EVERGREEN FAIR PART 2

Evergreen Fair has a sizable horse community. And, cattle, too, both meat and dairy. Just peeking into this barn, from her costume, it looked like a girl dressed for English riding.


A barn had different types of horses, what I'd have to call "normal" sized. This young girl is a barrel racer. She calls it gaming. At our fair we have pony express and barrel racing among other speed riding feats.


A board full of ribbons for a pretty palomino. Her door is open so people can pet her horse and ask questions.


Then we saw a quarter horse. Ah. A familiar since my daughter Virginia took her quarter horse to the fair.

She took a first place in the "novice" category, her first year with her horse, Reno.

Both my girls had horse projects in 4-H. Kristanne, at age 10 wanted to join the horse project. We lived in a city and didn't own a horse. The leader said she couldn't take that unit without a horse. Her reply:  "Does that boy own his own tractor?"  They were speechless for a moment or two, and conceded that she should be allowed to join the horse project. She learned a lot and got to ride other kids horses.


The next barn we visited had sheep and goats. Black faced beauties sheared before the fair. Their wool is measured.

This sheep is a wool and meat animal.


Angora goats are allowed to keep their horns. The oils stay in the coat and are judged before being sheared.


Angora goats produce mohair. Only a few pens of sheep and goats at Evergreen. This is cattle and horse country.


The old fashioned spinning wheel is put to work, turning the mohair into yarn.


I finally found the dairy goats. Again, not many represented. Nubians are by far the most popular dairy goat. Their milk is very rich and plentiful. Virginia raised dairy goats in her 4-H project and two hogs as well. Dairy goats are a lot of work, but rewarding.


Another nubian in colors I hadn't seen before. Kids love their goats and sleep in the pens with them before they give birth or whenever they want to rest.


This is an alpine goat.


A la mancha goat has funny little ears. They are small goats, good keepers and absolute escape artists. At the fair, people would ask, "How come you cut off their ears?" Virginia had one and was glad to see her go. Her 4-h project had toggenbergs as well, but I didn't see any at this fair.


After the goats, we went to the cattle barns. In the arena they were judging heifers.


They are young and can be ornery and difficult to handle. This girl had to drag her animal into line.


We saw some beautiful dairy cows.


This girl was outside of the judging area and looking angrilly toward the arena. Her dairy cow may have been disqualified, or she was simply unhappy with the beast. But, to me, she was a beautiful specimen. I only mention it because the kids who raise animals for the fair have a serious regimen and rules to follow. It is great training, hard work and discipline.


Enough animals for a day. We stopped in the horticulture exhibit and saw plenty. But, here are 3 different tuberous begonias, one of my favorite flowers.


Drop dead beautiful color.


A begonia with prettier leaves than blossoms, which are bitty little flowers on a thin stem. We will visit rabbits and chickens, pigeons and ducks, tomorrow. Can you tell I love a fair? Something for everyone.

MONROE FAIR PARADE.

We were on our way to the Library and couldn't get there. We ran into the Monroe Fair Parade, a traditional event held every year at the start of the County Fair.

We were paraded by the Aloha Ladies and their beautiful horses.

A few floats; this one advertising their upcoming Octoberfest.

Various community groups, martial arts...

...a dance group. They were stopped in front of us for awhile and I noticed all the pretty hair-does.  It reminded me of our exchange student from Indonesia who had kinky black hair. We sat in the back row of a church and she pointed out the many colors of hair to me and then became concerned she would be the only student in school with black hair.

I believe the braids are called French braids. I know I envied them on my best friend in grammar school who wore her hair like this. My mom, who is French, could not do french braids.

Politicos were parading, of course we don't vote here. Carolyn let her dog help out.

What's a parade without some neat old cars?

The Harley Club paraded with their hogs.

And various princesses representing their club or group, all unfamiliar to us.

I admire her courage to walk a parade in shoes like these. Only the young.

A marcher gave me a piece of candy and this little girl wanted it. I gave it to her, but what she really wanted was to be able to GIVE a piece to Jim. I guess she thought he was being cheated. Then she hugged him and I got her to pose for a picture.

She turned out to be a real ham and I probably took a dozen pictures of her. That unbridled laugh just makes me smile.

The sun was harsh and overhead for most of the parade. But this group of horsemen were behind us and we caught them catching up to the front.
I noticed the strap of his sombrero held near his mouth.

I'm curious to know why that position instead of under the chin?

Magnificent horses make this parade special. Don't know the breeds by sight, but look at that mane and tail.
This troup danced their horses. You can see the maneuver as the horse is trained to side step and cross a front leg over the other. I've been part of organizing a parade and I was impressed how they do it here. And the cost of insurance to allow horses in a parade is astronomical.

Music provided by a flatbed of singing musicians. I know horses love music. At least, my daughter's horse did. He'd just get silly when someone parked in our pasture and turned on the radio.

Apparently, there is a race track nearby. I noticed that the race cars don't drive the parade. Each one had a black truck with a padded pusher to get them through the parade. Jim told me high performance engines cannot drive and idle at low speeds.

I counted 12 tractors in the parade...
...and one banana.

HELPED BY HOG POOP.

Being a committed greenie, I rarely eat pork. Not because I don’t like it, but because of the disgusting way it is raised on huge  hog farms. Shoot,  cities build sewage  treatment plants for human waste, but the hog farmer’s animal wastes pollute rivers and  spoil (collectively) thousands of acres of  land. Disastrous messes are cleaned up by you and me, babe, our taxes. How fair is that? Without a strong pork lobby, and our weak willed congress, government could and should  require they build treatment plants.
Tatah!! The answer is at hand and it is  wonderful.
Thankfully, farmer Loyd Bryant, fromYadkinville, North Carolina has come up with a solution. Mr. Bryant used to be the guy who pumped the poop, now Mr. Bryant is the guy who runs a power plant.
Mr. Bryant built a power plant with off the shelf parts on a 154 acre farm. The power plant, that is actually more like a waste processing plant, uses bacteria to digest the poop and then the plant burns the methane to make electricity. Additionally, Mr. Bryant’s plant converts the ammonia into forms of nitrogen that can be used as a fertilizer.
The project cost $1.2 million to build with financing secured from both Google and Duke University. Duke University claims that Mr. Bryant’s system is one of the cleanest in existence, and it solves all of the environmental problems associated with animal waste (namely, methane, ammonia, and disposal of said waste.)
In the three way partnership everyone wins. Mr. Bryant saves money on electricity and gets a cleaner farming environment. The 65-kilowatt turbine generates enough electricity to power the plant system and five of Bryant’s nine hog barns. Meanwhile, Google and Duke earn carbon offset credits.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the number of waste to energy systems in the U.S. grows every year – last year 162 systems on U.S. farms were in action using poop as a renewable source of energy. Such systems are also being touted as a way to dispose of human sewage in developing areas like Africa, providing power for an ever-growing population that lacks proper infrastructure.
The EPA estimates that if 8,200 eligible dairy and hog farms nationwide used systems like Mr. Bryant’s these farms could generate enough electricity to power 980,000 homes for one year. The EPA predicts that this would create the equivalent of removing 6.7 million cars from America’s roads by reducing methane emissions and avoiding power plant carbon dioxide emissions.
(Source: sfgate.com)

The picture accompanying the article  shows this darling free ranging mother and baby. But, I still won’t be eating pork regularly, even though the news is good. Those hog farms do not have free range hogs. They are tightly cooped, grown and slaughtered in an ugly, despicable way. Raising meat in general is a  reprehensible if efficient practice. I’m still struggling with the ethics of eating meat at all and I attempt to eat less and less of it,  including avoiding beef. In a world of burgeoning population and a country of poor land use practices, someday, we will be forced to change.  But, those times when I do cave in and eat pork, I can feel a smidge less guilty.

SUPER BOWL VEGAS STYLE, (OR THE DANGER OF PIZZA & BEER

If you are betting the game in Vegas, there are 700 ways to do it. Its hard to imagine betting on the toss of the coin, what player will or will not run 30 yards on his first pass. Who will or will not complete a pass, and so on and on and on. My son, Ken,  had his betting receipts taped to the bar and as the game proceeded, he would say, "Ah, I just won $11 on that." Then,  "That play cost me $26 bucks," and so on through the game. Egads, Murgatroyd! He considers it a fun way to win or lose money. In my book there is no fun way to lose money. He and Laurie are Steeler fans, but, being a Yooper, I have always liked the independent Green Bay Packers. (I didn't cheer too much because I didn't want to be banished to the garage before the food was served.)


My daughter-in-law, Laurie makes great pizza from scratch.

I had to admire her pizza making ability because its nothing I'd try at home. But, with two teenage boys, I can understand why she developed that skill.

She also makes it look easy.

She invested in the pizza stones a long time ago. They do help the pizza cook properly.

And daughter Kristanne's son, Austin, practiced his tai kwon do with Laurie while it cooked.  He just signed up for a class this month. Austin spent the day with mom learning to paint at their new apartment and was very proud of himself.

The results were yummy. She made four different pizzas and it took just minutes to demolish them.

The snacks and beer were good too. Ken is a brewer and his new batch will be bottled this week and then left to ripen for three more weeks in the bottle. Maybe we'll get to taste when its bottled! But I have to warn you about pizza and beer.
My youngest daughter once raised hogs for 4-H. When it was time to butcher, the butcher couldn't round up the hogs. They avoided his truck. They were free range hogs without a pen. He asked me if I had some pizza and beer. I did. I warmed the pizza and poured the beer in a flat pot and they smelled and rushed to their fate. See what I mean?