Tag Archives: agricultural fair

A mooooving experience.

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Still at the fair, and still admiring old farm equipment.

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Well, one of us was.

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While he was doing that I wandered over to meet some geese.

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With strict instructions not to feed or pet, I stood and photographed.

Next up was the youth calf competition.

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If you’ve never seen one of these, you really should.

Taking care and responsibility for livestock is a full time job and these youngsters were doing their best to show off their accomplishments.

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If you’re showing momma?

Better bring baby along.

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Such sweet faces!

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I do love cows.

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After the show we wandered a few barns.

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Always my favorite part of the fair.

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These are Belted Galloways, but we call them Oreo cows… for obvious reasons.

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At the end of our cattle tour, the husband stopped to talk to one of the owners and her daughter.

Husband likes to talk.

Husband was raised on a dairy farm.

Husband talked for over an hour.

Husband talked to so many people for so long we didn’t see the other half of the fair, I didn’t buy a fried dough and when he finally stopped chatting…. it was time to go.

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Back over the bridge of flowers to a small town seafood restaurant we always try to visit when we’re in the area.

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It doesn’t look like much.

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And the atmosphere is more family style diner than anything….

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But the clam chowder is to die for. Thick, rich, creamy and chock full of clams … it’s almost a meal in itself. (deckhand lemonade with Tito’s, because yes… they serve alcohol)

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The meals are always amazing, and their fresh seafood is cooked to perfection. I had a massive platter of fantail fried shrimp with baked potato and cole slaw, husband had a garlic butter broiled haddock with butternut squash and a bowl of cottage cheese. Neither of us went away hungry.

Two soups, a cocktail, a beer and two more than ample seafood dinners for $82. In our neck of the woods that amount barely gets you past appetizers.

🥴

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It’s fair season!

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Late summer and fall are agricultural fair seasons in Maine and on a beautiful sunny day the husband and I decided to take a drive northwest to check out one we’d never visited before.

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Located in Dover Foxcroft…

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The Piscataquis Valley Fair was very small.

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But it had an impressive building filled with a large collection of fire fighting memorabilia.

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The disembodied Smokey the Bear head was a trifle disturbing..

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But these old pull along pumps were fascinating. Can you imagine putting out your burning house with that?

🥴

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The husband was checking out the patches, but all I could see was the Happy Hooker. Limitless marketing opportunities there…

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Random giant carved fish?

Check.

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Award winning art and Maine centric photography?

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Check.

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I had to laugh that even here I couldn’t escape the pickles…

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And some extremely unappetizing carrots.

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Did my husband find people to chat with? Boy howdy, did he ever.

Over 40 minutes were spent learning about invasive, non native water plants choking Maine lakes and streams.

Do we live on a Maine lake or stream? No. But we learned how to identify the evil greens all the same.

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Another half hour was spent talking to an old farmer about rusted machinery and equipment.

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I was tempted to remark on the unfortunate company name on this one, but I didn’t have the heart.

And yes, that second letter is a worn off O.

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Fryeburg Fair, part three… where I’m in cow heaven.

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Every agricultural fair in Maine has a few cows, but the Fryeburg Fair has multiple barns devoted to multiple breeds, varieties, colors and sizes.

For a cow lover like me, it’s blissful bovine heaven.

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Look at that beauty!

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Beef cows, dairy cows…

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Large cows that pull things…

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Gentle cows who enjoy a scratch.

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Seriously big ass impressive cows…

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Sweet baby cows.

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There’s even a barn filled with Oreo cookie cows.

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Cows!

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I not so subtly pointed out there were even cows for sale to my husband….

But the man kept right on walking.

😉

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Let’s go the fair… a fowl finale.

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Because it wouldn’t be a fair without some chickens.

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There were quite a few prize winning divas strutting their stuff.

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But this all black rooster took the prize for bizarre.

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The next blue ribbon winner?

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Must have won for bad hair day.

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How do these Polish even see?

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There were fancy pigeons, but to be honest these made me sad.

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They’ve clearly been bred for over exaggerated foot feathers and the poor things could hardly walk.

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But the peacocks were lovely.

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And this duck who decided no one could drink because he wanted a bath was funny.

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We ended with a very curious goose who followed me all around the enclosure. I believe he was for sale and wanted to come home with us… but alas, my husband refused.

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Let’s go to the fair.. part two.

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When we visit a fair, my husband is always drawn to the museums of old tools. Partly because they’re interesting, but mostly because he’s old enough to remember using some of them.

He loves checking out the antique tractors but this particular brand was new even to him.

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Cockshutt?

A more colorful name than John Deere that’s for sure.

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No matter how many times I tell him or how many warning signs he reads… he’s always touching things when he’s not supposed to. If he did this with women instead of old farm implements.. we’d have a problem.

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I always wonder where they find these fabulous wagons and carriages. Some of them are in amazingly good shape.

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Ouch!

😫

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Clearly this museum has a sense of humor.

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A library and one room schoolhouse from the early 1800’s.

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The rig in the front of this picture is an early snow press. There were no plows to clear the roads back in the day, they just tried to flatten it as best they could.

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My husband’s father used one of these on their farm. Any guesses what it is?

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Let’s go to the fair! Part one…

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Maine has a lot of agricultural fairs every autumn and over the years we’ve visited quite a few. Farmington was one we’d never hit so last week we drove west.

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This county’s fair is relatively small and focuses heavily on community involvement. Prize winning pumpkins and homemade jams were in the forefront.

As were school children’s projects.

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You have to admit this one made a valid point.

There was an entire upper floor devoted to quilt, knitting, photography and art contests. There was also a large sign stating fair volunteers did not judge or pick the winners. I though that was odd until I saw some of the winners…

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I wouldn’t want to be blamed for that either.

As we stepped out of the expo building, food.

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I was disappointed not to order a fresh lemonade from the giant lemon concession stand, but alas it was closed.

I did score my favorite go to the fair treat though.

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Fried dough with cinnamon and powdered sugar. You only eat these things at the fair and you really can’t explain why… but damn. It was good.

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Inexplicably there were multiple fried pickle stands, all boasting to be the biggest and most famous. Bypassing those we wandered around until we found something that wasn’t battered and deep fried and settled on a picnic table with our wraps to enjoy the show.

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Not being twang loving blue grass fans, we ate our lunch and left our seats to those more in tune with the genre.

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😉

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