After a summer pack full of events, an extra property to attend to, and some other personal happening, the farm was falling behind.

Granted, there was some produce continuing to grow, And lots of grass too.  I got down there last Saturday and did mowing, weeding, burning, you name it.  Then Sunday was full of hard construction on the crib again.  I got some 2nd floor joist prep done, and got the first 2 up in place.  Grampy came with me, and he removed the last bit of slat wall and got plywood up.  We finished the day by opening up and making plans to replace a badly rotten joist on the East end of the crib.  We also got the last piece of door trim hung up.

I went back on Monday night and added more joists, and started removing the cross braces these were replacing.  Tuesday was muggy and I had spent most of the daylight finishing up the Farmer’s market and eating dinner.  I might get back there tonight, if it stops raining.

Pics are shown HERE

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For the 3 years we have been here, the only reaction to the fact that we have not yet been to the Iowa State fair, is one of shock.  Yes, I hear it is the biggest, best, and longest fair ever.  We almost made it last year, but didn’t.  This year, we were determined to.  Besides, Grampy had moved here last fall, and when I realized his birthday was opening weekend it sounded good.  I checked the concert schedule.  Peter Frampton was playing his birthday.  Ka-ching.  Present solved.

My dad loves guitar music like Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray.  Peter Frampton might have been just past his main music influence period, and just before mine, but we both loved the guys work.  So, we went to the fair.

We started off roaming aimlessly thorough the crowd.  It was packed.  We took Mason to a kid’s farm exhibit.  He took little seed tokens and planted them in dirt, then picked up baggies of corn and soy beans for the effort.  After that the later ‘fed’ them to the cow to make milk and or coverted them into bio-diesel to run the tractor to bring the rest of his acquired goods to a farmers market.  Here, the kids got to earn money to spend in the gift shop.  Passing the rocket pops and twinkies, Mason picked a loaf of bread!  He told me he wanted something healthy and that he remembered that he finished the bread that very morning.  What a smart little man!  It was such a cute activity for kids, and Mason loved it - especially since he was at the upper end of the suggested age range.  How come he won’t work that hard at our farm?

We purposefully avoided the midway area, but got to see many of the vegetable and animal exhibits.  This was still a state fair, and there were cattle, horses, pigs sheep and many other animals to show.  We saw minutes old chicks, day old piglets, week old cows, baby ostriches (and a full size one!), along with a full size elk, and the biggest bull and boar around.  WOW!  We even took in a cattle showing, as that barn had air-conditioning.
There was a building full of all the normal fair/show booths.  Sewing machines, hot tubs, pianos, siding, roofing and everything you could believe.  Outside had all the areas of tractors, farm gear and power tools.  We made a huge shopping list at the John Deere and Bobcat displays, and had to find the New Holland display that had the new 8N tractor, as Chuck Offenburger had pointed out earlier.  I would break our John Deere tradition for this retro-looking tractor.  It was very cool!  We took in pie from the Methodist church stand, and rested a little before hauling back to the grandstands for the concerts.

The Gin Blossoms were the opening act.  They put on a great show of all their hits.  I heard they broke up for a few years, and only had 2 newer songs that we didn’t know.  I wonder if they fell victim to the “the first album was so awesome, the 2nd album must be ever better” hype to failure situation so common in the music world.  Still, the music sounded great, and the lead singer kept running around the bleachers.
We actually had to explain to Mason the concept of an opening act.  He thought after this round of music that we could go home.  Nope!  We found a snack and tried to get Mason to watch the crew change the stage around.  This was his first concert after all.
Not many people could enter a stage with the Apocalypse Now - Flight of the Valkyries scene playing.  But Peter Frampton could.  “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”  I had mild expectations, as I heard his newer music and had seen a newer concert DVD showing that Peter had gone a bit softer, reflective perhaps, in his old age.  That his hard rock days were behind him as many other musicains had become.  NOPE!  For an old man, he could rock like no other.  There were no easy songs played here tonight.
Frampton came alive, with awesome covers of “Shotgun” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” before telling us that “We’re going to do you a little bit of everything tonight.  Maybe some juggling?  We’ll play some songs that have not even been recorded yet.  After that, we’ll play some songs just a bit older than that.  Then we’ll play some songs even older than those.  And we’ll play some really old songs.  So when you put it like that, it seems pretty good, huh?”

He dove into “Lines on my face”, “Show me the way” and “Baby I love your way”.  His ‘never been heard’ song, “Thank you Mr Churchill” which was the story of ending the war, bringing his dad home for a chance to meet his mom and making him…ROCKED.  It started off slow, but built into a frenzy that anyone near 60 shouldn’t be able to endure.  Then, a talk-box enhanced version of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and a 15+ minute long, completely wicked-awesome rendition of “Do you feel like we do”

Not to sound cheesy, but it’s not like I would say that my life is more complete seeing Frampton play his signature song,  but it was something worth seeing during your lifetime.  I don’t think Reagan had any clue of what she was about to see besides this song, but shortly into the 2nd song of the night, she yelled at me that “Oh my God, this guy can play”  Reagan often hates my guitar driven rock, but she had a great time listening to many songs she didn’t even connect to Peter Frampton.  She had a great time.

