Heaven Sent Innocence at the Fall Fair

A slice of peach-mango pie. A lamb burger. Chocolate-walnut fudge. A diet coke (cuz calories matter she says jokingly). A hot dog. In exactly that order. That's what I ate yesterday. Yes, starting with dessert seems right when the Fall Fair is on.

Innocence. All around pure innocence.

In this day and age I think it's something that a lot of us crave without even knowing it until, that is, we're standing in front of the Zuchinni races and see how excited the audience gets. The kids get to make these racers out of zuchinnis and they do an amazing job. There was a great white shark zuchinni racer. There were zuchinnis with antlers. Huge zuchinnis, bigger than watermelons with capes on and wings and little zuchinnis nailed down into wooden structures. Then, ski-jump fashion, they compete against each other - two at a time - and let the zuchinni demolition derby begin. It was so much fun! It makes you want to run right home and make the weirdest zuchinni thing you can imagine and then put wheels on it. Honest.

The weather was spectacular as it has been, it seems to me, all summer long. And, the displays were full of flowers exploding with hues of every shade on their full blooms, multi-dimensional hand-made quilts and artistic basketry, photographs, Leggo art, watercolour paintings, junior floral arranging and blue, red and white ribbons for first, second and third on the jams and marmalades and cookies, cakes and tarts.

The pie ladies had baked the 100 pies which sell out ever year. Bumbleberry, Pear-ginger, mango-peach, raspberry raisin, every berry imaginable tucked neatly into the safety of the flakey pastry waiting for forks to pierce their perfection.

There was Liam, the little guy from Utah, with his parents who was wearing his OshKosh overalls and looking criminally cute.

There were weird hats with miniature forests growing on them and old farm machinery making weird noises working well oiled pistons that hadn't worked that hard since last year's Fair. Don't forget the classic cars with fabulous grills and hood ornaments, corn on the cob roasting and served up by the Fire Department, horse racing and little girls in their riding attire and blow up slides for kids to play on.

Of course Valdy was there with his red sox and his red shoes and Tom Hooper's family and a local band called The Relatives made up of mom on drums, dad and two teen-aged sons with each of them able to play just about every instrument. The two sons had interesting strong voices and the audience wanted them to play longer. More.

Of course there was the beer tent and the visiting and the running into old friends and the being sure to catch a glimpse of what so and so had submitted and comparing pie flavours and buying a ticket on which square in the middle of that blue ring that the cow would poop in and voting on Audience choice on the crafts and spinners and weavers and potters. And there was Judy, Search and Rescue volunteer, there first thing in the morning directing traffic and there last thing in the late afternoon when it closed down at 5pm on Sunday. Volunteers make it happen.

Mark your calendar for next year. It's fabulous, old-fashioned fun and it will make you happy to experience it and to know that such things still exist. Third week of September.