°.  My weather app informed me that it would start raining at any minute, and it might continue raining until 2:00 a.m.  I hoped so, as the leaves on the tall lavender phlox were looking quite wilted.  They were thirsty!

I started out with one pot of tall phlox a friend gave me, some 20 years ago.  I’ve divided and transplanted it time and again, and now have several large stands of it all around the yard.

Right outside my window, there was a robin gulping down chokecherries as fast it possibly could.  Another robin landed nearby, and the first robin chased off the newcomer.  He thinks the entire tree is his!

It was hot upstairs despite a window air conditioner in a small window on the landing being on high.  I should’ve turned it on earlier.  I trotted downstairs and made myself a tall mug of Orange Celsius, and put in as many ice cubes as would fit.  That helped.

Right around that time, I finished the top border, rolled the quilt forward, and was ready to start working on the quilt blocks.

The rainstorm held off for another 2 ½ hours, and then it let loose and let us have it.  It began pouring in earnest right about the time we needed to head out the door, walk to our vehicle, and drive to church.

A friend asked later, “How much rain did you get?”

“We got 1.47 inches,” I told her.  “And all of it fell on me, as I walked from the house to the Mercedes before church!  Or at least it seemed that way.  My umbrella protected my hairdo, sweater top, Bible, and clutch; but my dry-clean-only skirt was wringing wet.”

In fact, it was still wet at 9:40 p.m. when we got home from picking up a grocery order at Walmart.

I wasn’t the only soggy person at church, though; so maybe the man who cleans the church won’t be scratching his head over the damp pew cushion where I was sitting.  😬  Anyway, the tall lavender phlox’s leaves no longer look wilted from being thirsty.

The sky was beautiful and dramatic when we got out of church.  I didn’t have my camera, so I used Larry’s phone to get these pictures.  Photos like this always make me think of the song, ♪ ♫ When His Glory Paints the Sky ♪ ♫.

Levi sent me a video and a couple of pictures of Treasure Falls, where they were hiking.  Below right is a screengrab I took from his video.

Hannah texted, “Joanna and I had fun listening to new birds on a trail to Treasure Waterfall.  I heard a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  Joanna heard a Golden-crowned Kinglet.  She said hers was better.”  😆

I wrote back, “The Birding Wars!”

Thursday was a pretty day.  At 10:30 a.m., it was 76° on the way up to 87°.  It smelled smoky that afternoon, though, when I went to town to pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners.  On the way home, just as I left the city limits, a notification popped up on the dash, telling me that the right rear tire was low.  It’s supposed to have about 38 lbs. of air pressure in it; it only had 26.  It went down... down... down... until it was at only 22 lbs. by the time I finally got home five minutes later.  I spent much of those five minutes glancing down at the air pressure gauge on the dash, hoping, hoping, I’d make it home.

A little after 5:30 p.m., a lady from the Platte County Fair called to tell me that Aaron’s Soaring Eagle quilt had won Grand Champion, and Joanna’s Jardin de Fleurs had won Best of County.  I would later learn that Nathanael’s All Creatures Great & Small quilt won a blue ribbon in its category, too.

I promptly texted Hannah; she conveyed the news to Joanna and Nathanael.  To Aaron I wrote, “Your quilt won Grand Champion at the Platte County Fair!”

He soon replied, “Does this mean I have to sleep in the Quilt Hall of Fame?”  🤣

Meanwhile, out in Colorado, Bobby and Hannah’s vehicle decided to cause trouble – fortunately, right at the top of the very steep driveway to the house they are renting when they returned after a day of exploring.  It’s the same fuel pressure problem they’ve had trouble with before.

Bobby managed to get the car turned around and parked at the top of the drive beside the road, which they hoped wouldn’t be too hazardous.  A truck came for it in the morning and towed it to Durango.  Hopefully, they can get it fixed and have a working vehicle soon, one that will bring them home safely and without troubles.

By the time Larry got home that evening, the tire on the Mercedes was totally flat.  The tread on the rear tires has worn thin, and we need new tires.  It doesn’t feel right on wet roads, as it’s considering whether or not it might not be all sorts of fun to hydroplane.

Friday morning, Larry removed the tire from the vehicle and took it to a tire shop in town.  The man found the hole, patched it, and Larry brought the tire home and put it back on the car.

I then went to our LQS, Sew What, which is owned by Jo, a high-school friend of mine, to see if she might have some purple, lavender, and lilac thread that would work in my Avanté.  Neither of the two quilt shops in town usually carry actual quilting-machine thread, except for maybe a lonesome cone or two of white now and again; but some of Jo’s thread is long-stapled and works fine in my machine.  It’s only on spools, not on the larger cones, though; and it’s kind of pricey.  I didn’t need a whole lot, but I did need several colors.

At the quilt shop, I discovered that Jo now carries cones of Signature (though only in black, white, and charcoal), smallish spools of Superior’s King Tut variegated (I found purples that are perfect), larger spools (though no cones) of variegated YLI (I got some lilac/lavender that matches nicely), and the small spools of Gütermann that I’m pretty sure will work in my machine.  The Gütermann, though not specifically designated for machine quilting, should be fine, since Gütermann is long-stapled.  So I got four not-very-big spools of thread, and they weren’t cheap.

