When In Rome

The saying goes that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Since we are in Kentucky, we thought we had best do as the Kentuckians do, or at least some of them. So we went to the State Fair.


This is one of the first things that we saw, made completely of balloons. To bad some of my grand kids weren't along; they would have loved it. Zoom in to see the animals.


This is a very large fair with exhibits going and coming. We took in the 4-H and FHA displays. B thought their old restored tractors were great.

In the barns we saw pigs and sheep. The sheep were being closely sheared, different from when I was in 4-H. Beef cattle were just being brought in.

In other buildings we saw lots of quilts, and I mean lots. We looked at photos, paintings, antiques, flowers, bees and their production, tobacco, hay, lots of vegetables and only apples and pears for fruit. The largest watermelon was over two hundred pounds.

While we were looking at the vegetables we saw, in the bean category, some foot and a half long deep purple beans. I asked what kind they were and was told that they are a type of Asian bean. I thought, how many people are you serving, that's how many beans you need to cook. They must be a pole bean.

We saw lots of corn, mostly dried, along with many other seeds. We found out that the plants that we had seen driving here that looked like shorter corn with a bushy top, instead of a corn top, is sorghum. The seed is quite small. We also learned that you judge soy beans by the size and thickness of the plant, but mostly by the number of bean pods on each branch of the plant.

During the fair, for three days, is also the National Championship of American Saddlebred Horses. It was fun to watch. Some of their tails are dragging on the ground by a foot or more. As soon as they are leaving the ring, someone is gathering and knotting them up. They are beautiful horses. We also watched the double and four team mule teams be judged. It was also interesting.

There were lots of other performances going on in the buildings and on the grounds. Did I mention that most everything is indoors. With the heat and humidity in this part of the country it is understandable. The grounds are next to Churchill Downs. We listened to music groups and saw performances, such as these motorcycle riders. There was a tight rope walker before them.

Of course, a fair would not be a fair if it didn't have food. So we had some of it too. You can see who was doing the eating.


Okay, I did have some too.

There was free grandstand entertainment in the evening, some of which were well known groups. However, after nine hours there we were ready to call it quits. THANKS Louisville for a great day!