The main gate
On Sunday morning I didn’t get up until 6:30AM and someone was having conniptions. I got him fed and then got my post up and cleaned up the kitchen. I got ready to go to the fair for 10AM in case my older brother actually arrived then. He brought his nephew with him.
He did arrive on time and we set off but fortunately hadn’t gotten very far when I remembered I’d put the tickets “in a safe place” and had forgotten them. They were there, for a change, and we made it to the Fair just as the first attraction, Birds of Prey, was starting.
The rain had stopped and it was cool, in the 60’sF and cloudy. Very pleasant for walking around the Fairgrounds.
I’ve known Tom Ricardi for a couple decades. He’s 85 years old this year and still runs the Rehab center for birds of prey. He retired in 2001 after 38 years with the Massachusetts Environmental Police.
He has spent the last 50 years nurturing thousands of injured birds of prey back to health. He was the first person in the U.S. to successfully breed permanently injured bald eagles in captivity and has released dozens of eaglets into the wild.
The birds he uses for the educational talks are not able to be released into the wild due to injuries.
He spends a large amount of time educating children about the birds and about the natural world.
Many of the birds have bonded with him, like this great horned owl or the black vulture in the previous photos.
He has an amazing variety of birds at his aviary but many are not suited to bringing in public. We’ve been up several times to tour the aviary.
After seeing the birds we wandered through the Fish & Game building.
I was delighted to see they had changed up the displays and they were quite good this year. I’d never heard of the Borrow-a-Fishing-Kit program through the town library.
From there we went through the Kiwanis Building. This is where children display their produce and hand work.
Once we’d finished in there, it was time for the exhibition my brother had wanted to see: Axe Women of Maine, an organization of competitive logging sports professionals. Many are world champions in this field. This was a group started back in 2011 and now had 42 women athletes. They come from Canada, US, and 1 is from Peru. They are doctors, lawyers, scientists, law enforcement officers, and veterinarians.
Some of the events are underhand chopping, standing block chopping, two women cross-cut sawing, one woman cross-cut sawing, axe throwing, hot sawing, and log rolling.
They are hoping to get women’s log rolling into the Olympics.
After this event we went to find coffee for my brother and lunch for all of us. A new business had taken over one of the food buildings so we decided to try it out. My brother and I had chicken stew, and the nephew had lazy shepherd’s pie. We all had grapenuts pudding for dessert.
My youngest brother joined us after that and the nephew and I headed over to see what the Interactive Family Fire Activities were. I had always liked the Fireman’s Muster but that’s been discontinued. Turns out it was kids learning about the various fire vehicles so we headed back over to the Fair Museum.
From there we watched a few classes in the cow show and then checked out the sheep. There were a lot more animals this year than last year. Then we headed to the poultry and rabbit barn. But there were no chickens or poultry (probably due to avian flu) and only a dozen rabbits.
But what they had done was collected all kinds of handmade chickens, from water pitchers, to dishes, to paper or metal sculptures to paintings and had 1 in each of the display cages. I forgot to get photos.
After that the nephew and I went on the Ferris wheel. We tried to talk my youngest brother into going on the bumper cars with the nephew but he wouldn’t.
I got lots of views of the fair from the top.
Then we went through the Roundhouse. This is full of produce and hand crafts from adults.
One of my favorite categories is the table setting. There were 3 that were note worthy this year.
I was delighted to see far more entries this year. Last year the Roundhouse was a dismal display, lots of empty areas.
I stopped at the Information Booth and got 2 t-shirts because I really liked the design this year.
The guys decided they wanted to watch the ox pull.
Again I forgot to get photos. The team that won had a calm gentle driver, a real pleasure to watch.
After that, I went and found my favorite onion rings and the guys had an elk burger.
I had sort of wanted to see a trampoline show but it was a long wait for it. We decided to go over to the cemetery where my mom is buried and weed the flowers.
Then we headed to a restaurant in my town for supper. They had prime rib special and I had a Cape Cod Reuben: grilled rye/crispy cod/Swiss/1000 Island/slaw. We all agreed the food was very good.
I got home just after 6:30PM and faced a nearly expired cat. I got him fed and sat down for a while. At bedtime I had to close the house up and pull the shades because the temps were to drop into the mid 40’sF.
On Monday, I will have to wait and see what kind of shape I am in. That was an awful lot of walking and standing I did, not to mention the junk food. The septic guys are coming to pump the tank some time and I sort of hope I can get out and do some gardening. I also have laundry to do. But I will have to see.
