MN State Fair Report

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I truly love the Minnesota State Fair. Above is a photo Non Birding Bill took of me enjoying a fave fair food--the scotch egg on a stick (for those who don't visit pubs very often, a scotch egg is a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage and deep fried--mmmmmmm).

Everyone else in Minnesota loves the fair too. We call it the great Minnesota get together, and boy howdy do we get together. I'm pretty sure we have the largest state fair in the nation.

Normally we have the bunnies the first weekend and the following weekend they are replaced with the chickens and ducks. However, some roosters were in early. Look at this fellow feeling like he is the cock of the walk. He is the Shaft of roosters.

There were also some fancy pigeons on display. Some with bell bottomed feathers on their feet and this one with poofy feathers on the head.

This pigeon looked like it was trying awful hard to be a bald eagle. Dude, just accept your prey status.

This pigeon looked like it really had some identity issues. It looked like it's trying to be a Bonaparte's gull. Sounds like it needs to watch some Brady Bunch episodes to learn how to just love being what it truly is: a pigeon, not a gull. Poor, little Jan bird.

When not looking at birds at the State Fair (or eating elephant ears and fried cheese curds) I love to check out the crop art. People take bird seed and get artistic with it. Some of it is pretty amazing, not only for the art, but for the subject matter:

Sister Wendy? Who would have expected her to be immortalized in dried seed? Portraits are pretty par for the course when it comes to crop art. Some of it is quite striking:

A smoking Vincent Price with an ominous bat behind him paying tribute to all those scary movies.

Here we have Desi Arnaz...

...and his former wife Lucille Ball! This was actually one of the winners in the crop art. Even the hair on her head is some type of plant material.

This was a surprise. Someone was inspired by the oddest of comics Fred Bassett--I never got that cartoon. All Fred ever does is state the obvious. Must be British humour.

Every now and then someone tries to make a deep political statement with their crop art. On the surface this looks like an homage to Popeye the Sailor Man...

...but closer inspection reveals that the artist is trying to use this as a metaphore for the country's oil problems.

So, just how progressive is our State Fair? We have a lactation station--sponsored by fm107. This is for all the new moms out there who need a quiet cool place to nurse their babies. NBB and I stopped to say hi to Mary Jo Pehl who is now a co-host on the Cathie Harnett Show. They were doing it live at the fair, always fun to watch. While there we met Amy who has been on with Ian and Margery like myself. I found myself really enjoying Amy's condo purchasing whoas and triumph while checking her blog tonight. This truly is the Great Minnesota Get Together!

Here we have a giant Red Wing Shoes boot...ooohh...ahhhhhh. I don't like to stay too late at the fair, so I watch for signs when it is time for us to head home.

My first sign is when I can start to smell beer as we are walking along--then it's time to go.

All in all the State Fair was a good time. I'll be back again on Labor Day to do a segment live at the KARE 11 booth.