Butler Big Fair - Part 2

Lots of cool animals to see ...

 We really liked the goats.  I think John has always wanted to have a goat.  I wonder what Jubilee would think.

 Here's a sweet little one with baby horns just starting to grow.  They do look like gentle animals.  I wonder if that is right.  They also appear to like each other.

 I was very glad to see that most of the pens had fans in them, and the animals gravitated toward them.

 Pigs sleeping on each other before the fan.

 Check out the leg over the back of the other ...

 Then there were the horses, so stately and apparently calmly watching everything with those big eyes ...

 All the horse pens had fans as well.  Everything was clean and well taken care of.

 A cow bath station ...

 All sorts of chickens, hens and roosters ...

Big Butler Fair - Part 1

Hot day today, so we headed over to the Big Butler County Fair.  This was John's 3rd year in a row to attend the fair, my first.  We got there early, just before noon, so that it wasn't crowded and still just a bit of a breeze.  In the shade it was quite pleasant. 

 All the usual fair food.  Luckily, we were able to avoid the funnel cakes ...

 A Sea Lion show.  It didn't start until later in the afternoon, so we just looked at the sea lion and seal.  I felt kind of sorry for the them, having to swim back and forth, back and forth.  But I guess that's what I do in the pool.

 Some camels down at the end of the road.  You could buy a ride on them later.  Somehow, I don't think they looked so happy either.  John said that one was growling at us.

disturbed

Poor John.  He's busy at work at a deadline project and there is no way that he can get all the work done.  They have put this sign on his cubicle:

When he came in to work this morning, it had been slightly altered ...

McConnell's Mill, probably for the last time

We went up to McConnell's Mill today for a walk.  It's a nice day, partly cloudy, not too hot.  I was reminded of that first trip we took to this park when Jubilee and I first arrived in western Pennsylvania 2 years ago.  We didn't even have a place to live yet, but we had found this magical root and rock wonderland that cuts deep into Pennsylvania's farmland.  We have periodically returned to this park for a revival of spirit.

It was quite crowded today - a bicycle thing going on as well as a whole fleet of motorcycles passing through - so we didn't stay long.  I suspect this might have been our last visit.  It was a good find.

When was the first time you saw a Charging Station?

We saw this Charging Station a few weeks ago at the Whole Foods in Wexford PA.  I said to John, we should take a picture (only I didn't have a camera with me.  I forgot about the phone camera).  That was the first time I had ever seen a charging station.  The idea is that you can park your electric car at Whole Foods and have it charge while you shop.  Or, you can see that you're running low on your car's charge and think, oh, I can go over to Whole Food and charge it.

Do you suppose these will catch on?  As we migrate more toward electric cars, will stores offer charging stations as a draw for customers?  Will we be seeing these everywhere, like gas stations?

It seemed to be a site worth marking so today while I was at Whole Foods (picking up some grass fed beef for hamburgers tonight) I took a couple of pictures.  I haven't seen another one anywhere else.  I don't think that they have one at our local Whole Foods in Florida.

after the rain

 This is a favorite little bridge on one of our favorite routes.  The water in the creek is low enough that I can walk out into it and see the bridge and creek from another view ...

wildflower update

 We have been watching these little berries ripen.  Some of them are almost ready for eating.  Every night we make fruit sorbets with our new Vitamix blender.  I wonder how these berries would work?

 For some reason, I never saw the apples on the mayapples this year.  Already they are fading away.