The All-New Bunrab

That's what Frederick calls their county fair. I won't say it was great, but it was a reasonable amount of fun. Frederick is a far more agricultural county than Montgomery, but it didn't have more animals - fewer horses than either Montgomery or the State Fair. Sheep, well, everyone seems to have plenty of sheep and goats and dairy cattle, and there was no shortage here. A decent size poultry barn, not quite the size of Montgomery but certainly far better than the state fair; Sebrights seemed to be one of the fancy chickens of choice, and there were a few of those funny crested ones, and one called a Phoenix because of its tail feathers - looks vaguely like insect antennae to me - and a few Mille Fluiers (why they have to spell that so oddly for chickens, I don't know) which have lovely polka dots. A little pool full of baby ducks paddling around. The rabbits were a disappointment - the entire rabbit section consisted of three lionheads, half a dozen himalayans, and two Jersey Woolies. I will say, Larry is beginning to be able to recognize rabbit breeds; I guess I'm having a bad influence on him. He really goes for the lionheads every time, so I'm guessing that my next rabbit, once Fern is no longer with us, will be a lionhead. (Fern is still going strong - she was approximately 10 years old in approximately April, and she's doin' fine. Skinnier and eating a bit less than when she was younger, but vigorous and bright-eyed.)

Over by Dairy Cattle there was a "Birthing Center" with baby pigs and cows a couple days old, and a couple very pregnant cows waiting to drop any second. Cute pile o' baby pigs!

The Home Arts was somewhat bigger than Montgomery, though nowhere near the State Fair. More quilts than Montgomery, by far, including a couple that I'm pretty sure were in the State Fair. The display of the quilts wasn't good though - most of them were folded far too small. I think you have to be able to see at least 1/4 of a quilt to appreciate it at all, and many of these were folded and hanging over racks against the wall so that you could only see an eighth or a twelfth of the quilt. A lot more crocheted things than Montgomery, too. Many really nice crocheted afghans. Lots and lots and lots of baked goods - we wandered through them counting the Rice Krispies treats (none of those won any awards, amazingly enough). The decorated cakes were pretty cool, including one with so many flowers on it that I pretty much had to just take their word for it that there was a cake under there. And loooooots of canned stuff  - relishes and pickles and veggies (didn't see much jam or jelly at all, come to think of it) - and more relish and more pickles, pickled beets and watermelon pickle and oh, how you can tell this is the 21st century, lots and lots of salsa. I'm thinking that a county as pasty-white as Frederick probably didn't have a lot of salsa entries in the canning category a generation ago. One thing here that I hadn't seen at Monty or the State Fair was quite a few skeins of hand-spun and hand-dyed yarn, including one that was one of the Best in Show winners overall for home arts. And several of the sewing entries were historical costumes.

Free tote bag from someone in the Commercial building, and quite a few free pencils from both Commercial and the Farm & Home building (where the various state and county farm-related agencies have booths, and the Dept of Natural Resources, and so on.) And we stopped and wound up talking to the ladies at the Grange booth for quite a while, and Larry bought the Maryland Grange Cookbook. Larry's grandfather had belonged to the Grange in Pennsylvania.

I forget what the pavilion was called that had a few animals to be petted - two alpacas, possibly the same ones that were at Montgomery, 2 miniature horses, a mother and her six-month old colt, a couple of smallish burros, bunch of geese, one grumpy turkey. Pygmy goats.

One way you could tell that Frederick is more ag than Montgomery or the state as a whole is how much of the space was devoted to the farm machinery exhibits - big chunk of land, lots of other things besides tractors - big metal feeders, things we didn't even recognize... and lots of space devoted to vendors of various sheds and pole buildings. Those were nice, chances to step into some shade and rest. Oddly enough, for the kids' stuff, far more 4-H than FFA - I would have thought that FFA would have a bigger presence here.

