The Blue Moon Rises Pink

 The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago --
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below --

 Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde --
Her Cheek -- a Beryl hewn --
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known --

 Her Lips of Amber never part --
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will --

 And what a privilege to be
But the remotest Star --
For Certainty She take Her Way
Beside Your Palace Door --

Her Bonnet is the Firmament --
The Universe -- Her Shoe --
The Stars -- the Trinkets at Her Belt --
Her Dimities -- of Blue --


(The Moon Was But a Chin of Gold, by Emily Dickinson)

Thursday Thirteen

Out of ideas today, so I'm going to take 13 quotes from books on the top shelf, using the 13th line on the 13th page as a sort of anchor:

1. "Jefferson had no way of knowing that immediately after he wrote those orders, one of the Barbary States would commence hostilities." - The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot

2. "Most of the black people in Hope lived near the cemetery, across the road from where my grandfather's store had been." - My Life, by Bill Clinton

3. "Beat writers like Ginsberg shaped their public utterances out of the private experiences which their first readers found shameful and appalling: they presented, often as visionary experiences, confidences of a kind which were once uttered only to priest or doctor." - From "Introduction" in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition, Richard Ellmann & Robert O'Clair, eds.

4. "Hiawatha aimed his arrow at a little rabbit." From "Hiawatha" in Walt Disney's Storyland (55 Favorite Stories).

5. "The men left in a rush: they flung on coats, they slid kisses at everybody's cheeks, they slammed house doors, they slammed car doors; they ground their cars' starters till the motors caught with a jump." - An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard (page 15 because page 13 was a blank chapter page).

6. "We bend over them, Walt, taking their breath
    soft on our faces, wiping their domed brows,
     stroking black the coal-black Union hair." - From "Nurse Whitman," in Satan Says, by Sharon Olds

7. "The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the lease perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration." - From "Ms. Found in a Bottle," in Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

8. "People would listen to what you had to say and treat your views with respect, and if they disagreed with your point of view, they would explain why by providing intelligent reasons." - The Thinker's Way: 8 Steps to a Richer Life, by John Chaffee, Ph.D.

9. "Suddenly they discover their families - previously people to be ignored in the face of the seventies - pre-television, pre-automobile, pre-flight individuals who endured and survived the incredible task of total self-sufficiency, and came out of it with a perspective on ourselves as a country that we are not likely to see again." - From "Introduction," The Foxfire Book, by Eliot Wigginton and his students (eds.)

10. "After sorting through enormous piles of transcription pages, I selected interview material that best illustrates the important lessons, sacrifices, and conflicts about being a woman with a passion to create in this culture and at this time in history." - The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, by Gail McMeekin

11. "The amount of sugar in your blood is one teaspoonful." - Folk Medicine: A New England almanac of natural health care, by D. C. Jarvis, M.D.

12. "If you recall wondering about things as a child, if you daydream occasionally, if you find yourself creating a story out of something that happened to you for the entertainment of your listener, you can develop - through the exercises in this book - the ability to generate written words more easily, to express your ideas more authentically, to develop your own "voice" - that manner of expression unique to you." - Writing the Natural Way, by Gabriele Lusser Rico

13. "The claw tore open his mind, as it might have torn open a rabbit." The Dragon's Son, by Margaret Weis


I really need to clean out my book shelves. I can't believe I have these books in the same room, let alone on the same shelf.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 257th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Wordless Wednesday

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday for the 9th time.

In Love with The Newsroom

When I was growing up, the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I," was a humbling phrase. My mother said it to me as a reminder that good fortune can come and go in a heartbeat. It was a motto indicating that we are, as a people, one and the same. Clothes and glitter do not make humanity.

Today, "There but for the grace of God go I" is a statement of hubris, a phrase of arrogance. It is used to make poor people feel bad, to indicate that they have done something wrong - that they are inherently "less than" because they do not have that grace of God.

Poor people do not glitter when they walk. But rich people do, and in today's world of emotional, gut-wrenching vileness, that glitter is all that matters.

This difference in thinking is but one of the many themes of The Newsroom, a show on HBO.

This is a show that has left me crying at the end of 9 out of the 10 episodes in its first season.

My husband says I cry because I am, after all, a news woman at heart. The show depicts that adrenaline that occurs when a story hits, the heat of the chase for information, the action that takes place behind the scenes as news unfolds. I miss that and it is worthy of tears.