That evening, we went to the Fair.  We went through the animal barns first.

We were looking at all the fancy chickens when I heard a young man beside me telling his little girl, “They’re entering younger chickens every year.”

I turned to see what chickens he was talking about – and discovered a cage with nothing but half a dozen colorful eggs in it. 😆🤣😅

I think my favorite part is seeing the goats and the sheep.  The pigs are fun, too.  Many are obvious pets, all friendly and begging for scratches behind the ears.  This big ol’ piggy was all stretched out on his stomach, feet sticking out behind him, livin’ The Life of Riley.

A young boy scooped up a large bit of ‘that’s-what-happens-in-a-barn’, whirled around to take it out – and nearly put the shovelful right into the face of a bigger boy who was walking down the aisleway.  

The bigger boy yelped and leaped out of the way, nearly ka-bonking into me.  They both paused and looked horrified, but carried on when I laughed.  In fact, they ‘carried on’ so rambunctiously, I have cause to doubt whether that ‘accidentally putting the stuff into the bigger kid’s face’ was actually accidental at all. 😅

They don’t have big enough display areas for quilts at the County Fair, and all the quilts are folded, so no one can see them, really.  It’s too bad.

Even at the State Fair in Grand Island, there’s not enough room for all the quilts, and they must overlap them.

As we were standing there looking at the folded quilts in a glass cabinet (Aaron’s is on the top left; Joanna’s is on the top right), I suddenly had an idea.   

“I should print pictures of my quilts that they can display with them!” I told Larry.  “Then at least people will know what they look like.”

I’ll do that next year.

Lord willing, I should say, I’ll do that next year.

“So, you are planning to do a quilt next year,” commented an elderly friend when I said this to her.  “What do you do with all of those quilts?”

 Ummmm...  ? 

This is a friend with whom I correspond regularly and often, and have done for years.  Maybe instead of being annoyed I should be concerned?

It isn’t as if I don’t talk about quilts!  (Is it?)  🙄

I’d thought it would be fun to get supper at the fair when we were done looking at everything, but people were beginning to throng in by the hordes, and there were such long snaking lines at all the food vendors, it was impossible to tell where those lines ended.  The picnic tables were all crammed full of people, too.

So we headed for our car, finding that the outer grassy area where we had been only the second car to park was now filled with about three dozen cars, in three long rows.

We instead drove to the Speedy Gonzales Mexican food truck a little distance away.  I’ve been wanting to try their food for months, but haven’t been able to convince Larry to stop.  This time, he must’ve been hungry enough (and had smelled enough scrumptious aromas at the fair) that he was willing to stop.  There are a number of Mexican food trucks along Highway 30, but this one gets the most rave reviews online. 

They are not undeserved.  I got a chicken burrito, and Larry got a beef burrito and some quesadillas.  He also asked for coconut water, which he’d gotten at a Mexican restaurant in Kansas when he was there with a work crew.  He really liked it, and has been unable to find it anywhere else. 

“Sure, we have it!” answered the Mexican lady cheerily., in her heavy accent.

Larry was tickled pink – but not for long.

We waited in the Merc while they cooked our food.  As it says online, “It’s not fast food, but it’s not too slow.  It’ll be the best ten minutes you ever spent waiting for food!”

When the little pager beeped and vibrated to let us know our food was done, we headed back to the window to get it.  The lady handed Larry his drink:  a bottle of Coca-Cola.  And not the sugar-free variety he usually gets, either.

But Larry isn’t one to fuss (at least not to the lady at Speedy Gonzales, he isn’t).  Whether or not he fusses to me is another matter. 

He, in fact, tried to get me to drink his pop, and give him the Strawberry-Mango Celsius I had mixed up for myself before leaving home!

Nope, huh-uh, nosiree, not on your life.  You accept the Coca-Cola and agree to have the lady pop the cap off for you, you drink it.

We drove out to Loup Powerhouse Park, which wasn’t too far, to park beside the canal and eat our food.  Mmmmm, the food was scrumptious. 

I was just halfway through with my chicken burrito, enjoying it greatly, when Larry said, “Let’s go get a couple of those new Strawberry Mango Mochi Blizzards from Dairy Queen when we’re done.”

I stared at him, looked down regretfully at my half-eaten yummy chicken burrito, and then took one last bite before rewrapping it.  If I’m going to have a Blizzard, I can NOT eat a giant burrito, even though I always get a small Blizzard.

Ah, well; at least I knew what I’d be having for supper the next night.

Larry rewrapped his, as well, remarking, “I didn’t need those quesadillas!”

“I knew that when you ordered them,” I informed him.  (Of course, he laughed.)

At Dairy Queen, Larry changed his order to a New York Royal Cheesecake Blizzard, while I got the Strawberry Mango Mochi for the first time.  Mmmm, it was good.

We ate them while driving out to Lake North to watch the sun set.  It was a beautiful evening.  