And as expected, being several weeks later in the year than the other fairs, the giant pumpkins were in fact much, much larger. Not as large as the Massachusetts State Fair, but way larger than any of the earlier fairs in Maryland - the champion here was 220 pounds. (I don't recall any at the State Fair being over 90 pounds.) And lots more of the small gourds and squashes than the earlier fairs, including some of the largest pattypan squash I have ever seen. Just for fun, a decorated potato contest - the one we liked best was half a dozen potatoes dressed up as Minions. Most of the potatoes were in dioramas to add to the effect, thought there was one potato decorated as a chicken that was good in its simplicity  - the potato had grown pretty much in a chicken shape, with neck and head at one end and a tail-ish point at the other; all the kid did was add eyes and a beak and a bit of color.

We wound up not buying any food - I think we were already fair-fooded out for the season - just some iced tea. We cut our browsing through the Midway a bit short because I was exhausted and Larry had an allergic reaction to something, we have no idea what, that made his hands puff up. They went down again in a couple hours, but it was certainly mysterious. Something someone was using to groom their sheep or cow? Something in the finish on a pole building? Anyway, we even resisted the candy maze guy - we still have candy left from the last two fairs anyway.

Overall: handicapped parking is very good, there's lots of parking, admission price reasonable, a decent fair experience though most of the entertainment was going to be just harness racing, no big acts. Very good on the produce-and-canning areas, decent showing of crochet and quilting, adequate on the animals and that birthing center was a nice touch; relatively small amount of "commercial" outside of the farm machinery and farm supplies areas. Worth spending an afternoon at if you're in the area, though probably not worth driving 50 miles to if you've got your own county fair nearer by. (Actually only about 35 miles from either my or Larry's place.) Since the Howard County fair (the county where I live) is pretty darn small, I will continue to regard the Montgomery County one as my go-to fair, of all those I've been to here so far.  Yes, I have to admit it, though I hate saying anything nice about Texas, but the State Fair of Texas is in fact a damn good state fair, better than the one here. I am NOT, however, going to travel 1400 miles each way to go to that Fair every year!

What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects? Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.

After writing this part of your post, look to see what colours you have used in your projects. Make a quick tally of what colours you have used in your projects over the past year and compare it to the colours you have written about. Compare this, in turn, to the colours that are most dominant in your yarn stash – do they correlate?

Now think back to your house animal – do the colours you have chosen relate to your animal in anyway – if you are in the house of peacock, for example, are your projects often multicoloured and bright?

Well, if you've looked at the photos of projects I posted a couple days ago, or if you have seen the photo on my facebook page of the yarn I bought at Stitches this year, there are definitely some colors I concentrate on. Gold, peach, orange-y corals, lots of those. Greens - not bright green, but lots of shades of olive, darker greens, celadon, muted lighter greens. Some darker autumn colors - rust, browns, a bit of tan. And the occasional bit of turquoise or darker blue.

The stuff I make for other people is in whatever colors are handy, or colors I know they'll like, if available cheaply. The afghan for Larry was in blue and white - some solid dark blue Jiffy, and a variegated blue and white - about 4 shades of blue, very short repeats, looks random when crocheted - in a similarly fuzzy store brand yarn, because Larry likes blue. Baby blankets in variegated baby color acrylic yarns - two I finished recently were one in a yellow-green-white variegated, slightly bulky, somewhat fuzzy yarn - the same store-brand fuzzy yarn, in fact; it's inexpensive, comes in huge skeins, inexpensive, and great for afghans that are going to be used and washed. The other baby blanket was two strands held together, a darker peach an a pale peach - it was for a slightly older baby, a year old. Hats for kids in colors kids like, and/or colors appropriate for certain types of animal ears to be attached to them.

My yarn stash has an awful lot of purple in it - some inherited, some purchased. I have in mind vaguely a ripple afghan to use up LOTS of purple, and then I'll inflict it on the next young female person I am due to give something to. Since all girls between the ages of 4 and 12 seem to like purple, seems like a safe bet, and a good way to use up lots. I made a whole bunch of that kind of ripple afghans with yarns of widely differing weights and textures, back in 2006 and 2007; time for some more. Q hook, here I come!

I guess there's some slight relationship between my yarn choices and the House of the Bee - some honey colors, definitely a lot of colors from nature, though not specifically to bees or to the summer season that bees represent. But on the other hand, those sudden pockets of purple yarn, or that bag full of variegated fake-fur yarn in every colorway they made, do represent the flitting from project to project that characterizes the Bees.

