We went to the Stevens County Fair this evening. I took a few photos.
There were…
serious cows,
proud cocks,
resting goats,
sleeping pigs,
thirsty bunnies,
and noble horses.
There were rules about dogs.
They lied!
There were…
Frisbee dogs
Action sequence!
We rode the ferris wheel.
View from the top.
The historical society had rules for teachers.
We did not eat the deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
We especially did not eat the fried everything.
We came home.
What you got against fried?
I think it’s somewhere in those rules for teachers.
Well, you obviously never get shaved in a barber shop, so you’re safe….
“Whittle nibs to individual tastes of students”? Try harder, historical society.
Wot! No deep-fried ice cream?
(IMHO, the batter spoils the ice cream, anyways, so no great loss.)
Cows? I suppose the Hereford might be a heifer, but the Angus and the Holstein are very clearly bullocks.
Deep Fried Masters? Is it legal to deep fry masters in Minnesota?
Tethys, are you being a dictionary rancher? From the New Oxford American Dictionary: (loosely) a domestic bovine animal, regardless of sex or age. Emphasis added.
Per Snopes, the origin for those “Rules for Teachers 1882” is unattested.
Nope, spent my childhood summers on a dairy farm. Cows by definition produce milk, and those aren’t cows regardless of the Oxford dictionary.
Not to mention that every farm kid learns very young the fine nuances of which cattle are safe to jump the fence into their pasture, and which one will do it’s best to kill you if you do so.
Just to be nit-picking (one of my minor but well developed skills), that is a calf in the front of the photo not a cow. Angus, anyone? The angle makes it difficult to tell. And it looks more coerced than serious.
On the other hand that Holstein on the left looks rather alert and interested. Not serious so much as curious.
We did not eat the deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As someone who feels a bit nauseous at the idea of a “peanut butter and jelly sandwich” I feel relieved.
Rules for teachers
Scuttle of coal?
WE, the students, had to bring in the water. WE, the poor downtrodden students, had to split the wood, chop the kindling and stoke the fire*.
Boy those Minnesota kids had it easy.
Tough on the teachers though.
My uncle was a teacher for a year or two about 1910. I can just imagine him going along with the “Make pens carefully. Whittle nibs to the individual tastes of students” . The family approach is/was usually along the lines of “here’s your knife, start carving”. Actually, when one really needs help, they usually are pretty good so perhaps my uncle, under the influence of a pay cheque was not that bad.
[*] This last is actually true. I was in one of the last of the one-room schools in Ontario and the first person there (always a pupil) split a couple of blocks of wood, chopped some kindling and got the fire going.
Note: Despite some over-heavy stoking we never did manage to burn the place down.
jrkrideau :
Thank you. I do not allow jelly to taint my peanut butter, ever. Not even as a child. Even though apparently Every Child Ever™ is ‘supposed’ to eat peanut butter and jelly.
However, I am all about some fried foods. And I think I’ve been inspired to go fry things.
Deep frying causes ANYTHING to become FOOD.
!!!
I am sadly in your camp with the fried food avoidance. Ever since my gallbladder vacated the premises, the rest of my body has taken a hard-line stance on that one. Any time I am a bit too intemperate with greasy foods, my stomach decides that it has to get rid of them the fastest way possible, usually via the same pathway from whence they came. Small price to pay for never having a gallbladder attack again, though.
But peanut butter and jelly, that’s miracle food right there. Although my children split it up – Child 1 liked plain peanut butter sandwiches, and Child 2 is allergic to nuts but loved jelly sandwiches.
All we ever had to do in the morning at one of the last one room schools in Alberta was stand the outhouses back up after Halloween. The school is still standing, however it was moved about half a mile from it’s original site. Occasionally someone would start a grass fire at the end of recess so we would have to run out of class and stomp it out.
@ 6 Tethys
Cows?
Looking at PZ’s photos I must say that I don’t understand anything that you say, although your point about the Angus may make some sense.
