Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Light snow."
A few weeks ago Beate and I made a field trip to The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. You may recall that we made this trip exactly a year prior. Living in the big city without handy transportation out (I don't drive), leaves me with the inability to experience the Fall Fairs that litter the countryside in these parts. The Royal gives me the opportunity to experience an example of a Fall Fair without having to leave the city. In fact, it's located on the C.N.E grounds so I don't even have to leave the neighborhood.
I say an "example of a Fall Fair" because The Royal isn't quite like a real country fall fair. It's more or less an experiment in what happens when you put a little bit of country into the city. While a country Fall Fair is usually held in the out-of-doors, in tents and in small buildings, the city presentation of a Fall Fair takes place in the comfort of large, heated exhibition buildings. My only trip into the brisk fall air was to use the bank machine. Rather then freeze my big city butt off, I can leisurely stroll through a maze of connected buildings moving from produce winners to horse demonstrations, to 4-H cow competitions to "theme" shopping without a jacket or a pair of boots.
In all fairness, The Royal is seen by many as the grand-daddy of Fall Fairs. Winning at The Royal is a pretty big deal from what I've heard. People dress up in satiny evening gowns, tuxes and other "prom-style" accessories to sit in boxes and watch horses prance about. That's serious business. On a stroll through the horse stables you will find elaborately decorated stalls resembling interior decorated show rooms very unlike the barn style stables you might expect. Fancy lighting, colour-coordinated curtains, sculptures, professionally crafted insignias, bouquets, planter boxes and fresh laid straw floors are just some of the theatrics used to create an image. The Royal is about a standard in presentation that I don't recall from the Fall Fairs of my youth.
 By and far my favorite animal section is the cattle. This is also the largest exhibit on site. Two exhibit halls filled with every breed of cow and bull imaginable. I even saw a Texas Long Horn accompanied by a man sporting the Texan cowboy style you often see in movies and books. The cattle section is the largest hub of activity on the lot. New country blares from the speakers as young guys run about shovelling cow manure and hauling wheelbarrows of it away to an unknown destination while owners sit around in those popular foldout chairs drinking cases of beer and shooting the shit. The dedicated spend their time repeatedly brushing, trimming and even vacuuming the cleanest, most beautiful cows I have ever seen. The jersey cows have gorgeous, sleek, shaded coats and pretty, long lashed eyes. The shading causes the neatest rippling effect in the skin around their mouths when they chew their cud. My other favorite cow is the kind with the big hump on the back of it's neck that is seemed to be very common in Mexico.
 As a gardener, I obviously attend The Royal mainly for the produce section. This is where you get to see the best vegetable specimens that will never grace anyone's table. It's kind of sad really to gaze at the shiniest, smoothest potatoes ever knowing that they will sit there until they rot. I always feel compelled to pocket a fingerling potato or a purple cherokee in the same way that I can't stop myself from picking up shiny, new chesnuts on the street. But I'm not a good thief so I take a few photos and move on. Last year I took about fifty photos of potatoes. This year I was satisfied with two.
 I did however, take a number of squash photos. There were a few varieties, such as the 'speckled swan' and 'sunburst' that I had never seen before. The colours and varieties of squash are the exciting kinds that are never available in my market. They should really have taste-testing at The Royal since most in attendance would never have the notion or even the opportunity to try out some of these unusual veggies. I wonder what it says about me though that my favorite part of the produce area--the mutated veggies, is also my favorite.  Perhaps it is because they are so overgrown that they have lost all identification as edible specimens or maybe it's just because I like things that are alien-like best. It's fun trying to figure out what is what. This year we were stumped on giant, green blobs that resembled the 'pina' or heart of the agave when it is stripped of it's leaves in mezcal production. Since we're in Southern Ontario I was pretty sure it wasn't agave. We think it was a giant, mutant kohlrabi but without a label to identify it we can never really be sure.
 Probably the most exciting addition to the produce section was the trophy display. These are trophies that I'd like to win. The hay trophy was a tractor with bales of hay all sculpted in metal, the potato trophy had piles of life-like potatoes on the top and sides. Another fun addition was the Garlic Man. He had a table set up with a giant display case of assorted garlic varieties. He also had a bowl of garlic on hand for taste testing and he let me have one of the tasty ground cherries he was munching on. I wish I had taken photos but I have this thing about photographing people.
Last but not least were the giant pumpkins. This year's winner weighed in at 937.2 lbs. Frankly at that size a pumpkin looks very little like more than a peach-coloured blob. They are totally devoid of the charm and spicy orange colour that make pumpkins so appealing. Beate pointed out that they were so heavy that they were perched on top of mattresses. I noticed that they had presented them right in front of the loading docks for easy transport in and out unlike last year when they were in the centre of the exhibit hall. A student was on hand carving dragons and other images into some of the smaller, giant pumpkins. They are so big that the surface is carved much like a giant hunk of soapstone rather than in the traditional method used on the smaller sized "consumer models".
Of course no Fall Fair is devoid of shopping and The Royal has employed plenty of trickery with which to make a person part with their cash. There are sweet-smelling candy apples and greasy foods galore. If you're looking for something horse related then you've come to the right place. The Royal has opened my eyes to the possibilities that exist in equestrian accessories, jewellery, toys, literature.. everything. I bought my cat an embroidered collar with her name (Miss Kitty which isn't really her name, more her personality) and our phone number. I thought this would be useful after her little day jaunt this past summer. There is an antiques section which features lots of expensive and boring antiques but I did managed to buy a bracelet and have a lengthy discussion about charms and charm bracelets with a dealer despite my lack of interest. Lastly, (and literally the last thing of the day) I purchased a book called "Making Memory Book and Journals By Hand" which has proven to be a source of great inspiration for book making which I haven't done in ages.
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