There, a knitting and crochet post that actually stuck to knitting and crochet!

Here we are at Pam & Dan's house in Katy! We will sleep indoors tonight and use a real shower and brush our teeth with potable water! Seriously, the RV is great, but it'll be nice to have a break.

Let's see - yesterday! We left the suburbs of Birmingham, AL; ate lunch somewhere - nothing special - filled up with gas at the Medgar Evers Memorial Interchange in Mississippi, crossed the Mississippi River at Vicksburg - gambling boats! Then three hours of extrEMEly boring I-20 in EXTREMELY poor repair across Louisiana; we arrived at Gerald Savoie's Cajun Cooking in Shreveport, where we were meeting Mary, at 8:30. The food was great - oyster po'boy for me, shrimp po'boy for Steve, and bread pudding with hard sauce for each of us. (Hard refers to the fact that it has hard liquor in it, not to its texture.) Afterwards, we yakked away in the RV for hours. Mary gave me some great tea I've never had before, and I gave her tea and one of my "famous" knitted tea cozies - red, white and blue fuzzy yarn. And she gave me the loveliest beaded booksmarks she made. It was so great to meet her in person after what, 15 years? of internet and snail mail friendship, and to discover that we have even more interests in common than we knew. Toasted almonds! Crockpot recipes! What a great evening. We collapsed somewhere near 1 a.m., which is why no post last night, and I was a bit slow to wake up this morning, which is why we didn't get out of the RV park till 11 instead of 10. The RV park, by the way, is one I can recommend highly if you're in the area, Tall Pines RV on West 70th, pads in excellent condition, individual waste dump at every pad instead of one station at the edge; extensive store, good maps, easy hookups... very nice condition overall, and nice people running it, who are eager to give discounts.

Leaving Shreveport this morning, we ate lunch somewhere near Nacogdoches in a cafe called Country Kitchen, which was rather smoky - smoking still allowed indoors there. The buffet was inexpensive, but also nothing to write home about, though the mashed potatoes were tasty. The peach cobbler dessert that came with it was undistinguished.

We sort of left our printed instructions and GPS route to try to avoid some Houston traffic, so we used the Loop 8 tollway off of I-45, and didn't hit traffic till we got on I-10, where we hit plenty of traffic, as it was right at 5 p.m. Nonetheless we got to Pam's before 6. I took a nap - it's amazing how tiring wrestling that RV through stop and go traffic - and through toll booths! - is. Our EZ Pass did not work here, needless to say. Then Pam and Dan took us out to dinner, along with their kids, the kids' spouses, and the kids' kids - baby Jack and baby Scott, whom we had not met. I gave them their blankets, and both babies drooled quite appreciatively. We had a good supper - haven't had Tex-Mex in so long!

Anyway, tomorrow morning I am hoping to hit Yarntopia here in Katy on our way out toward Austin. We should be in Austin for late lunch/early afternoon. We'll be staying at Steve's cousin Connie's, I believe, out in Oak Hill. We'll see all you Austinites shortly!

Well, the roof is replaced. And the eaves/sofits and the gutters, and a few bits of the siding trim. Energy-efficient white shingles, that will get us an energy tax credit on our next income tax return.

And Fern bunny is fine, after the application of quite a bit of money at the veterinarian.

All of which is to say, we're not going anywhere this summer. No RG in Pittsburgh, sorry M-friends. No Knit and Crochet Show in Buffalo. Nowhere that we can't drive to within a couple of hours and stay at someone's house for free.

We are fixing up the other house for sale, since we haven't had much luck renting it - it goes on the market in a week and a half. A bit of interior paint, repairs to the sidewalk, replace a couple doors, stuff like that. We won't get what we paid for it; we bought it at the peak of the market, and that's not going to come again any time this ten years. But we should clear enough on it, if all goes well, to pay off the mortgage on the current house, replenish savings that were depleted by the new roof, and maybe, just maybe, enough to let us replace the pink bathtub with something we can stand to look at with our glasses on. There's no chance it would be sold and closed on in time to use the money for any of the afore-mentioned summer travel, though.