But he is not entirely right. That is not the only reason this show makes me cry. The truths of this show, even though these truths are set in a fictional narrative, are what make me cry.

A friend on Facebook noted that she liked the show, and one of her friends called it "a commie show." That is, of course, the worst insult one can hurl in the United States, to call something "communist" or "socialist."

It is telling that truth is now labeled communist in the United States - lies, I guess, are the American way. Truth has become a bad thing, something to eschew, something bad. But this show is pointing out the true evils that have assailed this nation.

The Newsroom takes aim at the Tea Party, and rightly so, but there are also jabs at the other parties (Republicans and Democrats),the political process in general, and corporate rule. The show points out that this is a nation that is so self-involved and gorged on its own emotional bloat that intelligence has shoved itself into high gear and maneuvered clear off of this planet.

This is what makes me cry, this acknowledgement that as a nation we are now running on fetid emotions and not using the rational, logical selves that once gave us hope of a great country.

It is hard to watch what you love be destroyed, to see evil take over. Evil has usurped the airwaves in the form of 24-hour disingenuous Meet the Press set-ups, corrupted our political process, eaten our discourse and turned us all into partisan ninnies who can barely think our way past tomorrow's breakfast. God forbid we actually set up and solve problems.

The Newsroom works for me because it shows me what could be. It shows what could happen if the media once again became The Fourth Estate, the watchdog of the nation, instead of its lapdog. In a recent episode, The Newroom explains what a real presidential debate should look like, and it cuts deeply because it acknowledges that what we see today is not news.

What we see today is not news. I'm repeating that because it is important. What we see today is entertainment. And there is a huge difference. News tells us what a presidential candidate actually believes and points out stupid when it sees it. Entertainment makes light of real concerns and turns our attention to that kitty cat over at the side of the political forum.

Today we see nothing but kitty cats on all of the news channels.

The fictional show about real news points out that we are seeing kitty cats, and then turns its attention to the real news. You know, the stories of voter disenfranchisement and oil spills. Stuff that really matters.

The Newsroom is also human, and it shows the dichotomy that exists for all journalists - we are human and part of the story even as we try to sift facts and tell it right. That the latter part of the job has been lost (the telling it right) is the tragedy.

Will McAvoy is the news anchor for a show produced by Atlantis Cable News (ACN). His executive producer is MacKinzie McHale. She is also his former girlfriend.

The female characters on the show have been bashed by critics as being hysterical and flat, among other things, but I like them. I consider myself a feminist but I do not see these female characters as derisive or downplaying women or their roles in either the lives of the men or in the media.

Romance is a big thing on this show, too. We have the Will/Mac (and will they or won't they get back together) and we have a Jim/Maggie/Don/Lisa story, along with a new one with Sloan tossed in there for good measure.

The romance is important because it humanizes these people. News people are not little automatons who run around reporting the news. They have lives, feelings, and concerns.

There is a lot in this show to watch. I know some will find it partisan, that it is attacking one side over the other, but I think it it attacking a process, not a side. It is attacking a process that has taken over and destroyed this country. I'm afraid we're too far gone to be saved.

I have watched many of the episodes more than once, and it is quite nuanced. There is much to think about.

Since it is a show that makes you think, I suppose that is why the ratings are not as high as they should be. God forbid we actually think about something here.

And it is *not* a commie show.


Here are some articles about the show:

From The Christian Science Monitor: The Newsroom: Looking Back on Season One

From The Daily Kos: The Newsroom Airs the News Program We've Been Waiting For

A last show discussion: The Newroom finale sets up Season 2 with new stakes and all the greatest fools

The Newsroom Concludes Season with More Tea Party Bashing: Calls Them ‘American Taliban’

The Newsroom finale, Will rises from the ashes


If you're interested, do a search. There are many others. Here's the Wikipedia link if you want that kind of information.

Thanks for reading.

Tractors and Equipment

One of the things I know that I never expected to know is the location of every farm equipment dealer within 100-mile radius of our farm.

A rainy day can result in a car trip to "look" at various pieces of machinery.

These are brush cutters. You use them to mow the fields that you aren't harvesting.

Keeping the pastures mowed down keeps thistle and other weeds from taking over.

