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Tag: Fair

23 Cumulative Hours Logged at The Markham Fall Fair, and boy am I tired.

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Five hours, seven hours, and then the big whopper of eleven straight hours at the fair in one fell swoop. And my hips, ankles, and lower back are done for today, before I even got out of bed they were screaming at me to do a whole lot of nothing. Just in case I had forgotten that my body is now into the mid forties. It’ll send signals. It will let me know. This body is not shy about voicing its displeasure. So now I bow, and scrape and heed the warning signs, and I’ll spend a good few hours laid up in bed resting these hips, and keeping my feet elevated. Gotta save up energy for this evening when we have to go gather up all of our entries to bring them home!

We only get to go a few days every year so you have to make the best of it, and I think we accomplished just that this year. My oldest rode the Pharaohs Fury with her friend repeatedly, I lost count somewhere around their thirtieth go at it. It would not surprise me if they managed more than thirty five rides each on that particular carnival ride over the course of the afternoon, and into the evening. It was a huge hit. Those rides alone paid back the cost of both days worth of ride passes. Not that that ride was all they did either, we got them using the Scrambler, the Tornado, The Hang Glider, Alien Abduction, Cobra, spinning monkeys, the Bees, Monster Trucks, the Fish Tank, and atleast one more whose name I can not for the life of me remember. Bumper cars! Even I got on to the bumper cars this year. Very fun.

Three nights of fireworks too. All very nicely put together. A lovely change of scenery and wholesome family fun. I hope you managed to go and enjoy it too. Don’t forget: FREE PARKING!

Markham Fall Fair 2023.

The Open Category is Notoriously Difficult to Place in.

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Usually my painted ceramic sculptures get disqualified because they don’t 100% fit inside the category. This year that wasn’t even a choice to make in the guide book. So I split the difference and purposefully entered the open category for Technique not Previously Named. And I got a fourth place! I placed, which is very nice for a change. There were some very painstakingly gorgeous pieces in the category (No Needlework), so I’m just happy to get recognized and not DQ’d.

Ogre Rogue bust gets 4th place!
Got my name on the card too!
The whole category, lots of great & inspiring pieces here!

On the other hand neither of my Nuts N’ Bolts, nor my Rice Crispy Squares got anywhere near the podium for food stuffs. My Roses, Hostas, and Dahlias did pretty well this year. My wife entered all of those from our front garden. My BIL’s veggies did really well too. No surprise there, he enters 75-80% of all of the vegetable categories, so he is bound to win, or place in a good number of those. Even the kids got on the board with their crafts and photography entries. Nothing to get upset about. Fewer first place finishes, but still on the podium, or worthy of a 4th, 5th, and 6th place ribbon. No small feat given how large some of the more popular categories can be.

Spent more than five hours there in total yesterday. My hips and feet ached all last night, and my back was terribly uncomfortable for the last hour and a bit of the evening. We managed a ferris wheel ride, monster truck show, dirt bike air show, and the opening night fireworks display. My only gripe was that the Smazhed Burger folks didn’t come back this year. I searched the grounds for them last night, but to no avail. Had left over pizza when I got home instead. Now that’s not the fault of the fair, so don’t take my complaint that way. More disappointing that i couldn’t get a second bite at the burger i really, really enjoyed last year. Oh well. I did partake of a chocolate sauce filled churro, which was tasty. But not the Smashed Burger I was well and truly craving. Also at some point I will get some cinnamon dusted Tiny Tom’s donuts. Always a culinary favourite of mine. Tastes like the fair to me!

Wrapping up our Fair entries for the year.

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This whole weekend will be spent painting, crafting, sewing, baking and running around town to get the last few fair entries finished, and in some instances started & finished ahead of next Tuesdays drop off deadline. Could get rather tense! I need to grab pumpkins with my BIL to deliver to the fair grounds too. Lots to do around here in the next four days.

We need to review our photography and get those printed off, mounted, and ready for display come Saturday. We picked up our badges, ribbons and parking tags, so that much is taken care of so far. Probably need to go shopping for rice crispies so that I can make my last project on Sunday/Monday. Don’t want to make them too far in advance as they’ll go stale when it’s time for judging on Wednesday of next week.

