Dawes County Fair and More Fun

Today we went to the Dawes County Fair and it was a good time! Actually, watching the judges deliberate for 15 minutes about the short hair cat winner wasn’t exactly thrilling, but everything else was. Here are some pictures of Helen (and Ryan) enjoying the livestock. I am pretty sure that I have never seen such clean farm animals in my whole life. Even the pigs were picture perfect.

Helen got a big kick out of the roosters’ cock-a-doodle-doing. Clearly, they had no idea that the sun had been up for hours.

Helen was also not one bit convinced that she wanted to get that close to the sheep. Ryan told her that the sheep was smelling her and that she should smell it back. I am not sure how this particular training is going to play out in other aspects of our life. Maybe she’ll start going up to the kids in nursery and smell them instead of saying ‘hi.’ Parenting is a powerful thing.

I saved some old pictures of when we went to the Fur Trade Museum and the Dawes County Museum. If there is one thing that we have learned it’s that toddlers and museums don’t mix. Especially if the displays are out in the open just waiting to be touched and have Do Not Touch signs on them.

Here is a particularly fine collection of barbed wire. It covered the wall, so I was only able to capture a fraction of it.

Below I captured the big storm that we had. I really didn’t do it justice. We had golfball size hail and tornado like wind that knocked branches down and destroyed the windows, screens and paneling on the west side of all unprotected houses in town. Luckily our car already had hail damage, a little bit more doesn’t bother me. I think that it adds character really. Like a good scar from your childhood.

I found some cherry trees on one of our walks and asked if they were selling the cherries and the teenage boy said no, take as many as you want. His sister proceeded to get me a couple of bags to hold them. What a lucky day! I could think of nothing better to do than make some delicious jam.

Here is a picture of Helen in her sleeping bag- you will note that she is wide awake, cute, but awake. I guess some things are just meant to be enjoyed.