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County Fair
One of the favorite summer events growing up was heading to the county fair. It’s a place that kids get to show off their 4-H projects, be it an animal they raised or a sweater they knit, or fruit they canned. We’d win ribbons, ride the carnival rides, watch tractor pulls or musical concerts and eat fancy junk food. Grown ups can ride and eat too; I think it’s really a place for kids of all ages.
I have fond memories of excitedly deciding which rides to spend my limited amount of tickets on, and checking out the barns where all the animals were, not to mention perusing the other project displays areas, to see if we won any ribbons that year. Mostly I have memories of lights and colors and sounds and smells.
Well it happens that my tiny little town has the fairgrounds and every year for a week in July we host the county fair. It’s just a couple miles up the road and though I’ve lived here almost 20 years I’ve never been. Somehow it comes and goes and I always think I’ll make it next year.
This year I marked my mental calendar and Friday night after work I headed up the hill to the fair. I got there around 7 and had to park in the far far far away lot, back several farm fields from the fair, but it was a nice walk.
And as I got closer I could hear the sounds of my childhood. Someone was singing, there were monster trucks roaring, hawkers were selling their wares and people were squealing on the rides. Awesome!
I took my camera because I thought that maybe I’d find something for Scott’s photography assignment, or maybe Karma’s August photo scavenger hunt. You never know, and the county fair has endless possibilities. You’ll have to wait to learn how my search for appropriate shots turned out. I do encourage you to visit their blogs and check out the assignments, because this is just so much fun.
I have a feeling I’ll be sharing more stories of the fair in future blogs. Stay tuned. (Remember to click on the photos to make them bigger and easier to see!)
Come on now.
Anyone else out there want to walk into the conference room where Democrats and Republicans are supposedly working on a compromise to fix our deficit problem? If you could get their attention, what would you say? I think a lot of us would tell them to stop posturing, stop drawing lines in the sand and get to work solving the problem.
If I could command their attention for five minutes I’d tell them to settle down. To recognize that most of us regular people have challenging problems at work too. But we go to work every day and we make the tough decisions; we come to the best conclusions given the information we have. We make those decisions, then we move on and begin to solve the next problem. We do it every day, and we don’t even get health insurance for the rest of our lives. Nor salaries anywhere near what they are earning to sit around and talk in circles, insult each other, and vie for television sound bites to make their views heard. Their main purpose seems to be getting reelected – rather than saving the economic health of our country. Which is sort of what got us into this mess in the first place.
Time is ticking people. The talking heads on the TV say that if we default we’ll head into “another recession.” Well, maybe they haven’t noticed that we’re not out of the current recession yet. Not by a long shot. So if we’re heading for another recession on the heels of this one… well… lots more people are going to be unemployed. Lots more homes will be defaulted on. Lots more homeless people will be looking for help from government agencies that won’t be funded.
Sounds bleak doesn’t it. So you people up there in DC, the ones that are supposed to understand all this, the ones we voted for to get us out of the jam we were in, the ones making the salaries, getting the glory, the huge retirement, the health insurance, the pension, you people need to get moving. You need to open your minds and open your hearts and figure out something that will save us all. Because the rest of us out here are watching. And we’re taking names.
Sorry. I’ll get off my soapbox now and return you to the regularly scheduled blog.
Heartland
Those of us with a bit (or a lot) of wanderlust sometimes feel trapped; we ache to get out and explore. We’re envious of those that live in some other, greener, hillier, flatter, wetter, drier place. Sometimes we forget to look around at the place we are, forget to notice the pretty things right here.
I was thinking about that during last weekend’s adventure with Katie.
Thinking about how pretty the farmland is around here – especially this time of year when the corn is just higher than our knees and the wheat is coming in, the fields are being hayed.
This is the heartland of America, a place you can feel comfortable no matter who you are. Where people are just pretty much plain folk.
Not to say there aren’t just plain folks everywhere else. But still, this is a very nice place to be.
Katie visits the river
Katie and I went to her favorite park on Saturday, but the grass was burned brown from days of heat, the air hung heavy with humidity, and the sun beat relentlessly on our heads so we didn’t stay long. I promised her a better adventure the next day. One with shade.
Sunday we went down to Ann Arbor and walked in the Arboretum, a place I had enjoyed while I was in school, a place I still visit from time to time, a place where her grandparents, the ones she never met, have a stone marker. It sits along the Huron River where my Dad used to play when he was a kid. There are lots of trees and walking paths. It’s a perfect place to explore if you’re a sheltie-girl.