Of course, you need a tractor to pull the brush mower.

These old tractors were at the West Virginia County Fair, but they may as well have been at one of the tractor dealers. We would have seen them!

I like to look at the older tractors; they have a lot of personality about them.

Just for fun here's a list of the dealers we sometimes visit. I don't remember all their names.

Boone Tractor in Salem, Bedford, & Lewisburg, WV
Blue Ridge Farm Equipment  in Buchanan
The Kubato dealer in Stuarts Draft
Some other little dealer on the other side of Stuarts Draft
Augusta Equipment in Fishersville
The Ford Tractor dealer in Staunton
Rockbridge Cooperative in Lexington
Kanode's outside of Radford
the John Deere guy outside of Radford
the John Deere guy in Rocky Mount
Some other seller before you get to Rocky Mount (can't remember what he sells and I guess he's still there, haven't been that way in a while)
Several dealers in Greenboro, NC
A dealer in Harrisonburg

There were others, but some of the smaller dealers have closed, and I know I am not remembering them all. At any rate, you can spend a long day driving around looking at tractors.

Occasionally I get to make a run to one or the other of these dealers to pick up parts. That usually happens when something of significance has broken down. After much cursing, my husband will call around and locate the part and send me after it.

I almost always know where to go.

One Thousand Trains

Here is something you may not know about me: I like trains. In particular, I like miniature trains.

If I had a bigger house with extra rooms, I would have a train room. It would be full of miniature trains and miniature buildings and little tiny people. I would love to have a table full of "Z" scale train stuff (I think that is the smallest you can get) if I had a place to put it.

Saturday in Fincastle an auction of over 1,000 miniature trains took place. Most were Lionels, American Flyers, etc.

My husband and I stopped in.

There were, indeed, literally at least 1,000 engines and cars, and who knows how much track.

The cars were piled in boxes, lined on tables, and otherwise tumbled about.

A number had an Armed Forces motif.

Almost all of them looked well-used.

These cars hauled Baby Ruth bars!

Some of the signal lights for display.

Tiny little railroad crossing signs.

I guess most of the miniature items were stuffed in boxes and not out where I could readily see them. We were unable to hang around as long as I would have liked because four people were sucking on cancer sticks like there was no tomorrow. I had an asthma attack because of the second-hand smoke and had to leave.

But I enjoyed looking until I couldn't breath.


If, like me, you're fascinated by miniatures, you must check out the website for the miniature wonderland in Hamburg, Germany. It is billed as the largest model railway in the world, and has things like firefighting scenes, an airport, boats, scenes of countries (including the USA) and other attractions.The four-minute video is incredible, and there are longer videos on youtube if you want to take a look at the wonderland in more depth.

Choo choo!

Against the Sky

A hayrake against the evening sky.

The Butterfly and the Flower

Thursday Thirteen

Stuff on my mind . . .

1. My friend Diane over at Blue Ridge Gal has authored a great response to the current political debate and explains why she votes the way she does. I agree with every word. Please go read it. I vote for women's rights, like she does, before anything else. That includes an economic policy that has a safety net and helps the poor, because most of the poor in the United States are women. In 2010, there were 4 million more women living in poverty than men. If you are not in favor of helping the poor, you are not in favor of helping women. One party in particular is not in favor of helping either the poor or women. That party will not get my vote.

One of my friend's sculptures

2. I have an artist friend who is very ill. She makes sculptures, and her work is outstanding. That she still lives is a miracle in and of itself. I think of her a lot. I wish people did not hurt.


3. I can no longer upload photos to my blog using Internet Explorer and have to switch to a different browser. I can't tell you how frustrating this is. For example, I started this entry in Internet Explorer but had to switch over to FireFox after trying yet again - and failing - to upload a photo in IE.

4. I stopped using Google for my searches after I realized that, for whatever reason, I couldn't take the browser back to my searches and was stuck on a web page. It doesn't happen with any other search engine but google.

5. My personal opinion, based on #3 and #4 above, is that either Microsoft has configured its browser not to work well with Google products, or Google has configured its products not to work well with Microsoft. After all, Google has its own browser. The problem with uploading photos began after an automatic download from Microsoft. Thoughts?

6. Last night just for fun we checked out new cars. I drove a Toyota Camry and a Venza. Sweet rides, both. No plans to buy soon, but looking is good. The Venza is a surprisingly nice vehicle and will certainly have to be considered when the time comes for new wheels. It is all-wheel drive and that might be useful during a snowy winter.

7. Also last night I found a woman's wedding ring in a bathroom stall at a restaurant. It was a dainty 14K white gold band with engraving inside that I was unable to make out. I turned it over to the management and left my business card. Later I looked up a similar band online and found it is probably worth about $100.

8. Students everywhere are going back to school. I have watched them somewhat longingly. I will always be a student at heart and learning is an important part of my life. Have fun, kiddies!

9. The song, The World I Know, as sung by Collective Soul, keeps running through my brain these days. I don't know why. It's an old song. But I think it points towards something I feel in the air right now.

10. How long is a promise good for? If you made a promise 25 years ago to someone you don't even see anymore, does it still hold true?

11. I visited the dentist yesterday and received a good check up. The night before, I dreamed that I was in the chair but then I bolted halfway through, running out with the napkin thing for dribbles still draped around my neck. I woke up in a sweat. Fortunately that dream did not come true.

12. I have a set of rune stones for creative people that I found in a book store a long time ago. Sometimes I draw a stone and study it. This morning I drew out the moon. It means dream time - honor your dreams. Good advice.

13. One year when I was using these stones, I continually drew out a single one - a whirlwind, meaning chaos, for weeks. There are 20 different runes so I should have drawn something else occasionally. At the time my life was in a state of change and flux and the stone was appropriate. After a while I started wanting to see a different stone, though, and I was glad when that run came to an end.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 256th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Wordless Wednesday

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday for the 8th time.

*Photo taken with game camera*

Books: Beauty

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty & The Beast
By Robin McKinley
Copyright 1978
325 pages

A good friend who lives in England surprised me by sending me this book a few weeks ago. She thought I would like it.

She was quite right.

This is a splendid book. Even if you know how it ends, it is a fine read, very well written and full of character.

It is a story full of romance - the old fashioned kind - hope, dreams, and desire.

It is a story of a girl who loves her books and her studies, and cares not for treasure. And isn't treasure what we make of it, after all?

The story has great atmosphere and presence. It is one of the finest books I have read in a while.

Books: First Family

First Family
By David Baldacci
Copyright 2009
Audio 14.5 hours
Read by Ron McLarty


This is one of Baldacci's mysteries. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are former Secret Service agents who are now private investigators. This is the fourth book in the series.

The story begins with Michelle's efforts to reclaim her past, but that is quickly dismissed in favor of the mystery. The niece of the president's wife has been kidnapped, and her mother shot. Sean King, an old friend of the president's wife, Jane Cox, is asked to investigate along with the FBI and Secret Service.

Michelle, as King's partner, is along for the ride. She ends up at home in Tennessee for a while because her mother died mysteriously and her father is a suspect in her murder.

The kidnapper is an Alabama good ol' boy with a grudge against the president, not for his politics, but for something he did before he became a prominent politician. But he is going to get even, yessiree bob. In the end, you almost feel sorry for the fellow. Almost, but not quite.

I enjoy Baldacci's work. The stories are always well written and the characters nicely drawn. He does not do as well with his female characters I as I would like, but he manages well enough.

Good story to listen to in the car.

I Don't Trust the Weatherman

I do not mind the rain. I like rain. I even like storms.

I like sunshine and snow. I like a nice breeze, as well (except for that windstorm on June 29 - that was a bummer.) I am pretty much an all-weather acceptance kind of girl.

What I do mind are very inaccurate weather forecasts. We have been plagued with them of late.

I personally believe in climate change, regardless of reason, and figure some of the inaccuracies are due to the weirdness that has been happening. Uncharted waters and all of that.

But this summer the local weather folks have been off more than they've been on. It's been disastrous.

Yesterday the forecast for today was 30 percent chance of rain. And the rest of the week was something like 30 percent Monday, 20 percent Tuesday, 10 percent, Wednesday.

To be fair, we didn't just check local stations yesterday morning. We checked many sources, including national. They all said the same thing. It was going to be a beautiful week with minimal chance of rain.

So my husband cut hay yesterday. You can't get much better than a 30 percent chance of rain, really. There's almost always a 30 percent chance of a storm in the summer.

