It's a misty, moisty morning at the farmette. Dull and grey, and there's actually a snap in the air. Only 10C.
Yesterday, while Halifax was battling a gale-force wind and rain as a result of Dorian, we were enjoying a lovely day at the Beaver Valley Fall Fair in Thornbury.
Jane, my friend from Toronto and I took in the sights and sounds. As we drove through the valley to get there, signs of the colours to come were already starting to show on some trees.
It's interesting how all these regional fairs are slightly different in their approaches.
Thornbury, for example, had a car show, rather than the farm animal show that you usually see at a rural fair.
MGs and Miatas lined up with Porsches and gigantic trucks. l particularly liked this gorgeous Morgan, which, I understand is built by hand in the U.K. It's the only car manufacturer left in the country and there's a list a mile long for people wanting to buy the high-end auto.
I also saw a souped up Miata and actually chatted with the owner briefly. It's a vintage 2000, and he really did a lot of work to make the car exactly what he wanted. It kind of made our wee 1990 model look like a piker, but I'll take ours anyway.
The most gorgeous wee car and one that made my heart race was this MGA. I've always coveted this model, imagining myself as Audrey Hepburn (or Sophia Loren) with big sunglasses and a silk scarf blowing in the breeze as I drive through the Alps.
Anyway, getting back to the fair, this one had a couple of unique attractions, including a lottery in which people laid down their bets on squares on a grid. A chicken named Henny Penny was let loose on a duplicate grid that was laid out on the ground and the idea was to wait until the poultry pooped on the lucky winner's square. The prize was a shiny red bike. It caused a bit of a stir when Penny was let loose and there was quite a crowd, but it dissipated when the bird just stood there, with nary a scrap of manure emanating from her bottom. We didn't stick around to see the outcome...
Inside the community centre was an array of crafts, vegetables and quilts vying for top spot, bragging rights and probably a tiny monetary award.
One especially poignant quilt was a series of shirt fronts with the owners' names attached to the bottom right corner of each. Poignant, because some of them were accompanied by birth and death years. The worn collars and the frayed cuffs were testaments to years of hard work.
The flower arrangements were fetching and I especially liked the ones in which household items were recycled into vases. Here's an old rubber boot sprouting some goldenrod and other fall flora. Cool, eh?
After a couple of hours, my stomach started telling me it was lunch time, so we stopped into the Dam Pub for a bit of a nosh. Curry and cream mussels for me and a lovely watermelon and smoked bacon salad for Jane. Yum.
Until next week.
