County fair, part four

We been through bovine, equine, swine and homemade wine. Time for some chickens. There were a bunch of damn chickens at the fair. Some were hens, but the ones we saw tended to be roosters. Flashier, I guess. In any event, no, I did not write down what kind of chickens they were. But they were all fat and feisty:

 I think these might have been hens looking to lay an egg, but I really am not a livestock guy.

 Naturally, they had chicks, as well. Actually, there were consecutive displays showing how the chickens go from egg to chick to young chicken to ROASTERs. Yeah, food. Some people find it disturbing, so I stopped with chicks.

 This guy was huge, but wouldn't look at me. I hope somebody fries him really soon.

Naturally, looking at all those chickens makes a man tired. As anyone would, we went to the beer garden. We sat down, ordered beers and as we awaited our order, we looked out at the fair goings-ons. Thank God, I did not have to look far for a young man with a backwards ball cap and no shirt:

Ah, signs of home. After the beers arrived, we relaxed a little and noted that some things will never change: tramp stamps are with us always:

At least she had the originality to avoid the butterfly tattoo. Or, I guess it could have been a butterfly, but not obviously, at least from what I could see. Anyway, after our refreshments, we split up. Mrs. Wolves and her friend went to a wine bar, the friend I garden with -- who is the husband of the woman who went to the wine bar with Mrs. Wolves (Mr. and Mrs. Garden, I guess) -- went back to the car to get jackets for the womenses, and I went to the building with the cooking displays.  Like the bottled wine and beer displays, the baking was all nibbled on. How else to judge it? I think I might enter in a couple categories next year. Lots of banana bread and zucchini bread, and mine are pretty good, so why not?

 Likewise, the canning displays did not fill me with fear and intimidation. I might also enter some canned goods next year.

All that said, those folks put in a lot of work. Pretty sure I wouldn't win a ribbon. But I think I might try.

So I left the cooking and canning displays and went to hunt down Mrs. Wolves and Mrs. Garden at the wine bar. Much to my surprise and pleasure, at the wine bar was a three-piece blues band. Not bass, drums and guitar, but bass, guitar and vocalist with harmonica. No drums. Very traditional, they played a lot of songs I knew and they were pretty god. I always wanted a chick bass player:

 Finally, we went on for the climax of our fair visit: a concert by Martina McBride. We had pretty good seats. She looked like this:

Just kidding. With my shitty ass camera, it was hard to get a good shot in the dark. She actually looked like this:

Yeah, not so much tat, either. But it was a good show. She played a lot of her big hits, a couple things off her upcoming new album, and some covers that let me know she really digs Rod Stewart. Which is good, at least if you dig Rod Stewart and Faces, not Rod Stewart from the "Do You Think I'm Sexy" days. Martina was on the right side of that line.

All in all, it was a good fair trip. Had a camera battery crisis in the middle that spiked some good picture opportunities, but fortunately, free enterprise won out and there as a booth happy to sell me fresh batteries for far too much money (and I cheerfully paid it). Anyway, while I might not have good pictures from Martina's concert -- and the folks there were really into it, I might add -- I leave you with this. It's how she ended the "regular" segment of her show (not sure why artists do this and pretend their done, then come back and do two encores that everyone knows they're going to do, but that's how it works. BTW, the encores, both covers, were great):

Good fair experience. Can't wait until next year.