We woke up to a large rainfall. Not a passing shower. An all-day event, from the looks of it.

Now the weather forecast is at 60 percent chance of rain today, 40 percent chance on Monday, 30 on Tuesday, and 10 percent on Wednesday.

That's a big jump, from 30 percent to 60 percent in the space of a few hours.

I have one unhappy farmer in the kitchen this morning.

The problem with rain on cut hay is that it molds. Animals won't eat it once it molds. Our hay not only feeds our animals, it is also a cash crop. The money from it is an important part of our livelihood.

Arguing with a weatherman is like arguing with a skunk, really. You aren't going to win. As long as they have a percentage of rain in the forecast, they can claim victory.

Trouble is, no one holds them accountable for the thousands of dollars they cost the agricultural community every year.

Below is a little discussion I had on Facebook this morning with one of the local weather forecasters. I have removed things that identify the TV station, the weatherman and the name of someone from the public who commented, but left my name, because I'm not trying to call out a single local weather person but rather comment on the entire industry:

I'm really curious. So which was it, the forecast "did a complete flop" and flipped unexpectedly from being sunny to rain (meaning they had it wrong yesterday), as the weatherman indicated in his first response, or was rain in the forecast and this downpour was something we should have expected yesterday, as he indicated in his second response?

Does 30 percent mean it's going to rain after all? It used to be a pretty good indicator of sunshine.  Should we only cut hay when we wake up and its a 0 percent chance of rain? Do you know how often that happens? I've never seen a day with a 0 percent chance of rain in the forecast.

I did not continue this discussion on Facebook as I don't like doing that and didn't see the point.

But honestly, those two answers right there give me a good reason not to trust the weatherman - regardless of who he or she is.

Saturday Photo

Captured these two beauties yesterday afternoon as they were browsing in the field in front of the house.

Up Close and Personal

Know what this is?

This is a deer kissing the lens of the game camera.

Cool, or what?

Thursday Thirteen #255

Today I'm listing books. However, I haven't read these, so these are not recommendations, except in that something about the blurb on them made me think I would find the work interesting.

That there are 13 of these says something about my reading habits of late. I need to get busy. Or maybe it says something about my spending habits, although I will say that a majority of these books came from a remainder sale up the valley, (thank you Green Valley Book Fair) and so I paid little or nothing for them.

Anyway, here are thirteen books about writing that are in my "read this" pile:

1. Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, by Natalie Goldberg (copyright 2007).  "A celebration of the memoir form . . . an impassioned call to write . . . "

2. What Would Your Character Do? Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters, by Eric Maisel, Ph.D. and Ann Maisel. Copyright 2006. "Test yourself - and your characters - 30 interactive pop quizzes designed to help you discover exactly what makes your characters tick." Doesn't that sound like fun?

3. The Writer's Devotional: 365 Inspirational Exercises, Ideas, Tips & Motivations on Writing, By Amy Peters. Copyright 2012. ". . . this invaluable volume will get your creative juices flowing."

4. Writing Creative Nonfiction, edited by Carolyn Forche & Philip Gerard. Copyright 2001. ". . . more than thirty essays examining every key element of the craft . . . " I think I bought this one because of the essay by Annie Dillard, mostly.

5. Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, by Rebecca McClanahan. Copyright 1999. ". . . an inspiring examination of description in its many forms."

6. You Don't Have To Be Famous: How To Write Your Life Story, by Steve Zousmer. Copyright 2007."Writing can be intimidating, but with the help of (this book), you can successfully start and finish your most important story."

7. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Copyright 1995. "A warm, generous and hilarious guide through the writer's world and its treacherous swamps."

8. What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. Copyright 2005. " . . .one of the most useful and provocative methods for mastering the art of writing fiction."

9. Writing from the Inner Self, by Elaine Farris Hughes. Copyright 1991. ". . . a revolutionary new way to provide writers access to a supply of unique and creative material . . ."

10. A Cup of Comfort for Writers, edited by Colleen Sell. Copyright 2007. " . . . a little writer's TLC." Also, one of my friends and a fellow bloggers, Becky Mushko over at Peevish Pen, has a story in this. I *have* read her essay, but not the rest.

11. Writing & Selling Your Memoir, by Paula Balzer. Copyright 2011. ". . . gives you the knowledge and skills you need to turn your most important personal stories into compelling and meaningful reading experiences for others."