We drove through Lake Babcock Park before turning toward home.  There were birds singing like anything, and I didn’t have my tablet with the Merlin Bird ID app, so we downloaded the app onto Larry’s phone.  (My phone is too old and small and lacking in memory to cope with it.)  The app heard a few birds before they all started going to bed; but the cicadas drowned out most of them.

After pulling into our driveway, we gathered up our paraphernalia and headed for the house.  Larry was carrying the bag with the leftover food.  We barely got into the house before he pulled out the rest of his beef burrito and devoured it. 

“When I picked up the bag, it was still warm, and they’re always better fresh!” he explained, not the least bit sheepish about it.

Saturday afternoon, Victoria sent pictures of Arnold wrapped in the ‘scrap blanket’ she’d crocheted.

She had just finished putting the scalloped edge on it.

Saturday evening, Hannah sent pictures from the Mesa Verde Lookout Point at sunset.  It was beautiful, but “We can see two fires from here,” she wrote.

See the smoke on the right side of the horizon (below right)?

This morning I read that one of the helicopters fighting the fires in Colorado went down in Silver Jack Reservoir.  The pilot, a 56-year-old man from British Columbia, was killed.

We were at that reservoir in 2014.  It’s a beautiful place.  That’s Larry and Victoria by the kayak.

Sunday morning at a quarter ’til eight, it was 68°.  The high would be 88° on that sunny day.  My weather app informed me that lightning had been detected six miles to the north – but I didn’t see a cloud in the sky.

I was sipping Caramel Apple Pie cold-brew coffee as I curled my hair, getting ready for church.  I’d hung the bird feeders out an hour and a half earlier, and now there were four English Sparrows, three House Finches, and ... one squirrel having breakfast out there.

After church last night, we headed back to the Speedy Gonzales Mexican food truck.  I needed me one o’ them thar quesadillas that Larry had let me have just one bite of the day before, and he wanted the three different kinds of tacos (pork, beef, and chicken) that he’d seen on a picture on the side of the food truck.

(Somehow or another, I’m winding up one step behind in this food-sampling spree!)

This time, we took the food home to eat.  It smelled so good, it was making us drool.

As Larry walked back to the Mercedes after collecting the food, he glanced at a picnic table where some people were sitting and eating.  One of them had a bottle of – not coconut drink, but some sort of rice drink. 

Larry told me, “I think that’s the stuff I had in Kansas that time!”

I’ve just hunted for it online.  It’s probably Mexican horchata.  Walmart has something called Fiesta Horchata Aguas Frescas Concentrate, a concentrated rice cinnamon drink.  I’m ordering it, and will surprise Larry with it some evening soon.

The quesadilla was very good; but the chicken burrito I got Friday evening was better.  But now I need to try their tacos!

This morning I got up early in order to go pick up my quilts at the County Fair.  At 7:30 a.m., it was 64° on the way up to 88°, and it would be a bright, sunny day.  There’s nothing but sun and high temperatures in the daily forecast for the next two weeks.  Looks like we’ll be breaking out the new soaker hoses we got in Lincoln a while back to water the flower gardens.

There was a motley crew on the bird feeders I’d hung out at 6:30 a.m.:  a Common Grackle on one, three English Sparrows including a young’n on another, and a... ? ...hmmm... I think it was a female Red-Winged Blackbird on – strangely enough – one of the Nyjer seed feeders.  They usually prefer the black-oil sunflower seeds, and their beaks are a little large for the Nyjer seed feeders; but the feeders I have allow the seed to trickle into bottom trays, so every now and then a bigger bird gives them a try.

I needed to hurry; there was a short window of time – 8:30-10:00 a.m. – to pick up things at Ag Park.  After that, I think they throw everything into the incinerator.  I think.  Well, maybe not.  But that’s what it sounds like on their website!  😅

It’s 8 ½ miles from our house to Ag Park, and, according to Google Maps, takes 14 minutes to get there.  After getting the quilts, their accompanying ribbon rosettes, the bit of cash I was awarded, and the paper I am to fill out in order to enter Joanna’s quilt in the special Best of County division at Nebraska State Fair, I headed for home with nearly an hour to spare.

This afternoon, Dorcas sent me some pictures, writing, “Look who found the new feeder!”

It’s a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird at the feeder we sent her for her birthday.

“I missed the male when he was on it earlier,” said Dorcas.

It’s Bobby’s 46^th birthday today, so I sent him some animated Happy Birthday ecards.  We’ll give him his gift when they get home.

Now, last but not least, we have a cute li’l Orange Peel demonstrating the effects of ‘combing one’s hair with a balloon’.  It’s a thing these days.

So is getting arrested after boasting of one’s crimes on one’s social media pages.

He’s happy though, as you can see.  He feels he’s famous.  Such a giddy feeling.

♫ ♪ Kansas City Star-r-r-rr! ♪ ♫  (even if he is from Des Moines, traveling to Omaha to get hizseff in terbble.)

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!  We return you to your regular programming.

 

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,

P.S.:  Look how they decorated the Exhibit Hall at Ag Park this year!  Quite pretty, we thought, with the black background behind all the little lights, like stars in a midnight sky.

There were a lot of yummy-looking foods made by 4Hers: