Mr. Darcy visits the fair

The one last huzzah we did before Younger Daughter went off to boot camp was to take Mr. Darcy to the fair. A small town about a half-hour's drive from us hosts a little fair every September complete with modest parade, a dozen or so vendor booths (maybe two dozen), a small livestock exhibit, display halls for 4-H and art entries, and (our favorite part) a library book sale.

We all went and took the puppy, knowing full well we would not be able to take him into the exhibit buildings. It was more of an excuse to take an outing as a family, and to socialize the dog by exposing him to a wide variety of stimuli.

As you can imagine, it took no time at all for a wide variety of stimuli to descend on such an adorable animal, to coo and fuss over him. I don't think we got more than ten feet at a time before another stimulus materialized. You'll notice the vast majority of the stimuli, whatever the age, are of the female persuasion.

And that was pretty much all we did at the fair: walk around and let people pet Mr. Darcy.

By the end of it, he was pretty wiped...

...with predictable results when we got home.

There is sound logic behind Don's universal advice for young men who want to meet women: Get a puppy. Clearly it works.

Plum butter in a crock pot

I got a call a few weeks ago from a neighbor. It seems her yellow plum tree was overflowing with plums, and did I want some?

You bet! Younger Daughter and I grabbed baskets and off we went. The plums were abundant and beautiful. Not huge, but very sweet.

I wanted to make plum butter, so after putting aside some of the best for fresh eating, I pitted the rest.

Then I set up the food strainer...

...and started running the fruit through. Took no time at all. The pulp was a lovely golden-yellow.

Don said the waste looked like what comes out of a horse's backside. Vulgar, yes, but I couldn't argue with the accuracy of the description.

The chickens thought the scraps were fabulous.

I put all the pulp into the crock pot (some people call them slow cookers since Crock Pot is a brand name).

I put the setting on "low" and let it sit overnight.

Then came the cleanup. Of course.

I had never made a fruit butter in a crock pot before, but lots of online sources said it's so easy. And they were right. An occasional stirring is all it took.

Before I went to bed, I cracked the lid open for the night to let the steam escape and allow the plum pulp to reduce. The color changed from golden-yellow to a rich purple.

The next morning the butter was thickened, but not quite as much as I wanted, so I let it continue to simmer throughout the day. Then I made my fatal mistake.

Don and I had a rare "date night" and went to the county fair. He suggested I remove the butter from the heat before we left, but I said, "Nah, it'll be fine."

We had a splendid time at the fair...

...where we saw every conceivable foodstuff "deep fried."

Anyway, suffice it to say by the time we got home, the plum butter was burned beyond redemption. Oops.

We didn't get back to the neighbor's plum tree until last Wednesday, by which time 95% of the plums had already been picked, given away, dropped to the ground and squished, or attacked by yellow jackets. We collected the least-mushy fruit we could find. The nice thing about making fruit butter is you can use past-its-prime fruit.

Once more I went through the process of pitting the fruit and running it through the food strainer, then putting the pulp in the crock pot.

Once again I let it simmer overnight, leaving the lid cracked open so steam could release. I let it simmer through the late morning, at which time it seemed thick enough.

It was fairly sweet, but I went ahead and added a quarter-cup of honey and a squirt of vanilla.

Then I filled half-pint jars with the hot butter.

Scalding the lids.

Fruit butter needs to be processed in sterilized jars for ten minutes (jars need to be sterilized whenever anything processes for ten minutes). Since I hate sterilizing jars, I chose to process the butter for 20 minutes to make up for the lack of sterilization.

Fruit butters are a spiffy way to use up mushy fruit and convert it into something delicious rather than consigning it to the compost pile. And using a crock pot means you don't have to babysit the stuff for the looooong time it takes to cook down.

Just don't go to the fair in the meantime.

Playing hooky at the fair

Yesterday, despite the wacky week of work we're experiencing, the girls and I snuck out and played hooky at the Spokane Fair. We've also concluded that Tuesday afternoons are the best time to go to fairs -- all the fun but none of the crowds. Poor Don stayed home and worked.

Saw this handsome spike buck on the way out.

At the fair, we started by touring the "bling" booths in the exhibit halls. What can I say, we have teenage daughters.

We passed a booth promoting atheism (interestingly, it was located three booths down from a Christian booth). "What I don't understand," noted Younger Daughter, "is Christians try to convert atheists because they believe they're saving them. Why are atheists trying to convert Christians?"

We went into a sort of petting zoo that had, besides the usual assortment of goats and sheep, some impressive longhorns, watusi, and other interesting and exotic breeds cattle.

Those watusi horns are not exaggerated in the photo -- they're massive. (I don't know who the little girl is.)

This youngster was having a fit of giggles as a goat reached for him.

In the livestock barn they had a camel. It's interesting to see one of these close up.

Well-adapted feet!

In one of the agricultural exhibit halls, they had tables with puzzles for those who needed to sit for awhile. I thought this was a splendidly thoughtful idea, and in fact the girls worked on this puzzle for a bit when we were tired of walking.

As evening approached, the food vendors got crowded. Fair food is famous for having "deep fried" everything (I seriously regret not photographing the vendor selling, no kidding, deep-fried lasagna), but this booth stopped me in my tracks. Glazed doughnut cheeseburgers? Seriously? (No, we didn't try one so perhaps we missed out on a spectacular taste experience.)

When the sun set, we walked onto the midway, the best time to admire the lights.

We saw crowds of Japanese schoolgirls wandering around the midway in the evening, having the time of their lives. It was fun to watch them experience this typically American event, chattering among themselves in Japanese but practicing their English with vendors and ride attendants with impeccable politeness. (The kids teased me that I took more photos than they did, though.)

I just love midway lights at dusk.

Older Daughter went on some of the rides. Here she's on the "Ali Baba."

That's her, raising her arms.

But much of what we did was just walk around and gawk, at both the lights and the wild rides.

There was one particularly horrifying ride appropriately called the "Freak Out." I say horrifying because I'm scared to death of zero-gravity sensation -- a serious phobia -- so carnival rides are like the "entertainment from hell" for me. I can't even handle a Ferris wheel because it comes down too fast.

This ride would take sixteen passengers and swing them back and forth (as well as rotate them) terribly high.

I don't think there's enough money on the planet to convince me to step foot on this thing. It was fascinating to watch, though, in a train-wreck sort of way.

We left sated with sights and grateful for the break from work.