Things I love about the Union Fair...

Mostly I love the livestock. The cows, all trimmed and washed and fluff dried. Huge and healthy, placid and sweet faced. I love the sheep and the pigs and the chickens and ducks.

The 4-H kids in their ironed blue jeans and white button down shirts? I love them. A lot.

The rows of canned beans, fresh picked flowers, potatoes and squash and peppers and onions? Lovely. The hand stitched quilts and dolls and knitted afghans make me smile. The smell of fair food is intoxicating, the sound of children and the barkers calling and the tinny music from the rides and the sight of couples young and old, walking hand in hand, taking in the flooding of the senses that is the fair. I love it all.

The evening sky over the garish lights reminds me that when the when fair season is over, a quiet beauty remains.

Fair Season...

It is Fair season in Maine. Many of the small towns that spangle this state host fairs in the late summer and fall. Since Maine is a state rich in agriculture, these small town fairs still boast barns full of cattle, swine, sheep, goats and poultry.

Last night we attended the Union Fair. We watched the horse pulls, where teams of draft horses are hitched to sleds stacked high with granite. Muscles rippling, hooves pounding, they lurch and pull and heave. We saw pens full of sheep, saw teenagers deftly handling beef cattle and other livestock for 4-H, and admired row upon row of lovely, sleek dairy cows.

Of course there was traditional "fair food," sausage sandwiches, fried dough, funnel cakes, french fries, onion blossoms, and more. The air was full of the sounds of the fair; barkers barking, the music from the rides, laughter, chatter, the high pitched screams of girls on the roller coaster.
The smell of fair food was over ridden by the smell of the poultry barn, the cow barn, the pigs, sleek and grunting.

Together we wandered through buildings filled with hand stitched quilts and clothing, projects by children, photography and art by neighbors. We admired tractors and tools, and chatted with friends we bumped into along the way.

We love to the flavor of fairs....