Tuesday TwitterdeeFair

These items had to stay home. They're not total rejects.

They were selected but just did not get picked to go to the county fair. 

So, they're on display on my kitchen counter.

I discovered yesterday that a dill crown makes a nice accessory for nasturtiums. 

I think I'll have to work on an arrangement.

Anyway, these items were among those selected from the garden and from this year's preserving projects for the fair.

Once I had everything together, I picked through the piles for uniformity of size and quality.  

If I there were a favorite among the garden items, it would have to be my nasturtiums, those growing in the front-yard planter.

They're not only beautiful, but their greens are sensational.  One of the superintendents yesterday even commented on them.  

Those jars of jelly?  None went to the fair.

That's service berry jelly (locals pronounce it SARVICE).  

Preparing the jelly was traumatic, to say the least.

I decided to give it a try Sunday morning, in hopes that I'd have some jars available for the fair.

When Bill---in the bedroom---heard the earthy language being spewed about in the kitchen, he waited to come out to where I was working.

When he did, he actually tried to help me with my problem.

"Stay away!  Don't touch it!" I intoned.

"I thought you might be having some trouble out here," he quipped quietly. 

"Yup," I said, "just stay away."  

The metal standard for my jelly bag had collapsed, just as I was spooning the last of the service berries into the bag.  

An ocean of juice and berries covered a good portion of the kitchen island, including some checks, my pens, my cell phone and the piles of paper---all of which had been moved just in case such an event occurred.

Well, I hadn't moved them far enough.  

Cleaning up such a mess involves planning, so once Bill headed out the door for church, I picked up one berry soaked item at a time and carefully cleaned it off.

I had to take extra care with a check my brother had written me because the berry juice really tried hard to cover up the amount.  Fortunate for me, it was still readable. 

Before the mess had been cleaned, Willie, Debbie and the grandpuppies walked through the door. 

"It's not a good time," I told them.

That's when I walked to one side of the island and discovered even more service berries on the carpet.  

Did I tell you service berries would make good dye?

My hands still have purple pigment, and that's after I washed them several times with soap, water and even a little bleach.  

Lucky for me I found those berries in the carpet before someone stepped on them. 

Long story short, I eventually salvaged enough berries and juice to make some jelly.  The next challenge:  for the jelly to set up.

Well, it still hasn't, so we have some nice service berry syrup for the time being.  I may reprocess cuz it worked the last time.

I also chose not to enter the jelly after reading almost a full page of rules and regulations regarding preserved products.  Too much bureaucracy, I decided.

So, that's the story of the rejects.  Soon I'll know the story of what happened with the items that went to the fair. 

Judging was yesterday, so this morning I'll stroll through the exhibits and see if there are any ribbons.  More than likely, my streak of seven straight blues from last year when I inadvertently entered the senior division will never be repeated.

Now that my stuff is all legal, it's possible I'll rejoice any time I see a ribbon, no matter what color it is. 

Fair week moves on, and today the action down at the fairgrounds will give good reason to stick around for a while.  

They're judging sheep fitting and showing this morning, and a lot of our neighbor kids are competing, so I'll probably take that in.

And, best yet, every day this week I'll delight in the best reward at any county fair:  the visiting.  

Happy Tuesday.