On the other hand , I cannot even recognize the Hereford (please point it out) and the idea that the Holstein is a “bullock” is pure idiocy.
Perhaps we are looking at different photos?
I think I’m going to make french toast topped with chocolate peanut butter and raspberry syrup for breakfast.
Carlie, my daughter’s thing was always peanut butter and honey, with a bit of pumpkin pie spice, and rolled oats mixed into the peanut butter.
As an exceptionally discriminating eater and a parent, I had to make a lot of things over those years that I would not ordinarily touch even to hand them to someone else. But if my kids wanted jelly on their peanut butter, they had to make that themselves.
Midnight snacking — steak fries, deep fried, dipping them in melted butter. And a Coke.
@roachiesmom
I have no objections to fried food. I dislike sweets and peanut butter together (shudder)
OTOH if you like really good food, even if it is fried some times, I can highly recommend “Every grain of Rice” by Fuschia Dunlop, a great Chinese cook book.
The recipe that produces the equivalent of FF is amazing (and not intended to be FF) It’s just my terminology. The hot smoking chili is probably a give-way.
@ 16 militantagnostic
Effete Westonners! Or whatever term seems appropriate.
We were isolated enough that a tipped outhouse would have been so obvious that no one wanted to try it.
My old school was converted into a house, the owners added on this and that but while it does not look anything like the old school, it’s doing fine.
I do like the idea of the grass fire. We never thought of that, but considering our forests it might not have been the best of ideas.
@19 roachiesmom
Well the peanut butter and honey is acceptable, he says a bit grudgingly. I have had it myself.
BUT NO CHOCOLATE!
Sounds good, eh?
It isn’t the Angus or the Holstein, though it could well be a hereford/holstein cross or possibly a Simmental. Cattle anatomy 101… The dangly bit on the belly that identifies that Holstein as a bullock is clearly visible in the photo. Have you ever been to a 4-H show? They show by category and nobody raises Angus for milk.
I will take your word on cows and such way more knowledge on that subject than I will ever have I’m sure.
there are some things I like deep fried but I do not eat much food cooked that way any more my doctor would be so proud of me he like to have his patients pick up a 15 pound lump of silicon shaped and colored to look like fat cells.
I like county fairs more than any other popular attraction or event there is a huge of variety of things to see and and very interesting cross section of people. To make it really the greatest they are so completely funky, the gloss just don’t stick long at the fair.
uncle frogy
@13, 19 roachiesmom:
Word! When I was a child, peanut butter and honey was the quintessential lunchbox item/general no-effort childhood food material.
I remember being entirely disgusted around third or fourth grade when I learned that other kids traditionally put jelly on their peanut butter sandwiches.
Ah, so that’s how you prepare concrete, he mutters to himself as he eats his deep fried tea.
What was so wrong with getting a shave in a barbershop? And being a filthy communist european(TM) I’ve never really understood the allure of the PB&J sandwich…But why on earth would you fry it?
Never did like jelly, so my peanut butter pretty much always stands alone. However, while not frying the peanut butter sandwich itself (nor actually deep-frying, either), I do occasionally fry up a few strips of bacon and add them (or, if lazy and it’s at hand, bacon crumble) to it. Double protein points (and, if the peanut butter isn’t “just peanuts”, possibly double sodium points, too)!
Removing the beard also removes the science powers (he mutters, stocking his own private sideways hedgehog, and wonder how those icky cootie-carrying wimmin scientists function — perhaps residual sciency powers from their embreaded obvious superiors?).
You folks don’t know how to enjoy peanut butter. I recommend crunchy peanut butter with tomato ketchup, applied sparingly, on wholewheat or multigrain toast.
Four words. Peanut butter and banana.
23 Tethys
We are clearly talking about two different animals. I was referring to the Holstein next in line behind the Black Angus calf. I assume you are referring to the ?? breed to the back right?