Anyway, that's what's been happening around here lately. I've gotten in a bit of reading, some crocheting and knitting, and have written some reviews for the Tea Review Blog -check out the blog here:
http://www.teareviewblog.com/
and a few of my reviews, specifically, here:
http://www.teareviewblog.com/?author=27

And, just so this has a bit more content, a picture of the most recent sweater I finished:



I've already worn this one a couple times and people seem to like the little sunflower, even though squirrel_magnet says it looks like a large-winged insect has landed on me.

Let's see. First, Gaslight Grimoire, an anthology of Sherlock Holmes fantasy stories (sort of) - which I've done an Amazon review of, but it's not posted yet; I'll provide a link as soon as that's posted.

Speaking of which, could some of you go read my reviews for The Magicians and Mrs. Quent and Grease Monkey and Life Sucks, click on the little Yes buttons for my reviews, and maybe even add comments to the reviews? Thanks!!

Speaking of graphic novels, which the last two mentioned above are, I continue my efforts to decide whether graphic novels count as real books for grown-ups, not just comic books with too much self-esteem. One of the funniest is Rex Libris: I, Librarian by James Turner, which is an intergalactic space opera featuring a librarian who will go to any lengths to recover an overdue book. First published as 32-page comic books, this book is a collection of 5 of those, which comprise a complete story arc. Great dialogue, good characters, fun light-science-fictiony plot. Don't miss out on meeting Rex's boss, Thoth! (Especially funny to me since I have recently been to see a bunch of Egyptian mummies at a museum.)

The source of the amigurumi lemur is a book called Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow. Of no interest to anyone who doesn't crochet, but if you do crochet, you gotta try a couple of these critters! The lemur is the cutest, of course, but the beaver is also tooo cute, and if you're a fan of Kitsune in Japanese stories, then you'd like the little red fox.

OK. Off to band rehearsal in Essex. Tomorrow: saxophone lesson. Note to self: must buy more La Voz reeds; Bill's here in Catonsville doesn't carry La Voz bari reeds, despite that it's a large store; the much smaller L&L in Gaithersburg has a much better selection of reeds, as well as a fantastic repair department. So tomorrow is Gaithersburg on the way to Montgomery Village rehearsal!

We did xmas twice, first on Thursday with my sister S and her spouse and kids and our parents and some of her spouse's siblings, then again on Saturday, with my brother G and his spouse and kids and our parents and a niece and her new husband, who were briefly in MD visiting, before returning to grad school in Texas; most of us had not been able to get to her wedding, so we were pleased to meet the husband (and his younger brother, who was tagging along for the day). Sister is up Philadelphia way, which meant we got to see the mess that is billboards in Phila. again - they have more Hooters billboards per mile of highway than any other city I've seen. G lives about an hour south of us, near DC.

I made a set of placemats for S, who has been wanting new ones for a couple YEARS now; below is a picture of five out of the eight of them - the green things. The piecing is a faux-crazy quilt pattern, with a few bits of ribbon added, and then they are quilted using cotton batting.


The picture in the frame in the middle of the table is a photo of me and squirrel_magnet, taken in Vienna, in a frame I painted to sort of match the dress I'm wearing in the photo. This was a gift for my dad and stepmom, who expressed a wish to have a respectable-looking photo of us to add to their table o' family pics - all their offspring, with assorted spouses and further descendents. So now they have one. Here's a slightly closer view of it:


One of the neatest presents we received from relatives was an afghan that sister S and her family made for Squirrel; knowing his love of his John Deere lawn tractor, they found John Deere fabric and a nice fleece backing, and fringed and knotted them to make a lap robe Squirrel can use while watching TV. Nephew Ian, almost-12, did most of the work; Ian loves making stuff, any stuff - car models and Lego helicopters and jigsaw puzzles, and sewing and needlework as well. Anyway, that is a gift beyond anything they could have bought Squirrel with just $$$.