It’s about an hour away from home, and she hasn’t been on any long car rides in awhile. But she did very well…only crying after about 45 minutes; so we stopped at a rest stop so she could do her…well…resting. So to speak.
Once we got to the Arboretum parking lot about 15 minutes later she was all excited. She actually hopped up and down, and most of the time we were there she was prancing. I don’t know if dogs know when they’re at a totally new place, but she sure had a good time exploring.
We watched families as they went down the river. You could tell some knew what they were doing.
And some did not.
I took her down near the water, where other dogs had played. I was curious if she’d be interested in getting her feet wet. I’ve seen Diana’s dogs crossing rivers and playing in the ocean. And they’re shelties.
Katie is obviously a “non-water type of sheltie. She was not going to get her feet wet. At all. So I guess my dreams of walking with my dog on the shore of a Great Lake or the ocean and having her frolic in the waves is sort of blown. Doesn’t mean I can’t frolic I guess. It would just be more fun with my dog. Oh well.
We also wandered back into the woods along some paths.
The mosquitoes were a bit much back there though. So even though she wanted to go up this path, and it does go into a really pretty glen deep in a valley, I said ‘not this time baby-girl,’ and we headed back to the car.
She didn’t make a single noise all the way back home. Even when I took a back road in order to get some farm pictures and added more time to our trip. She didn’t exactly fall asleep on the ride home…but her head was sure nodding a lot.
Silly sleepy little girl
Light on leaves
This morning while out with Katie I saw the rising sun glimmer on the dew of a small redbud tree in the yard. If you click on the photos you’ll see the shimmer yourself.
Katie knows what it means when Mama says “Katie – let’s go get the camera” and she trotted right back toward the house. She’s such a good girl.
The tree reminded me of PJ’s blog “Shot in Light” ; I hope she doesn’t mind that I share her blog with all of you. She has beautiful shots of things in the country. Go check it out!
Anyway…here is my “light on leaves” offering to you. Hope you have a mellow Saturday morning.
Heading home!
Want to hear some good news? Husband’s Aunt is headed home tomorrow! She’s been out of her apartment for close to 6 weeks. First in the hospital for a week, then here for a week, then back in the hospital for another week and now 3 weeks in a nursing home doing physical therapy and getting her strength back. She’s a very determined woman, and appears to be stronger than ever. We’re grateful for all the care and physical challenges she’s experienced in the nursing home.
But what an experience a nursing home is, even for me who was only visiting, much less for a competent, sharp and vital woman who just happens to have some issues with her balance and stamina. It’s not a place I’d want anyone to have to live in, yet it was the place that helped her get strong again. I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. She, on the other hand, vows never to go back.
Last Monday I was sitting with her in the lobby watching people come and go, a main source of entertainment for us, when a little lady in a wheelchair rolled over to talk to my Aunt. Seems she lives in the same building that my Aunt lives in, though they didn’t know each other. She had heard Aunt V was headed home, and she stopped by to say goodbye and to talk a bit about life “on the outside.”
She was facing a difficult decision; whether to go back home to her apartment, to stay at the nursing home or go to live with her daughter. She said that the staff told her she could do whatever she wished, though they hadn’t been able to get her walking again. I asked her what she really wanted to do. She wants to go back to her apartment, and you could tell she was feeling sad that Aunt V was going back and she wasn’t sure she ever would.
She said she’d been out of her apartment for over a month and after being in the nursing home for that long she had ‘lost the courage’ she had to live on her own again. She was afraid of going home and living alone, yet she didn’t want to give that independence up either. We talked for quite awhile, and I encouraged her to be brave, but I don’t know what she will ultimately decide to do. I felt sad for her as she wheeled herself back to her room. With a little bit of assistance she might be able to live on her own for awhile longer. Who knows.
I hope when I’m her age I can hang onto my courage and take the risk to do what I really want to do. Heck. Even these days it often takes courage to take a risk and do what you really want to do. I’m giving Aunt V credit for going after something she wanted.
Even at age 95.
Wordless Wednesday
Kids say…
…well you know. If you’re of a certain age you remember Art Linkletter and his show with the kids that say the darnedest things. I think Bill Cosby did something similar.
So if you want to read some of the things one ingenious little boy says…head over to this blog. He’s four years old now and continues to make me smile with things he says.
You’ll smile too.
Change Is Hard 