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Last weekend was virtually computer free. Except for the fact that I had my computer on, I checked my emails but ignored them, and wrote some of this journal entry. Like I said, virtually free.
 I put up two new shelves for plants. I had a bunch of plants to bring indoors. It's so cold now that anything I want to last has to come inside before the terra cotta cracks and the plants die from frost. I bought so many plants this summer that when I started bringing things in, I soon realised that I had nowhere to put them. Not only did I have no window space left, I had no space left. Anyone who knows this place, knows we're the kings of clutter. Clutter takes space, and there is no space left, literally. So when I put up those two new shelves by my office window today, I commented that this was it, there was no available wall space left. Unless of course I took some wall art down. However, I already have lots of art put away that I can't put up because there is no where for them to go. Actually I've been saying this for years and I always manage to cram something else in.
After I cut the wood, constructed some shelves, sanded the edges with my Dremel Multi-Pro ®, driled the holes, etc., etc., and put them up, I was left with the task of rearranging the plants. I can't just move the plants around without giving them a complete overhaul. So I took down every single plant, washed the leaves, watered them, picked at them, washed the saucers, and then moved them to new locations in order to maxamize space and ensure that every plant was in a location ideal for it's specific needs. That was a total of 68 plants! Sixty eight containers holding sixty eight plants! As you can imagine I'm not done. I saw a few that I want to repot so I'll probably try and do that tomorrow. I might get lazy though. I literally spent all of Saturday handling plants. I was very tired afterwards.
 Friday I went with Beate, and Darcy to The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair located on the CNE grounds here in Toronto. That's a close walk from my place, so we met up here and then walked over for a full day of walking around in a mix of manure and sugar smells.
They had a giant marketplace of crap products to purchase such as personalized machine embroidered dog collars, ugly pillows, soap, maple syrup products and horse EVERYTHING. I can't even list all the things that had horses on them. Of course I bought stuff in the garden products area. I didn't buy much though because everything was jacked up in price. I wanted to buy more amaryllis bulbs but they were too expensive. It's a good thing I didn't too because on Saturday I found them elsewhere for half the price. I got a vase for holding hyacinth bulbs or crocus corms for 5 bucks, 10 maple syrup suckers, metal barrel o' monkeys style hangers, and an assortment of botanical print cards. Sadly I bought two jars of red pepper jelly and not more than five minutes later I accidently smashed one on the concrete floor. That's what happens when your gluttonous shopping leaves you with too many bags to carry. I also got an amazing botanical print taken from an old encyclopedia dated 1851. It has an illustration of a bizarre tree in the centre with drawings of plants and seeds and flowers and such surrounding it. I bought that in the Antiques section upstairs.
 Actually the first thing we did was get food because I was starving. We sat in front of display cases of giant award winning blocks of cheese and butter sculptures while I ate an over-priced hunk of bread with roasted veggies on it. Beate said that the butter sculptures were done by OCAD students. I loved how they had packages of the specific brand of butter on display in front. As if I'm going to look at the sculptures and then think to myself "I gotta get me some of that Gay Lee butter."
We looked around at lots of horses and cows and poultry and birds and rabbits. I always get depressed looking at all the animals in cages. We watched a horse show in which people were bringing out their horses and then judges looked them over and decided which ones were the winners. I had recently seen Best in Show at the theatre, and even though that movie was about dog shows, the routine was identical. Then I got allergies from the horse section so we had to leave before I started wheezing.
After the horses Beate and I split a baked apple with caramel topping while Darcy drank some lemonade. Then we checked out the "Field Crops" showcase of winning soybeans, fescue seeds, corn, and hay. In the corn section they had a mill for stripping dried cobs of corn that you could try your hand at. They also had a display of corn "products" such as corn flakes etc., and a spinning glass exhibit of the different types of corn and their uses. They also had corn plants at various stages of development and a team of people handing out corn propoganda. Actually I have my piece of propoganda right here. It's designed to be a ruler with inches on the front and centimetres on the back; probably so I'll keep this piece of 100lb card stock on hand for the "usefulness" of it. The front has "Ontario Corn Statistics" and the back has the uses of corn with the slogan "Corn makes the world go round!". Actually I do eat a lot of corn but mostly white corn in the form of corn tortillas and chips. Thankfully I learned in the "Bioengineering is Super Fantastic" section (that wasn't the name but that was the purpose) that there are no GM (Genetically Modified) strains of white corn as of yet. I guess they want to develope a white corn that can be grown in Canada because white corn requires a longer growing season then this climate can provide.
After perusing the biotechnology section we went outside and smoked cigarettes like juvenile deliquents and then Darcy left to make it home in time for Dawson's Creek. Beate and I checked out the "Chevy Ring of Excellence" (that cracked me up) the "Celebration of the Dog" "Breeder's Village" (scary) and the poultry & birds section. That part was extra depressing because of the endless rows of squawking, screaming birds. Walking back through the dairy cow section there was lots of partying and beer drinking going on to the musical stylings of new country classics such as "Friends in Low Places", and Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!".
Finally Beate and I made it back full circle to "The Royal Winter Garden", a showcase of themed gardens. We particularly enjoyed the hilarity of the Survivor-style garden designed by "Moviescapes". It was meant to look like a plane crash in a jungle river including plane parts, steam, lights, and jungle tropicals. Then I hopped in a cab, despite the short walking distance so that I could make it back in time to tape Dawson's Creek for Beate.
 When I got back there was a huge bouquet of orange tiger lilies on my desk, care of Davin, and some new office supplies including a box of Sharpies ® and other miscelleny that only freaks like me who love office supplies care about.
Here's lots of pictures from the fair for your enjoyment.
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