Blue Grass Festival

A lot of stuff happened today, beginning with coffee in the morning and then Pauline, Brent and I loaded hay bales in the pickup and the red trailer and parked it down by the road. Linda and Pauline then started loading pumpkins and squash in buckets and wash tubs while Brent and I pulled the hay wagon down to where I had parked the truck and trailer. Something unexpected happened then, a guy that Linda is getting to work on the 65 Mustang showed up with his trailer to pick up the car. We used the Mule to pull it out of the shed over to his trailer and he winched it on and chained the car down. We talked a few minutes afterwards and then he headed home with the car. Stacey, Regina, Linda, Pauline, Brent and I loaded mums into the trailer along with the pumpkins and a bunch of other gourds. Brent and I left with the trailer for town while the girls were grabbing more stuff. We parked in front of the Center On Aging that Regina runs and started unloading our cargo. Linda, Regina and the girls arrived shortly and helped setup the displays.
 
We finished the setup and headed to the park to check out the Blue Grass Festival. The park was crowded with people in lawn chairs and vendors along the edges selling all sorts of items. The music contests were going on along with clogging, picking and grinning.

   
   
After looking around, we returned to the Center and Pauline and Regina went to enter Pauline's quilt in the quilting competition. Brent and I walked across the street and ate breakfast at the Corner, then returned and let Linda, Stacey and Pauline go eat. They came back and everyone was there so I drove the truck and trailer back home and mowed the old house area and sold three mums off the hay wagon in the yard while mowing. I let the dogs out, called them back inside, and returned to the Center in town. Brent, Pauline, Stacey and I walked through the park again, this time picking up some sandwiches and vendor food for lunch. We went through the building with the quilts and voted on our picks for 'People's Choice'. There was over fifty quilts entered in the competition and displayed inside the newest building in the park. The judges had already made their decisions about which quilts were the best and Pauline's quilt had placed third.
   
Pauline was satisfied with the award and was already planning on how to make another quilt for next year. The winning quilt really was nice with scalloped edges and nice colors. Below is a picture of the winning quilt.
 
After checking out the quilts, we watched some of the competitions going on in the park. The newest event was a tournament for a game similar to horse shoes, only played with a bag of corn and thrown at a board with a hole in it. There were several teams involved and a trophy was presented to the winners. I guess there is a version played with washers also, but this version of the game seemed fun and easy to play.
   
There were also individual musical competitions divided by age groups and instruments People were also just sitting around playing music in the covered eating areas and under shade trees, where ever the musicians ran into each other, it seemed a 'show' would start.

   
There were announcements during the day of lost cell phones that had been found, there were even announcements of 'lost kids', but everyone was found, it was just a real friendly setting and people were enjoying the exceptional weather while hearing good 'Blue Grass Music'. We had been selling pumpkins and gourds during the day, but we had been letting the little customers pick out small pumpkins and giving them the 'kid size' pumpkins, but it was well worth it to see the kids having a good time. Later in the day, Rhonda stopped with her husband, Phil, and their family, including three grand kids, Carlyn, Zack, Zeke and their parents.
   
   
Around 6 PM I took Pauline and Brent back to our house, they loaded up their dogs and stuff and headed home to attend a party at their neighbors. Brent had told us that their neighbors' son was leaving for a few years service in the Navy, so they were having a going away party. I drove the truck with the trailer back to the Center and we loaded up the stuff we hadn't sold. There wasn't nearly as much as we had taken, so it wasn't too bad. We closed the trailer and parked the truck, then went to the park to enjoy the rest of the evening. I gathered up three lawn chairs and we moved them over to make them the 'best seats in the house'. The band competition had been judged and they paid money for the first 5 places, with third getting $500, second place $750, and the winner getting $1,500. The third place band played for 30 minutes, the second place played their 30 minutes and then the first place band played. It was after 10 PM when we left for home.