I love fair time. If the weather holds out we always get some terrific photos of the midway and the kids smiling & having fun. Blooming onions, funnel cakes, burgers and ice creams, the occasional candy floss, or candy apples thrown into the mix. It’s great. I hope we get to see the horse pulls, demolition derby, and the monster trucks too. I’m pretty partial to wandering around the home craft building looking at all of the complex quilts and art work. My sculpting never wins any prizes but I enter them anyway no painted ceramics this year, so I have to go in for the “Technique Not Mentioned” open category. I just like having one thing to show to people.

The food trucks and the Smashed Burger folks have really good food. I’m sad that I can’t eat more of it in a day. I’ll be searching for their blue banner again this year. As much as I usually enjoy the chicken tenders and fries from the fair, the Smashed Burger really piqued my interest last year.

You should come out to see it. Parking is free, and there are nightly fireworks shows. It’s a really fun agricultural experience. Ciao Bella!

Though I don’t cut my breakfast on a mirror…

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Is an interesting musical turn of phrase. I caught it in some song I heard playing on the radio yesterday evening, when I was taking the kids to the fair tear down so that we could pick up our award winning entries. Oh – ah. Yes, we placed! In a number of categories. We have the whole spectrum of ribbons. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and even a 6th place ribbon. The kids even managed a purple participation ribbon in the Christmas decoration section, which is hilarious. Super proud of both kids for putting in the effort to finish their entries, and do it with enough care to place in several categories. Nicely done. My sculpture ended up in a catch all group with other random unspecified articles of artwork. For techniques not listed in the prize book. So fair enough. Hard to judge apples to tank engines if you catch my drift. But my work stands out, and is easy to find on the display table. Which is what I care about most, getting them seen by as many people as possible. My bookcase at home doesn’t get the kind of foot traffic the Markham Fair Home Craft section does.

We ate dome Tiny Tom’s mini donuts yesterday. Nearly forgot to! How can it be the fair if I don’t eat at least one dozen tiny cinnamon dusted donuts! Luckily my wife remembered and brought some home after her shift in the Photography booth. Yeah! Delicious as always. Again, speaking of food, I have to tell you that the SuperSmash Burgs DK burger was incredible. So very tasty. Especially compared to the McDonalds McChicken Deluxe I ate late last night at about 9pm or so. No comparison, the DK burger from SuperSmash Burgs blows it out of the water. Not even close. And yes, I understand I am comparing a chicken sandwich to a double cheeseburger, but come on. SuperSmash takes the win hands down. I need to find out if they are local or not. See if they have a brick & mortar store nearby. Or a traveling food truck that can be easily found. I’ll get back to you if I manage to discover anything useful.

Yeah – so I did about 13.5 hrs of fair time on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The least of my immediate family. My youngest got 2 more hours on me. Our eldest got 5 extra hours on me, and my wife did about another 9 hours more. But she had Photography hours Sat/Sun, and Flower dept hours on Saturday evening too. But we got our fill. Sad it’s over, but glad it’s done for another year, you know? Yeah – you know.

I did a bunch of Domestic Duties Monday stuff yesterday, so I’m a little more laid back right now. Got a whole slew of projects out the door on Friday, so maybe, maybe? I’ll be a little more chill this week? Will need to prep for changing over the tires soon. That’s always a fun, finger tip numbing job. But I have my impact wrench, and torque wrench ready to go. Forgot about a jack, but we have those at the farm, so pretty much all set for the end of the month.

What else is new? I have my Hellboy armature ready to go, I’m just not convinced that I want to do that figure any more. I have eyes on some other character now. I have some air brush paint coming, so I’ll find out my old air brush and try to paint my new busts with it. I remember it gets really hot fairly quickly, which was why I stopped using it. Not yet convinced I’ll use one enough to warrant the expense of buying a better make/model. I like the idea of using an airbrush to paint my sculptures, and minis, and model kits. But I also would rather put that money towards wood working projects, tools and materials. At least for right now. Ask me again in January. Ciao Bella!

