Under the subject heading, "What Else Do We Do To Keep Ourselves Occupied Around Here?", I belong to two non-profit organizations in the area. (oops, make that three--I just last week joined up with an arts cooperative, Pioneer Arts, but that one doesn't quite conform to this subject--yet)
I volunteer at Hospitality House, which is the local group seeking to address the issues of the homeless in our area. I also sing in the chorus arm of the larger organization, Music in the Mountains, a mostly classical group.
Both need more money. These days, of course, that's not such a simple problem to solve.
Besides the usual activities (singing for MIM and working at the Welcome Center for HH) each has various other opportunities for involvement/special events, most of which involve trying to wring cash out of anyone who glances in our direction. Because we need it. And they're good causes. Seriously.
And Tom has gotten sucked into the vortex, as well, by virtue of his being connected to me. He's OK with it.
Here's a rundown of our most recent activities (this summer):
For MIM, we took our turns working the Beer/Wine Pavilion at the Fair again this year (it's an MIM-"owned" concession). Four hours, mostly in the cashier's cage. Last year, we slung the suds. Because people drink no matter how the economy is faring.
Last Saturday, we also worked all day at the annual MIM BrewFest at the Fairgrounds, where folks come to taste more than 100 beers from all sorts of local microbreweries. Because people drink no matter, well, like I said before...Tom gathers a team of about 10 volunteers who work the gate and put wristbands on the revelers, etc. I'm on the cashier's team, but I really float between the two teams, setting up, making signs and filling in where ever. It's a fun, but long day.
Tom also set MIM up with a website from his company, Directra, to facilitate information and communication issues. It works great! Everybody loves it!
For Hospitality House, I usually help out one 3 1/2 hour shift a week working the "bin" room (where guests' belongings and shower supplies, etc. are kept) and the kitchen. I'm also in charge of a program called "Adopt-a-Night" to encourage people to give $125 to cover overnight costs for up to forty folks. As such, I'm also in charge of half of the "booth" responsibilities--finding volunteers for and setting up the booth at events such as the summer Market Nights in the downtowns each week. This is the last week for that. I also do posters/signage. And acknowledgments (thank you notes and newspaper notifications, etc.). This little job is actually a bit more than I bargained for (grew like an amoeba), so I plan to find some folks to help with parts of it.
Sunday before last, Tom and I set up for a fancy fundraising dinner in the beautiful gardens of Empier Mine State Park to benefit HH. I, then, stayed to served tables and clean up. It included an art auction, raffles, etc, and an outdoor concert by a string quartet. Lovely event. I forgot to take pictures.
Oh, and Tom is setting HH up with Directra, as well.
That's the gist. It's a great way to meet people and the work benefits good causes. Better watch out--money is always in season around here.
Photos: first is Tom letting all the BrewFesters in at the gate. You can't see the thousand, or so, people behind these first few. Second is Tom toward the end of the event when things are quieting down a bit. Third is the HH booth that we set up in Grass Valley every week. I made all the signage except the large banner in the back. I think we look pretty good, now!
It's been fun to be innkeepers for a week!
Funny how the timing works out, sometimes. A month, or so, ago, we knew that we'd have the privilege of hosting certain travelers, at some point. Tom's cousin, Nancy, wanted to visit on the way back to Oregon from her job assignment in SoCal, but she wasn't sure what week. No worries, we'd be here. Our friend, Win, from our old church in El Cajon, wanted to stop by during his motorcycle trek around Northern California and knew which week, but wasn't quite sure what day--also just fine with us.
Rachel, Mike and Megan had hung out with us for the weekend of the County Fair, leaving last Sunday evening. Win called Tuesday to say that he'd be rolling in Wednesday, sometime. Nancy emailed soon thereafter that her schedule put her at our house Friday. All at just two-nights each, there was no overlap, though Nancy pulled in just a few hours after Win went on his way--just enough time to change sheets/towels and do a shift at Hospitality House on Friday.
As I said, it was fun! We love the company and like to show off the local highlights!
Win is 80 and lost his wonderful wife, Marge, last year. He's ridden motorcycles nearly all his adult life, so biking all over California to visit friends and relations is no big deal. 
Win is quite the fascinating character. Besides being a teacher of social studies and different shop skills, being a marriage and family counselor, and a piano restorer, he's held untold positions of major responsibility in many organizations, built houses, flown planes, traveled nearly anywhere you can name and I know I've left out most of it. I hauled him all over Empire Mine State Park. He seemed to enjoy it.
