Saturday, July 28, 2012

County Fair Memories

I actually have been working on a book now and then. It seems there are so many things that got in the way of writing in the last few weeks. We live on an acreage that keeps us working with a garden, chickens and livestock. We're in the middle of a terrible drought now so we spend a lot of time watering the garden, trees and flowers. I actually had enough cucumbers to make 15 quarts of dill pickles, a few jars at a time. Though I have the fifth Amish book in my Nurse Hal Among The Amish series well underway, I stopped working on it to work on another project. In the last two years, I've written two family history books, one for my family and the other for my husband's family. Both books were for just the families, because I didn't see a reason anyone would be interested in all the family pictures, memories and stories. Awhile back, it came to me that the history from 1900 to 1960 in Vernon County, Missouri might be of interest to those that weren't living when radio and telephones came in to use. When the Great Depression and World War 2 happened or the struggle of farming families in the Ozarks during those sixty years. For those who do remember, they can read the stories and think, I remember what that time was like. So I'm in the process of combining the stories from both family history books. I thought it might be a quick project but combining and editing takes time. Speaking of memories, we stopped at the county fair Thursday morning in Vinton, Iowa. It has been years since we walked around the grounds and through the livestock barns. It seemed like a good time to do it just to see what had changed. This was the first pleasant day we had seen in days, and we missed the crowded part of the day which was later in the afternoon and evening. However, we didn't miss the 40th RAGBRAI which is Iowa's Great Bike Ride across the state in a week. When we were in town that day, fifteen thousand bikers rode through Vinton's downtown and eat lunch on their way to Cedar Rapids for an overnight stay. The bikers don't come along all at once. It takes hours depending on when they left the last overnight spot and how slow they are so the way we went home was traffic controlled by a deputy sheriff. The route is different each year. Always on roads that aren't heavily traveled and through mostly small towns. The roads are blocked off so the bikers don't have to worry about traffic, and the towns love to see them come. What the bikers spend is a boost for the local economy. For years, my husband and I belonged to a two county sheep producers organization in Benton and Iowa Counties. I was elected president for a couple years. One of my duties was to organize the fair's lamb food booth. That consisted of buying all the supplies, signing up volunteers and spending five long days from 9 a.m to midnight in the booth. My husband grilled outside, and I cooked inside while volunteers handled the customers. The booth had been used for years without repairs. The year I took charge, my husband did the carpentry to screen in the cooking area to keep the flies out. We repainted the building and covered up the large black Suffolk sheep across the front under the counter. I did the free hand painting to replace the sheep. We have just gone through one of the hottest summers in record keeping, and it may not be over yet. Back then it always seemed like the county fair was scheduled on very hot days the last of July. Our sheep booth was the only food booth that kept ice cubes for the pop. The sheep exhibitors came after ice in a quart baggy several times to cool down their overheated fat lambs. Twenty years ago, the sheep producers group broke up. Our booth was torn down to make room for something else. The sheep barn has nicely painted metal pens instead of the splintering wooden gates now. The grooming table was in the aisle with a tethered Suffolk patiently waiting for his grooming to finish. Only half the barn was pens with sheep in them. The other half was pens of goats. Seems they have become a popular choice for FFA projects. The whole fair grounds had the fresh scent of wood shavings mingled with the smell of the various livestock. A person raised on a farm with livestock can walk through one of the fair barns blindfolded and know which animals are housed in each by the smell. My favorite is the sheep and goats. My husband likes the horses, but we checked out the calf barn and fowl and rabbit barns, too. It's fun to see all the different breeds of chickens, ducks, turkeys and rabbits. We watched the young people who take such pride in making their projects special. One boy was instructing another, evidently a first timer, on what to expect when the judge came by his chicken cage. We ate lunch at the pork booth. The grilled loin sandwiches were delicious, and the lemonade hit the spot. Then we went across the grounds to the 4-H exhibits. I enjoyed looking at all the different photography entries. The children have great imagination. One took a colorful picture of a tree top with very blue sky and white cotton clouds above it. Another picture was a horse's eye. There were many more pictures and other exhibits such as clothes, posters and food. I can't imagine how the judges picked the exhibits to go to the state fair. By the time we looked at all those exhibits, I worked up enough room to have a milk shake. We sat in the shaded bleachers at the cattle arena and watched people go by while we ate our shake. One happened to be our neighbor girl, a senior this year. I can't believe she has grown up. A man stopped to visit and told us we missed a running of the bull. Just one bull, but I was glad to hear the story second hand and not be on that end of the grounds when it happened. A exhibit of open steers had been brought in earlier. They were wild. Two jumped the pen fence and ended up in the bean field by the fair grounds. One was surrounded and brought back before the beef had time to get to the nearby houses. The other steer was determined not to be caught. When the men tried to get around him, the steer took after one of them. When that man out run him, he went after another man. The storyteller said the man came out of the bean field with a pasty white face. He didn't want to go back. The vet was called to tranquilize the steer. Some men kept an eye on the steer while they waited. By this time, the steer was very hot and panting hard. The vet came and looked for his tranquilizers to load the gun. He had forgotten to put them in his pickup so he left to go get them. While he was gone the steer laid down and stopped moving. One of the men mustered up the courage to go near enough to see why. The steer had died of heat exhaustion. I loved the days we spent working at the fair. So many people to talk to that we didn't see very often. So much going on with the carnival and grandstand events like stock car races, the demo derbies and tractor pulls. A calliope of noises of motors, tinny music, animals, talking and laughter that was only repeated once a year in that fair ground. Then there were the unexpected, exciting moments like the running of the bulls.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Recalling and Making Memories

