The Minnesota State Fair

Juan and I finally attended this 10-day long event that spans from the last weekend in August to Labor Day. This is the biggest state fair I have ever been to and some strange things were seen by all (And I don't mean just the people watching, though that was an education unto itself). Here are some of the highlights:

The first place we went was the Miracle of Life Tent, where pregnant animals could give birth at any moment. We didn't catch a live birth, but we saw some pretty new little animals.Mama and lambsBrand-new piglets. They were so new, their umbilical cord was still hanging from their little tummies. They are a couple hours old, and have to be in this contraption for a while so mom doesn't roll over and kill them all. Some actually fell asleep while nursing.

There were tons of people there, as you can see from the scene behind Juan. A big thing about the MN State Fair is all the unusual food you can find, much of which is on the end of a stick. The hot food items this year were chocolate dipped bacon and something involving pickle juice, though I never saw where one could obtain either. Not that I was searching too hard. Any hoo, he had to try a stick food, hence a corn dog. By the end of the day, though, he had graduated on to more serious fair food: an even bigger corn dog!I had a fabulous sparkling apple cider float with cinnamon ice cream, as well as vanilla John Deere ice cream made from those machines there.We also had cheese curds, which were amazingly tasty. I must have had something else, but I don't remember. I know I wanted roasted corn on the cob, but the line was too long and we were tired by then.

Another odd state fair tradition is the practice of carving the beauty contest winners' heads from a block of butter and then keeping them on display in a rotating cooler thing. Minnesotans are weird.

There were lots of the traditional state fair displays with perfect produce and such.
The pumpkin sign reads: "Do not dig your nails into it. It IS real."

We had a great time at the fair, and I hope to go back next year. They had an art tent, crafts, food, local yarn (I resisted!), tons of displays on any subject you can imagine, and the dog tent even had little puppies to pet, including a sleepy Boston Terrier. A couple of other late-summer activties we've been up to: I've been baking and cooking when I can. Here is a berry tart I made after a trip to the farmer's market last month:
And here's Juan with one of his most recent catches. He caught a bass the other day, too, that made for a really good dinner.