There Were Cow Butts Everywhere!

Yes my little grasshoppers it is time for the annual Geauga County Fair roundup. That time of year when you journey with me through cow butts and pig butts and way too much fried food.

HHBL and I indulge in an orgy of fair food and farm animals once a year on Labor Day. And this year was the first year for I think 20+ years that we haven’t had one of the progeny with us. It was just…..

US!

Wow. And we still had fun and we still ate way too much. Life is good.

We are creatures of habit are HHBL and I. We park in the same place (the high school) and we walk the fair grounds always in a counter clockwise direction, going through the agricultural barn first so that we can see all the produce, the gigantic pumpkin (which wasn’t all that big this year) and all the 6 day old baked goods that have lost all sense of edibleness.

I consulted with the “bee guy” about what he thought was the type of ground bees that I killed a couple of weeks ago. It is always good to speak with the authorities on these sorts of things, not that he was there to help me when I was in the trenches slugging it out with the little devils.

We always check out all the artwork that the highschoolers produce as well as all the photography that is in the last building. Every year HHBL keeps telling me that I need to enter the photography category. One of these days.

And then it is on to the livestock.

Of course there are plenty of cow butts. More than enough to get us through the cow buttless days of winter.

  Awwwwww, look at how happy they are to just be in the barn with all the people staring at them.

Some cows will just do anything for attention.

  And then, of course, we have to go through the “Bunny Barn” which has nothing whatsoever to do with Hugh Hefner and Playboy. The bunnies with the red eyes always freak me out.

And for some reason there were also rats in cages in the bunny barn. This guy was studiously trying to find a way out.

And of course there is the Poultry barn where HHBL feels it is his duty to see if he can get the roosters to crow repeatedly.

This is how much the prize turkey went for at auction. I am not sure it they are going to eat it or gild it and set it up in the front hall.

Turkeys really are ugly birds. Tasty but ugly.

And then there were……..

Pig Butts!!!

That is one brave pig to put his body and snout down in the place where he has it.

All day I have felt the need for bacon. That must be why we are having BLT’s for dinner.

And then it was time to eat. As we would leave one live stock barn and enter another we would be overwhelmed with the smell of deep fried stuff. And we finally had to give in.

Oh for the love of all that’s holy! These were so good.

And then there was the gyros. Every year we talk about having something else and every year we look at each other and say, “Nah, we need gyros.” And every year it is delicious.

We walked a bit after ingesting the onion rings and gyros in fairly quick order. There was a stroll through the areas under the grandstands where you can buy everything from replacement windows to tupperware to beef jerky and all sorts of things in between. These set ups used to be Pilot Man’s favorite when we were growing up. Grab a bag and see how much literature that you can pick up and take home. Who cares if it is for hernia surgery, he who gathers the most literature wins.

We stopped at the book barn where I managed not to buy a book. I think that is a first for me.

And then it was a stroll back through the fair grounds where we watched kids riding the rides and playing the games.

This ride seemed to be a particular favorite. Shades of the old TV show “The Prisoner”.

I had a fairly close sighting of a “Homo mullitus” which is, unfortunately, not as rare as it should be.

And then!!!!!

It was on to…..

Oh yes be still my beating heart. They weren’t sold out this year. And the line wasn’t all that long

YUM!

And then we strolled up the midway, stopped in the Republican booth and saw Mike DeWine who is running for Attorney General here in the Frozen Northeast Ohio. He is much shorter than I thought he was.

But that is neither here nor there I guess. I am still voting for him.

And then, as our usual last stop, we strolled over to listen to the Geauga Country Fair Band.

They are actually fairly decent for a county fair band. What HHBL and I like about them is it is a mixture of young and old. Some are really, really old.

And all too soon my milk shake was done.

And HHBL and I drove on home where I spent the rest of the evening fighting off a Fair Food induced coma.

It was a close call I can tell you.