Two-fer - Show and Tell Friday and Garden Bloggers Muse Day

Well, I am trying to put everything together into one blog entry.

I am showing a poem I wrote about a favorite childhood memory - going to the county fair.

Some years I spent most of the week there, with my brother and sis and grandmother.

Head to Kelli's blog for show and tell Friday,

and don't miss Sweet Home and Garden Chicago, home of Garden Bloggers Muse Day !

Did I mention it is the best and largest county fair in the U.S.A.?? Or so I was told...

The Great Darke County Fair by Joyce V.

I learned in school that our school was the best.

Our town the best. Our county, without question, was the best.

Here was The Best farmland, glacier-scrubbed and rich for the plow.

Our fair was not just any fair, it was GREAT.

And as a child, I agreed.

I loved the fair food,

the fried scones dripping with butter and honey,

cotton candy, fudge of every color and flavor.

I loved the parade (always held on Thursday),

with 4-H floats and horses and

bands trooping around the track.

I loved the rides, the noise, the games,

the mysterious mustachioed fat lady.

When my money was spent,

I toured the free exhibits in the Coliseum.

I visited my uncle’s cows,

and my cousin’s pigs in the fair barns.

I studied the quilts, the needlework,

the jars of jam with blue ribbons.

Yes, it’s true; our fair is the Best fair of all.
The biggest, the most fun of all
In my memory, the GREAT Darke County Fair
Lives on forever, superlatives intact.

Show and Tell Friday -cake plate and apricot nectar cake recipe

It's Friday, and time for Show and Tell - be sure to go to Kelli's blog to see what everyone else has to offer today!
This old cake plate is from one of my great grandmothers, I am not sure which one. I received it from my grandmother, who kept it in her china cabinet.
It is not a fancy one, or an expensive one.
But it is cherished because it is a piece of the past I can enjoy.
And those green candles are pine scented, just Christmas leftovers that smell great when I open the hutch doors!
If I'm showing a cake plate, I think I should add a recipe.

This recipe is from The Cake Mix Doctor by Ann Byrn.

Favorite Apricot Nectar Cake

Cake:

1 pkg (18.25 oz) plain white or yellow cake mix

1 pkg (3 oz) lemon gelatn (but we have used peach in a pinch)

3/4 c canned apricot nectar

3/4 c. vegetable oil, such as canola, corn, or soybean oil

grated zest of 1 lemon (1 t.)

4 large eggs

Glaze:

3/4 c. confectioners' sugar

2 T fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

4 T. canned apricot nectar ,or more as needed

Lightly mist Bundt (or angel food cake) pan, then dust with flour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix all of the 'Cake' ingredients together with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then mix at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes more. The batter should look thick and smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. PLace the pan in the oven.

Bake the cake until is is light brown and springs back when lightly pressed with your finger 35-42 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 10 - 15 minutes.

Prepare the glaze by combining the 'glaze' ingredients in a sauce pan and heat over medium heat, stirring, untilthe sugar has dissolved, about 3 - 5 minutes.

Run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto a serving platter (or beautiful cake plate!)

While the cake is still warm, poke holes in the top with a toothpick or wooden skewer. Spoon the glaze onto thecake so that it seeps down into the holes . Let the cake cool before slicing.

This is a flavorful, moist, not too sweet cake! Try it if you are having trouble keeping your weight up (j/k :) !

SHOW and TELL FRIDAY- from plain to pretty

I finally remembered a picture I saw in a magazine last month, with a cute (and easy- has to be pretty quick or I'll never get it done!) idea to make a vase of flowers even more special. Just find some coordinating ribbon (I have a box of ribbon in my crap - er, I mean craft room), double-stick tape, and go to it. You can see from the pics that it is pretty easy.

Here is a closer look - easy-peasy. Can't remember which magazine I saw it in, though.

Oh, the yellow and white flowers on the right are from my garden, the purple and white is strictly fake-o-flowers.