Day Four: The Last Day.

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I’m going to need a vacation from the weekend. In total over the last three days I’ve spent more than thirteen (13) hours wandering the fair grounds, and riding the midway. It’s been really fun but my feet and hips beg to differ. My eldest and wife clocked in an additional five hours yesterday over top of what I did. How did they manage such a feat you ask? Well, by splitting into groups of course, so when I took a thoroughly exhausted youngest child home the rest kept on going. We left at four pm, and the rest sauntered home around nine thirty pm. I laid down on the couch and watched tv with the youngest for a while as she ate and calmed down. Then extended family came by and took her back to the fair two hours later.

I have to tell you that I ate a fantastic burger at the fair yesterday. A place called “SuperSmash Burgs“, and the double DK burger combo was my jam. It was absolutely fantastic. Five stars, do highly reccomend. Caramelized onions, deliciously cooked patties, a very zesty aioli sauce, and fresh lettuce & pickles. A thick slab of cheese, ooh wee it was great.

Tonight sometime after dark we will all flock back to the Markham Fair with our tags in order to pick up all of our entries. That is always a bit of a mess as a thousand people go wandering about trying to all do the same thing at once.

We were all pleasantly surprised that the TSSA strike only interfered with article drop off day on Tuesday, and didn’t affect the other official four days of the event. So all in all a great time was had by all. All eyes turn to next year!

But first we have Thanksgiving next weekend, and then Fall Break, and then the second biggest day of them all – Halloween!

The Party Doesn’t Stop Until We’ve Seen Tears, Blood Stains, and Vomit.

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Welcome to the riveting weekend before Thanksgiving here in Canada, in this part of town we call that Fair Time! Fire works, rides, deep fried foods of questionable provenance, and all the friends & family you can shake a stick at. We saw the extremely loud and very entertaining Monster Trucks, we heard the truck pull, and have given the Midway a serious twice over, with about 8+ hours of hitting up the rides.

The food always smells so damn good. Reasonable pricing for a meal if you know where to look. I’m itching for some Tiny Tom’s donuts if I’m being honest. You know we work all Spring & Summer towards building a great fair experience for our kids and family, so when it finally gets here you really have to let go, be 8n the moment, and try to enjoy it all as much as possible. The weather the last two days has been exceptional given the time of year. So soak up some Rays, and have a great rest of your weekend!

I really love the fair at night. The lights, the glow and all of the hustle & bustle. Glad to have the Markham Fair back in action again. Ciao Bella!

Lots to Talk About, Nothing Much to Say.

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That’s how this whole week feels. Busy busy busy with paid work (yeah!), and the Markham Fair is in town, and acting like it’s usual Time Vampire self. Managed to get some new sculpting done in the moments in between other things. That’s always fun. September comes to a close as of tonight, and I’m nearly run off my feet busy. Busting my chops to get some larger items done prior to the weekend. But it is starting to look more like a Monday at 9:00am delivery. No matter. Push on, stiff upper lip and all.

Added an older Human Warrior into the mix.
Ferris wheel.
Midway.
Uncle going for a spin.
Posing for a pretty picture.

I could have sworn I took more pictures once the lights all came on, but apparently not. Damn it. Three more days of sunshine fair time fun ahead of us. Catch you around town. Ciao Bella!

Markham Fair – 2016

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markham-fair-image

It’s that time of year again, as the summer days are winding down, and the cooler air settles in, we begin to smell fall in the air! But best of all is the Markham Fair! A great place to go with family and friends, where they have a little bit of everything. It is the kind of spot where they have something for everyone! So this September and October take a memorable trip with the whole family. Get a Blooming Onion, or roasted corn on the cob, candy floss and all the other carnival treats you’ve been dreaming of! Stuff yourself silly with Tiny Toms donuts and visit each of the pavilions to discover something great about old school Canadianna. This year you can even check it out on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter!  Come for the monster trucks or Ram Rodeo Tour, and stay for the cooking demos and fireworks every night at dusk. FREE PARKING!

Markham Fairgrounds, 10801 McCowan Rd, Markham, ON L3P 3J3