10/13/2013

Mother Earth Fair

Barb does a lot of detail reading and she found out that this weekend there was a Mother Earth Fair in Lawrence.  As it turned out, it cost each of us $25 to get in.  There was a lot of interesting displays there but it did seem to be a little expensive.  I guess if we had gone to one of the lectures it might have been a little more worthwhile.  For me, it was a trip to the big boy toy store.  One of the most interesting was the DR Tractor booth.  It turned out that they were doing a test of the market and had six or seven items that they are considering selling.  They have a garden cart that is gasoline powered and the new model is battery powered.  It is reportedly going to be cheaper but it is basically an electric  powered wheel barrow.  They also had a saw that cuts firewood to length like a chop saw.  One invention was a small chipper shredder on the back of a self propelled lawnmower.  Would work fine for small lawns and light branches.  Not for me but there might be a market.  They gave you three tickets and showed you how the items worked.  If you liked them, you voted for your favorite.  If you would comment on line you got a pickle.  The demonstration I liked the most was the two portable sawmills in another booth.  It would be nice but I am sure that those toys would have turned into a job and I sure as heck didn't need any thing else to do.  I didn't even ask how much $.

Barbara liked the booths that had different kinds of seeds.  Many of them were Heirlooms plants and made different colored varieties of plants we now see.  I think she also found a cover crop that we may use on the new garden spot.  Barb thinks the old plot has been used a few years and we might have some diseases n the soil so we are moving the garden.  I might also improve the fence to keep the deer out.  This year they ate all the corn.  Something else ate all the cherry tomatoes when we went on our trip out west.  I won't even talk about the grapes and the blackberries.
 
Barb and I went up into Lawrence to eat lunch.  Someone gave us coupons for Buffalo Bob's BBQ and we went there.  It took us over an hour to get seated and served.  I know I saw our order in the window for at least 10 minutes and it wasn't near as warm and nice as the last time I was there.  They try to give you heaps of French Fries but it is the BBQ that is important. It wasn't up to my high standards.  Things there are also in need of an update as it was a little dirty.  We think it has been there 40 years or so.

Yesterday afternoon/evening when I finished the work on the mower I took it out to the field to test it.  Seems to work fine for now.  At least in the end it didn't end up in a smoking pile with the belt burned off.  As I was putting the tractor up, I almost ran into a mother deer and her fawn.  The mother went on high alert but when I powered down the tractor she let me sit there and watch as they ate the neighbor's flowers.  I guess if you grow a salad bar near the woods, you just have to understand that the natives will stop by for a snack.  This year we didn't have much in the way of fruit on the ground in the orchard. The deer kept it cleaned up.  Last year we collected a lot more fruit and fed it to the deer through Christmas.  Not this year.   I didn't see a grape this year either.  The neighbors say the turkeys are the main culprit there. 

Oh well, another Sunday to play outside and see what I can do to spend time.  I did find that Dillon's had Choice KC Strip streaks for 4.99 a pound.  You had to buy a six pound chunk of meat but I think I can manage to cut steaks out of the big chunk.

MUD

No comments:

Post a Comment