Terrific Fun at the Topsfield Fair

Last weekend I made the journey back home to see my parents and go to the Topsfield Fair!  (For those of you unfamiliar with the fair, it happens in Topsfield, MA every year in the week leading up to Columbus Day, and it is well worth checking out.)  The fair is an annual tradition: except for last year, when I was in Paris, I can't remember ever having missed a year.  I was sad that the giant ferris wheel was missing from the skyline this year, but we're not really rides people, and this year's giant pumpkin was the biggest ever, breaking the record at 2009 pounds!!!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

I'm not sure why the giant pumpkins are never very orange, but what they lack in color, they certainly make up for in mass.

Of course, there was lots of other prize-winning produce on display, and it was nice to see it all before it rotted!  (In recent years, we've gone on the last weekend of the fair, by which time the prize-winning produce, which is displayed out in the open air, without the benefit of refrigeration, is somewhat putrefied.)

The flower display was also excellent; as per usual, my favorites were the dahlias.

Those seeking my good graces should present me with a bouquet of these...

We also saw plenty of farm animals: bunnies and cavies (that's fancy for guinea pigs), chicken and turkeys and geese and pheasant and quail, bees, cows and sheep and horses.

It's a real sheep, with real horns, I swear!  (Unless it was an alien disguised as a sheep.)

There were even some sheep with more than two horns!  Maybe this merely demonstrates my lack of ovine knowledge, but I didn't know there was such a thing outside of the mutant-alien-sheep genre...  But there was a whole group of these many-horned fellows, although most weren't very obliging for the camera.

Speaking of moving animals, we were lucky enough to visit the fair on the day the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were performing their musical ride.  We've seen this show in the past, and it's always good, but I was pretty young the last time I saw it, so I didn't remember much of it.  It was fun to see it again!

RCMP

I couldn't fit all of them in the frame--it was a huge show!  I'm glad we got to see it.

Then, to finish off the fair... FRIED ICE CREAM!!  If you're wondering how this works, I'm really not the person to ask.  I suppose it has something to do with how cold they keep the ice cream, and the batter they dip it in, and probably how quickly it goes in and out of the deep fryer...  All I know for sure is that it is simply scrumptious, and a visit to the fair wouldn't be complete without it!

FRIED ICE CREAM--YUM!!!