If so I think I am in agreement with you.
I think it’s too big for a hereford /holstien cross. Simmental makes sense but I’d want to see the forequarters before even making a guess.
I don’t know much about cattle, but I did see what I believe were Black Angus cows along I-80 on our road trip. The ranch sign said it was a selling Black Angus, and in the field there were calves that were nudging their heads under the bigger cattle. I am just assuming the bigger ones were actually cows who gave birth to the nursing calves.
What was wrong with having a shave in a barbershop? I’ve been told by someone who works in one, that they often used to double as tattoo parlour, and of course, the barber surgeon.
@NYC atheist, I see your peanut butter and banana, and I raise you a peanut butter, banana and chocolate spread (Nutella for instance, which seems to be taking the Americas by storm).
Also, peanut butter and sambal. Or even better, peanut butter, Nutella and sambal. Banana optional.
Or peanut butter and cucumber. Sambal to taste.
SQB, I’ll have to try that – my nym means “making sambal”. I used to make peanut-butter-and-mustard sandwiches.
I was too young for the one-room school up in the hills of California, but my older brother was old enough for first grade. The teacher had a kindergartner and a second-grader already, and decided he was smart enough for second grade. He spent the rest of his schooling a year younger than his classmates, and he was always a runty size for his age, as well. Now he looks like a mountain lion built of bricks, and nobody recognizes him at reunions.
Tethys — I know that technically a cow is a word for female cattle. I would know that even if I hadn’t grown up around farms, although I did. However, my point wasn’t that the generic usage of “cow” is defined by the OAD. The OAD merely records and describes the way people use words, and it’s how words are used by people that matters. People, and large numbers of them, use “cow” as a generic term for cattle, just as they use “man” as a generic term for human beings. So, it’s OK if I say, “Hey, look a bunch of cows.”
It would take a lot of the glamor out of cowboys if we knew they only herded female cattle. (Not that cowboys really had any glamor, anyhow.) Old-time cowboys called them all “cows”, whether female, male or former male, as the collective and generic. (Old-time English people called horses “cattle”, to add to the confusion.)
If true, that’s it. The world is toast. Civilization has collapsed. That prevomited diarrhea manages to be worse than peas, horses, and teh trum-prat combined.
If that’s a cattle class, I don’t know what division it would be … they don’t usually mix ages and categories like that . The calf could be Angus or Black Gelbvieh; the one behind MIGHT be a milking shorthorn, though I’ve never seen that pattern; the two in back of that are obviously Holstein, but why they would all be in the SAME CLASS is a puzzle. Maybe this is the waiting area FOR their different classes ??? Sort of like the parade ring at a horse race?
robro
No, technically a female bovine who has not given birth is a heifer. They don’t become cows until they have a calf. A herd of Holsteins are cows, because Holsteins are dairy cattle. If you grew up raising cattle, then you know that all those 4-H kids would roll their eyes at you if you referred to their steers and heifers as cows.
evodevo
I think it’s the best of each class. Best weaned calf, best heifer, best market animal, best steer. It’s clearly not the dairy class.
Based on it’s size, really unusual markings, and the pink nose I still think it is a Hereford x Simmental. The gene for whiteface/hereford markings is dominant, but some individuals have really unusual markings that combine whiteface and spotted. Hereford x Simmental heifers
It could be a showmanship class. I did a few of those back in the day. It wouldn’t matter what bovine you were showing, it was about how you handled the animal. I’ve been in shows where the judges even switched people and their animals, so that you weren’t even showing your own cow/steer/heifer/bull/calf/wev.
Don’t you have a Best in Show award in America? The winners of each class are judged against each other. Or it could be a winners’ parade (especially in a larger show, where the cattle are unlikely to go near the main ring otherwise).
On peanut butter, I prefer a sharp, strong-flavoured jam. Homemade damson is best; raspberry is the best of the normal commercial choices.