Plow/plough me, baby!

On Wednesday, my friend Ronna and I went to the International Plowing Match in Chute-à-Blondeau, Ontario. We had a blast, starting with the exciting tractor-pulled haywagon ride from the parking lot:

 

Ronna has more pics and a post on her blog!

I was impressed by the vast array of porta-potties!

 

The Super Dogs were there in all their glory.

 

But first we needed lunch: POUTINE! Good fries, tasty gravy, NOT ENOUGH CURDS!

  

We gave it three out of five curds on Ronna's Poutine Chronicles blog. For $6.50, I expect AMPLE CHEESE, people.

After our unhealthy but yummy lunch, we walked around the site.

Adorable goats!

Signs that made me laugh out loud, probably because I'm not a farmer.

A handsome ram!

Lovely cows.

Not their best side, perhaps!

 A maple syrup evaporator that would make my friend Eugene swoon!

A tour we did NOT take.

 

Lots of huge, manly farm machines!

It's all looking kind of... ahem... phallic.

The day before, many politicians had attended the event to troll for support. As we lined up for ice-cream, I SWORE I saw Bob Rae, leader of the federal Liberal Party. "Wow!" I thought, "He's really dressed-down and at one with the people, snarfling down that ice cream cone!"  I had Ronna and the people behind us in line excited for all of five seconds, before Ronna pointed out that Bob's got a daintier mid-section. Then the Bob Rae imposter turned towards us and I realized he looked nothing like the original Bob from the front! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

There was a tent full of antique stuff including this red phone. I grew up with a phone like this in our house. It worries me to think I'm so old now, things I grew up with are ANTIQUES! Kids these days wouldn't even know how to dial a phone.

Ronna inspects a chip wagon and dreams of more poutine!

This is the amazing Quilt of Belonging. You can read more about it here. Here's how the website describes it:

"Quilt of Belonging is 120 foot (36 metres) long collaborative textile art project, a richly hued portrait of the human family. Its 263 blocks portray the rich cultural legacies of all the First Peoples in Canada and every nation of the world at the dawn of the new Millennium. "

It is a thing of great beauty.

Or you could go look at antique tractor toys...

An antique knitting machine!

An antique tractor and thingamabob (too early in the morning for me to remember the names of farm equipment!)

I loved this. Some guys in a covered wagon with reins attached to the tractor nearest the wagon, driving the team of tractors like they were draught horses! A scarecrow was apparently steering the first tractor.

Ronna's picture of me being a dork and showing off a massive wood-splitter thing.

At the end of the day, we had to board the cattle truck hay wagon again for the ride back to the parking lot. We spied our friends Carolyn and Steve on the left, giving us a wave and a smile. The guy in the green shirt, who was in charge of loading, also looks amused.

Tractor-guy spent a lot of time looking backwards while he was driving us back to the parking lot. I guess farmers are used to that!

A good time was had by all.