The “Do you feel like we do” frenzy finally fell into that dim stage glow where you knew an encore was on the way.  I didn’t know what else to even expect, but he ended it with an awesome “While my guitar gently weeps”
The Iowa state fair had stated that there was a fireworks spectacular after every concert.  Let me tell you, there was.  It was one of the best fireworks shows I have ever seen, including Disney World.  The most interesting point of this was, that the stage was between the grandstands and the racetrack.  The backstage building was behind the racetrack, so that the artists had to cross the street, so to say, to reach the dressing rooms.  You could actually see Peter Frampton and his band stop in the middle of the race track and stare up for the entire fireworks show.  From our viewpoint, I could see Peter clap a few times when it ended.  He is human, just like the rest of us after all.

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After I sat down for dinner, I realized that almost everything was fresh and local.  Farmer’s Markets rock

So, we spent the day drinking and loving Greene Bean Coffee’s newest edition, Organic El Salvador.  It’s Rainforest Alliance certified and very tasty.  At the Farmer’s Market, we bought heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, a fresh loaf of French bread, and some bi-colored sweet corn.
I took half of the loaf of French bread and sliced it horizontally.  On each piece, I added a layer of olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh ground black pepper follow by a few slices of tomato.  I topped it off with a heavy sprinkle of finely shreaded mozzarella cheese and stuck it under the broiler until the first hints of brown came out.

That, and some steamed corn.  Massive amounts of Yummy.

Almost local-vore, The olive oil and seasonings are a stretch, but a staple around here.  I guess I cheated on the cheese as there is no local dairy in the county.  There is a great local dairy in Woodward, the Picklet Fence Creamery.  I know they have cheese.  If I was in Perry or Boone, I might have found a local cheese to use.  Still, dinner left me wondering how much of this food was either in plant or ingrediant form, just 24 hours ago.

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Well 75% of a weekend of work.

Saturday was a quick effort to finish reinforcing the back bit of roof at the downtown building.  There was a cracked joist, but that pushed back up rather easy, and we sandwiched it with new wood.  After that we were adding reinforcements and strengthening anything that we could.  Even a simple pair of 1×4’s across the top of the old, lower ceiling kept it from flexing.  That made for good catwalk access as well.

Sunday we finished nearly finished a small wall that we were adding in, but came up a few boards short.  No biggie, it’s built and we can add the missing ones later.  After that I took Mason down to the farm.
I mowed the edges, then got Mason to take his first lap on the tractor.  He did a real good job following the trail I left out.  As soon as I saw that he could handle it, I left his side and went to grab something out of the truck.  He finished his lap, then turned it off.  I don’t think he was too comfortable yet.  There were too small section of Corn Crib that need siding.  I knocked out the 4 slat boards, and headed up a ladder to remove any rouge nails.  That’s when I found out that I must have been shaking a wasp’s nest.  5-6 of them started swarming me, and I got hit on the left ear.  As I was swatting that one away, I saw another fly in front of me and glance off my swinging forearm.  And he hit me!  They must really do attack in the cartoon-ish curled up-butt first-dive bomb attack.  I never got off a ladder faster.
I’ve never really been certain if I was allergic to bee stings or not, but wanted to play it safe.  I quickly put everything away, and got in the truck.  To be safe, I stopped at the Offenburgers house.  There is nothing better than a good country neighbor.  I bummed a pair of Benedryll to counteract the stings, and Carla made a baking soda paste to put on it.  We talked for a few minutes and I headed out with several homemade jars of pickled beans and relish.  I owe a sample of our relish recipe in return.  Good friends and neighbors like this are awesome.

After I got home, and recounted the harrowing story to a laughing Reagan, the Benedryll really started to hit me.  Really, if you take two of those, you are out.  After starting to doze in a chair, Reagan shoo’ed me to bed around 3…3:30..4?  I don’t even remember.  I remember waking up a bit and wanting to roll over, but couldn’t even muster the will to do that!  Finally around 7:30, and by thinking about having to go to the bathroom for at least the last 30 minutes, I finally got that far.  I also managed to eat something too.  Then start going unconscious in the chair again.  Finally I was able to get up and productive in about another 30 minutes.

I did get back to the farm on Monday morning, just to make sure nothing was left out.  I kept wondering where was that hammer I was carrying at the time.  It only seemed to rain in town, so I did get to finish mowing most of the farm before having to head back to work.

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