Happy Show and Tell Friday! Head over to Kelli's blog, There is no place like home, to join in the fun.

Show and Tell Friday - eeekkk!

I am posting early because I'll be out of town for a few days. Head over to Kelli's blog, There is no Place Like Home, to see what else is going on!

So, today I want to show you a little 'treasure' my DH picked up at a garage sale, unbeknownst to me. He then hid this 'pet' in the yard, in one of our flower beds, amongst the Japanese blood grass, to see if he could startle me.

A bit of background, we do live in an area where snakes live - we see them rarely, and most of them are harmless, except for the rattlesnakes. I do try to watch my step in the yard, and have been startled before by one of the cats sneaking up on me. So- a few weeks after this alligator was hidden, I saw it - just the snout, peeking out from the grass- I could tell it was large- (about 2 1/2 feet long) - and knew we didn't have any lizard-y type of animal of this size in Utah. Just the same, it freaked me out, and I started backing away, and yelling for DH, who happened to be in the front yard. He says he knew right away what I was yelling about. Well, he got me good, this time. I have yet to get him back! Any ideas out there?

We decided our plastic pet should help celebrate Easter with us.

Show and Tell Friday - a graduation gift

Sometimes when I look back, I realize that remarkable things happened to me that I took for granted at the time. I grew up in a small town, graduated in a high school class of about 90 kids, and all the girls were given a small jewelry box as a gift from a local furniture store. Looking back, I am surprised by the business' generosity . I love my little box, and it is filled with keepsakes, some mine, some my DH's things. My hometown had a showroom for this furniture store, which was based in an even smaller town farther east of us.

Here is a closeup of the inside of the box - it reads " Lane presented by Roark Furniture Company, Laura, Ohio".

Our family moved into town when I was 14. I had always lived on a farm up to that point, and quickly learned to enjoy some of the benefits of small town life. There were certainly more kids to play with, and even though I was one of the oldest to play, I loved the street games we played - does anybody remember playing 'mud gutter' as a kid?

We rode our bikes to the library - I loved going to the library and getting a new book whenever I wanted.

You could go up the block to the furniture store (Roark's) and see if they had an empty refrigerator or stove box, which you could drag home to use for all sorts of things - a play house, mostly. I guess it seems juvenile to play at 14, but I remember enjoying all these new ways to play 'in town' that I had never been able to do before.

that's my show and tell, don't forget to visit Kelli's blog to see who else is in on the action this week!

Show and Tell Friday - The Silver Bride and Groom

This was a fast week ! Kelli's Show & Tell is a lot of fun, head over to her blog to see what everyone is sharing this week. Today I want you to see a treasure that my mother-in-law gave to us a few years ago. These tea cups belonged to her grandparents, and were given to them on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary.

The inscriptions on the cups say, in German, the Silver Bride, and the Silver Groom. I am sorry my pic doesn't do them justice, they are very beautiful. On the bottom of the cup is an eagle and 'P.K. Silesia.' Whatever that means. Here is a photo of this same couple -

Michael Herman and Annie Schappert, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

Show and Tell Friday - Why Red is better than Green

It's show and tell Friday again, head over to Kelli's blog to see what everyone else has up this Friday!

This is a little 'knick-knack' I bought at the local knick-knack shop, it was even a deal.

I see a lot of John Deere tractor 'stuff'' - I think there is some nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the country, but I like the red tractors better than the green ones.

I am a farmer's daughter. My Dad is retired now, at age 74, and even sold his tractor last year. (He was renting out a field so he could 'farm' a little bit.) My Dad's tractors were always red or orange, because he preferred Farmall and Case tractors to the more ubiquitous John Deere.

When I saw this harvest tractor, I thought of him. When I was a child, it was a special privilege to get to ride with Dad on the tractor, as he was coming in from the field. I remember him fixing it when it broke, and even a tractor race he had one day with his brother out on the road they lived on.