Those red things in the center of the picture above were two dishcloths and two scrubbies (pot scrubbers) I crocheted for SIL Jen - she had requested red, and I made her those items, plus three red quilted potholders and a quilted oven mitt. The potholders and oven mitt are made using a batting which has a mylar reflective layer, so that they really do insulate/isolate the hot object from the hand. Here's a quick view of those:


I made teddy-bear-ear hats for 2 of G & Jen's kids - here's Luke in his, and Kyla in another one that was also supposed to be Luke's, but she appropriated it an preference to the kitty-ear hat I had made her. Oh well.


I made a lot of crocheted and knitted dishcloths, most of which I didn't bother to photograph before wrapping and/or mailing them, but here's one last photo, of the black lace dishcloths I made for Liz:


Things I got for xmas: a big chunk of my Amazon.com wish list, from Squirrel; Odysseus on the Rhine, mentioned in the previous post, is part of it. Also a couple of books from Cindythelibrarian; assorted CDs and a family photo or two, turtlenecks and socks. Funny thing about socks. Clothing is supposedly one of those presents you don't like to get. But socks were a big hit this year. I bought two of my nieces, Brenna and Brooke, socks from the Doorly Zoo, back when we were in Omaha in November, and gave the socks to them for xmas; they immediately put them on! After all, who can possibly resist LEMUR socks? And then, when S and her family were giving me and Squirrel our presents, mine had a pair of socks as part of the gift tag - and I immediately put them on, because the socks I had been wearing were way too warm for how mild the weather was, and the new socks were cotton - also had animals on them. So there was much running around the living room in animal socks for the rest of the day.

A Mankind Witch - Dave Freer - alt history and fantasy, part of a shared universe but doesn't have to be read in order. Going to look for earlier volumes.

Snoop - Sam Gosling. How to be a sociological researcher by looking at other people's bedrooms and offices. Turns out traits of openness and extraversion can be accurately judged by people's rooms, but room contents are not really any help at all in judging agreeableness or neuroticism.

Swine Not? - Jimmy Buffet. A lightweight, amusing anthropomorphized animal story. If you like those, you'll like this; if not, not. Pet potbellied pig in Central Park.

This Land is Their Land - Barbara Ehrenreich, one of my favorite ranting liberals, the
anti-Coulter.

Recently reviewed on Amazon.com, a couple of crafts books:
Beyond-the-Square Crochet Motifs
Knit on Down

House stuff. Lots of details, boring to anyone who isn't paying for them and watching the contractors do them. We might be able to move in end of next week, or else the day after Memorial Day.

Music stuff. Likewise lots of planning details boring to anyone who isn't actively doing them. Culminating in Maryland Community Band Day tomorrow, at Montgomery VIllage Middle School. Followed, no doubt, by my sleeping straight through from when we get home Sunday night to when I have to shower and get dressed and head for rehearsal Monday evening.

Books:
Fidelity by Thomas Perry. Mystery/thriller, with hit man and plucky heroine. Well written, as usual. But much more exciting was the blurb in the back, announcing that a new Jane Whitefield novel will be out in January 2009!!

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures Volume 1 HC - the graphic novel version, really the first 6 volumes of the comic book; by Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Stacie M. Ritchie (Author), Jess Ruffner-Booth (Author), Brett Booth (Author). Not too bad; mostly, I like the way the characters have been visualized, and most of the important stuff is in there. I wish they had just waited until the entire novel was finished, though.

The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness by Jeff Warren. Fun and science at the same time! Warren reviews all the states of consciousness involved in sleeping, more than you think there are. Includes the author's recounting of his personal experimentation with each stage of sleep, including ordering a NovaDreamer to help with lucid dreaming; sleeping in a cabin in the woods with no artificial light, not even oil lamps or candles, for three weeks. How to catch your own dreams. I've been reading a chapter before going to sleep each night.

Oh yeah, last weekend we saw my folks off on a cruise, leaving from a pier here in Baltimore, and while we were all together ahead of time, I had the chance to give my newest nephew his baby blanket.

That, by the way, makes 37 nieces and nephews (and 6 great-nieces and nephews).

