240909 fair storm stars

September 9, 2024

Fox, Rain and I went to Brome Fair on the long weekend. (Actually, Rain and her family went every day!) It is the largest fair in Quebec, with 35,000 visitors each year. It is mainly an agricultural fair with cows, cakes, vegetables, quilts, flowers and much more brought for showing and for prizes. Tall, sturdy clydesdales and percherons clopped about, looking somehow honest and ready to work. Tractors, diggers and backhoes demonstrated their talents, and there was a wild and reckless demolition derby, that left dusty, crumpled cars dotted along the fence at sundown. There was a clown creating giant bubbles which the children had to catch before they could really take off and shine. There were crafts, frivolous toys and gadgets, and some tempting and interesting housewares, clothes and jewelry for sale. For eating, poutine, heart attack in a cardboard tray, was the most common fare, while fries, onion rings, pizza, and fried cheese and sugary dough could also be enjoyed. The food corral led us onto the midway where the excellent traditions of candy floss, ("barbe a papa", a much more fanciful name), candy apples, ice cream, and popcorn were on offer. Poutine has, in recent years, taken off across the country but it used to be unique to Quebec. The grocery store keeps the cheese curds for poutine on the checkout counter. I have never actually tried it, as I prefer my fries with salt and ketchup, never gravy, and the cheese, (except, of course, if warmed on the fries, it softens) is rubbery and flavourless. I suppose I should not knock it until I have tried it! Next year, or at a roadside cantine. I don't expect the chain drive-throughs are the best place to find excellent poutine, though most of them offer it.

The rides, though sometimes smaller than at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, were the same. They are free with admission, which is a nice bonus; easier than lining up first for tickets and then for the rides. This part of the fair, the midway rides and the games, travel the province, as they do across the country, through the season, setting up and tearing down weekly, The game barkers and ride hands travel about together like an old-fashioned circus. It must be a colourful life, a circumscribed un-rooted existence that must seem the "inside-out" of the life of the fair visitors.

This was Fox's favorite! The other children seemed to love it, too. There was not a line up and several children ran from the "sortie" straight back to the "entree"! The man who ran it was half the attraction, as he joked and laughed with the kids and high-fived them as they flew by on the dragon!

We went on the ferris wheel on our way out. I am afraid of heights so I don't look down, though I like the ride, it is so iconic. 

We had an amazing storm on the weekend. It blew up from the south and then roiled along the Missisquoi valley. I love a storm. It represents a power beyond humanity's, oblivious to our small needs and wants. 

I am not walking as much as I used to, but last week I visited the trails. Here, a tree has fallen across the path and there is no-one keeping the trails clear. Only the deer and moose keep a narrow pathway through. In a few more years the humans' paths will be swallowed up by the forest.

A fallen tree provides an island for a small world to form.

This is the hawthorn that I call the old witch. I want a hat that looks like this!

Morning: The sun shines red on the ridge trees.

Sunset, idyllic as a painting in a gallery.

We have had several clear nights, wonderful for viewing the stars. (Last night a firefly blinked across the field. They are supposed to be June-July visitors!) So out of touch with spirit and magic, I feel scared by the immensity of the universe. The stars are so distant, so utterly beyond comprehension. I reminded myself that they represent enormous whirling energy that is the source and centre of the world.

Mumma Yaga