I made my husband stop so I could get out and take this picture. (g)
We were on our way to Stratford, Oklahoma for their annual peach festival. This sign was in Purcell. Yeah, I have a dirty mind. So what?
The festival seemed different. Of course, the last time I attended one, I was a kid. This year, a bad freeze ruined the crops, so there weren’t that many actual peach stands. Today, to buy peaches at the festival, it cost 40 bucks for half a bushel of #1 peaches and 25 for #2s.
I think I would have enjoyed myself more if it hadn’t been 106 degrees. Our vehicle said 103, but the attending radio station set us straight. OMG, we were sunburned, sweaty and miserable puddles within the hour. I did, however, write down a few observations.
1. There is such a thing as a Watermelon Queen. Seriously. She was visiting from another town and spoke right before Stratford crowned its Peach Queen. Also, there were different levels from Peach Buds and Blossoms on up. I felt a little sorry for the boys who were crowned Peach Buds. Hard to live that one down in school.
2. The peach tea is freaking awesome. I bought two glasses and then ended up buying the homemade peach syrup to take home for our tea here.
3. The Republican and Democrat tents were all together in a happy little line. I tried to get a picture but was distracted by the huge pile of horse poo in front of all of them.
4. Country Music Singing Contests …TAKE!! FOREVER!! It went on and on and on. It’s the most country music I’ve ever heard in one sitting. And when the contest was over, these men got up with a harmonica and oh, I don’t remember what other instruments because there was so much sweat dripping into my eyes at this point they were burning. I was zoning out big time. I do remember they sang “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.”
5. Korn and Disturbed help dilute endless Country Music Singing Contests. My daughter and I shared her Ipod for awhile.
6. We saw the fattest dog. Ever.
7. Ankle tattoos. Now, I like tattoos, have one all designed should I ever get up the nerve, but I’ve never seen so many WAY young women with really big ankle tattoos. Some looked like preteens, so it surprised me.
8. You could pick out the popular little girls because they were in matching shorts and practicing cheers on the sidelines. And for some reason, the heat wasn’t doing evil things to their perfect hair.
9. I liked the blacksmiths. They had the neatest candle holders that came with a story. In the past, men would make these iron candle holders in a spiral. They put small, wooden posts in them. Whenever a boy came to court their daughter, he could tell if the parents liked him by how low the candles sat in the holders and once it burned down, the date was over. I should have bought them, but I bought a beautiful silver cuff bracelet instead– well it’s antique silver looking copper.
10. The heat did something odd to my husband because for the first time ever, he said yes to our son getting a weird pet. This isn’t an actual picture of our new pet, but it’s close. He’s freaked enough from the jostling two hour ride home so I didn’t want to freak him out anymore. They called these salamanders Baby dinosaurs and yes, its gills are on the outside of it’s neck. It’s the only animal with them. It looks pretty cool. My son named his Vash from the show Trigun.
And I’ll leave you with another image. If you squint (or click on the pic to bring it up large), you can make out the iron butterfly perched on the fingers. This hand was absolutely huge– yes, that’s the roof of a building behind it.
(Edit March 07: This post is months and months old and still gets a ton of hits daily. I’d love to know how you found it. I do see the search strings entered with tattoos, ankles, country music, etc … but did it make it into an email loop recently? The number of hits doubled. <g>)