I hope everyone had an enjoyable fourth of July even if we were baking under the hot sun. This is the first summer we have had an air conditioner in our home. I do enjoy the relief it gives me from the heat. Last year we spent so much of the summer chasing the shade in our front yard that I was having trouble working on a book. This summer I can enjoy being inside and am coming along well on the fifth Amish book in my Nurse Hal Among The Amish series. State tuned for new details as I get farther along. It's good to take a break now and then from writing, the heat and home. We spent July fourth afternoon visiting with my husband's mother and sister in Belle Plaine. At first I didn't enjoy the oven the car had turned into by the time we headed home to do chores until the AC cooled us down. Town was busy. Full of people for the 150 year celebration coinciding with the fourth. We came home, and after dark we braved the heat long enough to sit on our front porch to watch the fireworks miles from the city heat. We had a good visit and took a tour of my husband's 91 year old mother's large garden and vast amount of flower beds. We commiserated about how hard it has been to raise a garden this year and flowers. It seems the wild critters and birds are even hungrier this year than most. Probably has something to do with the drought and heat. They are looking for an easy meal. My husband's sister is always coming up with new story lines for my books. I always appreciate her help. She reads a lot and told me about a library book she was reading and liked. She wished she had a copy. I ordered her and myself one and am eagerly waiting for the books to get here. The book is Up A Country Lane by Evelyn Birkby. The author lives in southwestern Iowa. In the forties and fifties she had a recipe call in radio show in Shenendoah, Iowa. The book is about her life in those days on the farm while she raised her family, and recipes are scattered throughout the book. Simple recipes back when women used the few seasonings kept in the cupboard to make casseroles and dishes from vegetables they raised. Friday was a delightful day for us. My brother brought his grandson to visit. My great nephew is a city boy so we love to show him the animals and chickens. His favorite is the cats, but right now they are suffering from the heat as all other animals are. They weren't in the mood to play like they did last year when he visited. In an effort to take his ten year old grandson down memory lane, we went for a ride so my brother could show his grandson where we lived growing up near Keystone, where we went to school in Keystone, and we visited a couple cemeteries. In the one near Keystone, our parents are buried. We took pictures of my great nephew as he put a bouquet of pink roses in my mother's vase. All the while, we talked about how we used to make the annual visit with his great grandparents to many cemeteries in southern Missouri and listen to our parents tell tales about each ancestor. We stopped at the Belle Plaine cemetery. My brother said he hadn't been there in years so I helped him fine our grandparents graves. We took pictures of my nephew by the stone as we explained what fun we had at the grandparents house on weekends. We were country kids that looked forward to going to the movie on Saturday night, eating Grandma's cooking and her huge sugar cookies. The treat of the weekend might have been that long, round about, country ride Grandpa took us on to get us back home. Our grandparents were country people too so they enjoyed those rides. For us, it was the lingering of time with our grandparents before we were home and back into the routine. It was lunch time when we arrived in Belle Plaine so we ate lunch at the Lincoln Cafe, newly remodeled and a historical spot on the Lincoln Highway tour. We could have gotten ice cream dessert with our walleye special, but my brother had noticed a sign at the Mini Mart in Keystone on their way to our house that offers malts. He wondered if the malts were good. His grandson perked up and turned down the ice cream. He wanted to wait until we got to the Mini Mart and find out. I agreed. Before we left Belle Plaine we took a tour of the north end of town, looking at the two homes our grandparents lived in when we went for those overnight visits. Then we were off to Keystone's Mini Mart for that malt. I couldn't believe I had room for one after that large walleye meal, but I made room. Since then I have stocked up on ice cream and milk. I don't have malt but a milk shake will do just as well. When I drink that shake I will think of the great day we had with my brother and his grandson. I'm not sure how much my great nephew enjoyed the day or the stories we told, but I received a big hug when he was ready to leave. Whether he retains the memories we shared, or enjoyed the sites we showed him, I think he liked visiting his aunt and uncle. We can't wait until he can come back again.