I Do Love A Fair....

We took a coupla years off, but we finally made it back to a country fair. I consider the fair (and by the fair, I do mean...whatever fair I can get myself to in short order!) to be a quintessential part of summer. It doesn't feel like we can let the golden days go and feel that we've really had September without a night on the midway, a twirl on the ferris wheel and a good long stroll through the exhibit barns.

I love the fair because it seems like such a tall order seasonal tribute, everybody's best produce arrayed in proud rows, pies brimming with fruit, and all the livestock fed to the gills and curried within an inch of their lives. The best of the summer, yea the year...all arranged in rows and barns and heaps for our vicarious, positive group think enjoyment. Makes me very happy.

Then there's the bit about how it is a celebration of many of the ideals I hold dearest: do-it-yourself chutzpa, artistry, salt-of-the-earth goodness, homespun pride, old fashioned plummy fabulousness. It makes me want to go home and can loads of things, really buckle down and learn quilting, reel my clothesline in and out a few times just for the shear pleasure and sit sighing down amongst a stack of dreamy someday hopes that have to do with embroidery, handmade baby clothes and finally knitting a sweater myself.

The boys couldn't remember going to fair (its been two years) and so they were asking on the way over and over, what exactly was it we were going to see? Was it like a circus? Is it a store? Will it be like the zoo? They were racking their brains for anything comparable and trying to be that this wasn't some ugly mommy trick to haul them into a place where you sit still for long periods of time.

I am happy to report however, that we all enjoyed ourselves, even little Nib who made fabulous milage out of his sunny grin with pretty much every passing farm wife. My personal favorite part of the fair this year was my own solo trip up the ferris wheel as the sun was beginning to set over the rolling Connecticut fields. There could be very few deeper pleasures in the mommy life. Such a lovely run, round and round the big wheel, swooshing along smoothly, peaking over the green fields and clicking my camera at the dizzy blur of lights and color over the rolling landscape and waving down at shining little boy faces.