The gardens are starting to wind down some and it is time to start putting your vegetable garden up for the coming winter.
Freezing, canning, drying and just plain eating. Speaking of vegetables, August is also the time for the ever present County Fair. Time to take your best and brightest for judging at the fair. Hey, you just might win that blue ribbon.
Baked goods, sewing, knitting and the like are all on display. If you get lots of compliments for you cooking or baking, why not try it and see what happens. You never know what you might receive. At the Western Washington State Fair in Puyallup, they have judging of collections. My daughter has a huge panda bear collection that she should have entered but we just never got around to it. It would have been fun and we let the fun slip right on by us.

Take your fattest calf and check out the competition. I always like to tour the barns to see the animals. Can't miss the home exhibits too but love those animals. Ever see a huge sculpture of a cow out of butter? The first time I ever saw a lop eared rabbit was at the fair. I still want to know who it was that broke that first rabbit's ears like that. Now I dearly love them and have decorated my bedroom in lagomorphs , that's rabbits for you dog and cat people.

Now on to the poultry barns. Be sure to pick out your prettiest hen and if she's a good egg layer, so much the better. Don't you just love my hen here? When I was little my mother raised chickens and my mother-in-law raised a few bantam hens but I must confess, they aren't my favorites at the fair unless they've been to see Colonel Sanders first. The tiny ones are fun to watch though as they run hither and yon looking for morsels of food.

Now while you are at the fair, don't forget the rodeo. That's the real exciting part of a fair. Oh, yes I know, you kids will say it's the rides, so OK, they are fun and a definite part of the modern day county fair. Oh, and the food, but we'd better not go there, too many calories by far.