OK, I got a box in the mail containing a heatproof glass mug with Science Blogs stuff on it. The return address was from Seed Media Group. There was no packing slip nor any other info to indicate why I would have received this mug. So which of you do I thank? It's a cool mug!

squirrel_magnet got me a a Bamboo tablet which means there will be lots more odd cartoons coming along. And we're going to go pick out a baby hedgehog tomorrow!

Cindy got me this book, which is one I'd been thinking about buying for a while!

My sister Steph got me the vegetable chopper I hinted at strongly - and she loved her hand-crocheted string grocery bags, too. We had a nice day at their place yesterday. My dad and stepmother were there also; they gave me a cookbook that fits excellently into my special diet, and gave squirrel_magnet a shirt that's to his taste and some microfiber cleaning cloths, which they pointed out will be especially useful for the motorcycle. This may be the best they've done at actually taking our individual tastes into account in years! My nephew Ian, who is 10, gave S a model of a Corvette that he had built and painted - Ian likes giving handmade stuff - and then promptly sat down with the Get Fuzzy collection we had given him, and was scarcely heard from the rest of the day, except a couple of occasions when he came across a strip which he felt he HAD to read aloud to me and Hanna. Hanna read aloud a lot from one of her presents (not from us), a parody called The Dangerous Book for Dogs. All in all, presents all the way around were a success. Steph made dinner without any added salt. AND, we had a long discussion about religion, which was not a fight or even an argument - it was an interesting discussion that all three generations of the family contributed to, and involved lots of history and trivia. Almost enough to make one think maybe there is a god :D

Happy Feast of Stephen!

Really, one has to be a little bit manic to enjoy a con, be it a book con/science fiction con, a Mensa Regional Gathering, or a knitting con.

Here's a list of the symptoms of a manic episode in bipolar disorder:
Increased energy, activity, and restlessness
Excessively "high," overly good, euphoric mood
Extreme irritability
Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another
Distractibility, can't concentrate well
Little sleep needed
Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities and powers
Poor judgment
Spending sprees
A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual
Increased sexual drive
Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications
Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior
Denial that anything is wrong

Now, while it's not 100% the same, you will note that most of that list is EXPECTED, even REQUIRED behavior at a con.

And despite the fact that a knitting/crochet con has a greater percentage of older people, and of women, and of the disabled, than the typical Star Trek or anime con, most of that description still applies. Racing thoughts? Check. More ideas than one can keep track of? Check. Little sleep? Definitely check, especially if you learned a new trick in a class and then stay up all night finishing a project using that technique, just to prove that you are the smartest knitter in town and a master of all you survey. Spending sprees? Most assuredly check, and it's possible to do a LOT more damage in the exhibition hall/yarn market at a knitting con than it is in the typical vendor room at a SF con. Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities? Check, especially "I'll buy this yarn because I'll have time next week to make this pattern" and "sure I can do lace knitting, even though I've previously stated that I hate tiny needles and large projects, sure I can do lace knitting!" Perhaps less of the sexual aspects (although I can't speak for those who brought their spouses along; I didn't, but many people did, and perhaps the presence of all that yarn DID have this effect on them). And I don't think there was that much of a problem with drugs - knitters and crocheters would NEVER waste money on cocaine that could be spent on yarn!! (On the other hand, a certain amount of excessively loud laughter during the Friday evening classes perhaps testifies to a certain amount of alcohol excess during Friday dinner...)

The knitting con did not involve building a Chaos Machine in the hotel lobby. Instead, it involved people using up all the lobby furniture to perch and knit, and then to leave little clipped ends and tails of yarn everywhere - and beads and sequins in the carpeting, and the occasional lost knitting needle, and other hazards to life and limb of the unwary trying to use the lobby. Not to mention all the women shrieking at each other, and shouting the length of corridors, that they MUST have the pattern for whatever someone else at the other end is wearing.

The one area that is significantly different from other cons is the Hospitality Suite/Con Suite and the Food Area, whatever it may be; there is far less of this, because no one wants to get food stains on their expensive yarn. So there are no 24-hour crock pots of chili, no piles and piles of packets of chips or Pocky, no chocolate-and-wine tastings in one of the speaker rooms...

Anyway. That was fun.