End of Days....end of summer

Everyone is sleeping in my house...except for me.  I have just crept quietly away from the crib that holds my baby daughter cozy and warm beneath her lilac fleece blanket, my husband breathes evenly from our bed, my wee lad is tucked into his bottom bunk upstairs and my big lad, along with his buddy spending the night this last weekend before school starts, is safe and snoozing in his shack a few steps from the main house.

The last of the supper dishes have been filed into the dishwasher, the last bit of tomato left on the cutting board has been fired into the bucket for the goats, the tv has been turned off.  The house is quiet.....and I sit down to write. 
Today was a good day....a fun day....a favourite kind of day.  I took the two little kids and myself to the Fall Fair. I managed to enter some exhibits, some baking, some pics, some jelly and have some ribbons to show for running around my kitchen stirring and sifting in between rocking and soothing. 
My wee lad brought home some ribbons of his own.  I set him up at the table with some string and a bowl of assorted pasta and fruit loop cereal and he made a necklace.  Most of the cereal ended up in his tummy but his end result was good enough for a blue ribbon.....his first.  The time it took him to put his necklace together allowed me to ice the chocolate cake I had made for the Special Contest exhibit.  A special class devoted to the best Chocolate Layer Cake, a prize that has eluded me in previous years, but not this year.  Big blue ribbon for mama bear......good for us!
It was a great day...a stellar Vancouver Island day.  Temperature in the twenties but a cool and comfortable September breeze on the air, enough to keep the bugs somewhat at bay, although this time of year there's no stopping the wasps.  The end is near for them....they know it....and they're pissed about it.
There were rides at the fair both mechanical and four-footed and my wee lad's head  hit the pillow tonite exhausted from both, his little eyes shining with fun, his memory bank overflowing with bouncy castles and Daisy the cow.
I've always loved fall fairs and try to participate in them, not only for a chance at  ribbons which are always cool, but for the feeling I get heading to the fairgrounds with offerings from my kitchen, my garden, my children's hands and imaginations,from my heart and home. 
Fall fairs are about community and when I am wandering through Domestic Science buildings admiring green beans and  pumpkins, barns filled with dairy cows and  sheep, community halls offering homemade pie and fresh whipping cream.....I feel connected to my community. 
The buzz of conversation has nothing to do with the world at large and everything to do with the world at, and under, one's feet. 

I hear two ladies admiring huge jars of pickled beets and discussing he best way to preserve their colour and flavour, notice children hovering proudly beside their blue-ribbon cookies made from scratch, and compliment the grower of the best looking cabbage I've ever seen.  I admire, I notice and I compliment and my wee lad does the same, like his brother before him when he used to enter his Lego creations in the Junior Arts category, and my heart is big, my stress level is low, and it's all......good.

We are exhausted tonight from a day spent at the country fair and although to many it may seem quaint and antiquated, and rightly so I suppose, I feel like I've shared something real with my family. Something a million miles away from a text message, a video game, a movie or a battery-operated game. 

It's all been real today....real people, real food, real fun.....and really good Chocolate Cake! 

And now I'm real tired......goodnite all.....