12. Writing A Woman's Life, by Carolyn G. Heilbrun. Copyright 1988. " . . . an eloquent argument demonstrating that writers conform all too often to society's expectations of what women should be like at the expense of the truth of the female experience."

13. Breathing Life Into Your Characters: How to Give Your Characters Emotional and Psychological Depth, by Rachel Ballon, Ph.D. Copyright 2003. " . . . shows you how to get in touch with the thoughts and feelings necessary to truly understand your characters . . . "

Oh my gosh, there are actually more than 13 here in the pile. Maybe I am now collecting books on writing rather than reading them? Good grief. I think I could bring the list up to 20!

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 255th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday for the 7th time.

The Persiods

The Persoids is an annual meteor shower that occurs in early to mid-August. The meteors are caused by a stream of debris left over from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle.

You can see it in the northern sky where I live.

I decided I wanted to try to catch a meteor on film. I decided to use my Nikon Coolpix P500, which does not have the best manual settings, but does have some. It is a point-and-shoot with a zoom lens, but it is not a DSLR.

We had a bit of cloud cover. I shot this at dusk, using the "dust/dawn" setting on the camera. I also used a tripod AND used the self-timer on the camera in order to avoid shaking anything.

The streak in this picture is an air craft, not a meteor.

However, the little tiny streak in this picture is, I think, a meteor, though I won't swear to it. It only showed up in this one shot, though, whatever it is. I suppose it could be a plane or a satellite.

Here it is again with a line drawn around it so you can see it better.

All in all, considering the camera I was using really isn't made for taking pictures like this, I was pleased with these results. At least the stars are in the sky and I did catch *something* on film. I took well over 150 shots just to catch this little blip.

I had better results using the dusk/dawn setting on the camera than I did using the manual setting and fiddling with the menus. Something to note if you want to try this yourself sometime with a point-and-shoot digital. The scene settings do make a difference.

It's a Sunshine Day

Smile! It's Monday!

Lace for the Queen

When I was small, we always called Queen Ann's Lace a chigger bush.

Chiggers are a type of mite that bites your legs and makes you itch.

Apparently my mother was not the only one who advised her children to stay away from this particular weed for this reason. I googled "chiggers" and found where other people were asking the question on yahoo.

One article I read this morning said this weed is edible. And then I learned that this plant is not native to North America. It came here from Europe. It is actually a type of carrot! So the root is indeed edible.

However, the plant leaves are toxic.

And there are those chiggers, too.

The West Virginia State Fair

The West Virginia State Fair started yesterday and runs through August 18. It is located in Lewisburg in Greenbrier County, WV. It's about 1.5 hours up the road from where I live, give or take a stop.

I was a child when I was last at this fair; I have a vague memory of going with my parents. This fair has been around for many years; it's been the official state fair since 1941.

Anyway, enough of that. You don't want a history lesson, you want to see photos!

To reach the fair from the main parking lot, you have to walk up and over a bridge across the road. This is a shot from the bridge, with the camera over my head to get above the chain-link fence.

Ah, the food! Snow cones and hots dogs and pizza, oh my!

I am a big fan of cotton candy, a treat I only get at fairs. Which is to say, not often! At $5 a pop, I'd better enjoy it, eh?

The rides.

What we really came for. The agriculture stuff. Tractors! And more tractors!

Old antique tractors, all in a row.

Doesn't this look like the best southern food shack EVER? FRIED GREEN TOMATO SANDWICHES! BROWN BEANS AND CORNBREAD! Who could resist?

We like old things, and this grist mill, circa 1870, was no exception.

We watched it grind grain for a good while. Plus it was in the shade and the sun was relentless between the clouds.

The quilts! Aren't they lovely?

A final shot of a one of the rides.

What's a carnival without a lot of color, eh?

If you are local and have never been to the West Virginia State Fair, you should check it out. We left home about noon and arrived around 2:30 (we made stops at other places). We only stayed for about three hours - between the heat, the threat of rain, and the thickening crowds, that was long enough for us. We were back home by 7 p.m.

One of the nicest afternoons I've had in a while!

**Photos taken with my Nikon Coolpix L22**

A Little Bird Told Me

Thursday Thirteen

13 images of deer for your fun and enjoyment!

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 254th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.