Nancy is quite another remarkable person, who has mastered several languages, has lived/traveled all over the world, and, with her husband, Bernd, raised five remarkable kids. Most of her career has been spent teaching and monitoring the working conditions of child actors on the sets of many different TV shows and movies--none of which can I remember at the moment.
She and Tom spent some time poring over the geneology of their family (third photo) as extensively-researched by her, her brother, Bob, and her mom (now deceased). She enjoyed the look and charm of the little mining towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City. Sunday morning, we waved goodbye as she set off for home in Corvallis, OR, having been gone many weeks.
So, who's next? We never know. You? Could be tomorrow or three months from now, it doesn't matter. Empire Mine is waiting.
Friday evening, arriving home fresh from the salsa humiliation, Rachel and Mike pulled up from San Francisco at nearly the same time as Megan and Tucker drove in from Truckee. Rachel and Megan had been house mates for awhile in Truckee before Rachel moved to SF a few of years ago. Tucker is Megan's wonderful mellow golden retriever.
There were lots of laughs just hanging out at home, of course, but we spent most of the day together at the Fair on Saturday.
You can see us having lunch in the bleachers between musical acts at one of the stages. The most excellent (we hear) Hawaiian hula group was setting up, but we had stuff to do...
...Like run around and see all my Fair entries, watch the frisbee dogs, check out the water bubbles (barely visible in the background in this photo of Megan, Mike and Rachel). If you haven't seen them, they are clear plastic bubbles with people zipped inside floating on water. One's bubble can be moved by trying to run inside it (as on a hamster wheel), but mostly one just falls and flails around, being bumped and jostled by other bubbles with other people falling and flailing inside. Looks like wonderful fun!
We spent quite a bit of time in the animal barns. Megan had been a 4H kid (cow division). That would be Rachel and Mike checking out the pigs in the next photo. We love touching their spongy noses. We also hung out with the goats, chickens, turkeys, alpacas horses, cows and dug our fingers into the wool of the unsheared sheep. Mike and I listened to most of a seminar about bees. His dad keeps bees (in Illinois) and we have been the lucky consumers of some of his bees' honey.
Along with all the entry tickets and VIP (ahem) parking pass, I also had some free carnival ride tickets. Tom was only too happy to hold our purses, hats and sunglasses while the rest of us zoomed around on some wild-ish flingy contraptions. We chose our own poison in pairs.
Mike and Megan hopped on The Viper--it has those little two-seat gondolas suspended in a wheel formation at the end of an arm which is one of several like it spoked out from a central, uh... So, that last sentence didn't go well. Anyway, they spun in the smaller circle at the same time the smaller circles were also spinning around in a much bigger circle. A lot of circles. You know exactly what I mean. I tried to get a good action shot, but missed them every time. Here they are at the beginning, before they began to regret their decision. An experimental experience gone awry.
Rachel and I, on the other hand, chose the Fireball. It's simpler. There's a giant vertical circular track with a multi-seat open caterpillar-like car that moves back and forth around the circle until the riders are suspended upside down at the top before they are whooshed around and around a few times frontwards, then backwards. We were in the front (well, one of the fronts). And we loved every second. There we are coming down again late into the ride. See how happy?
Toward evening, Tom and I needed to report to our duties at the beer garden. My choir is part of the Music in the Mountains organization and one of the ways we earn extra money (besides making music) is to operate the beer garden at the Fairgrounds for different events. Tom and I had been assigned the Sat night 6:30-10:30 shift (like last year) before we knew the kids would be there. Still, they needed to take Megan back home to her car, anyway, so she could sashay on back to Truckee.
This year, we worked the ticket booth (people buy tickets for beer or wine) and checked IDs, instead of slinging suds. It was fun! Later, Rachel and Mike picked us up.
Sunday was low-key and nice as we just rested up from our raucous Fair Day around the house before they had to drive back to SF.
So, that would be about it for this year's cutest-little-fair-in-the-most-beautiful-fairgrounds-in-the-state. Next year, I'm totally gunning for first in cheesecake world. Look out, Flo!
Yesterday (Monday), when I went to pick up my Fair entries (Fair ended Sunday evening), I looked up above the entrance gate for the first time to see a giant wooden cut-out of the miner-guy I drew for the logo. All those times I had passed through that gate, and I hadn't noticed.
Here's Tom from Wednesday evening munching on a grilled ear of corn (soft pretzel in the other hand). I may have mentioned in a previous post that most of the food at our fair is sold by local clubs or charitable organizations--4H, Rotary, Fire Auxiliary, Soroptimists, etc. The most popular food year to year is the corn dog sold by the Job's Daughters. The lines are at least 45-minutes long, often, and have to be folded around like a ride at Disneyland. Plus there's a wagon parked at the other end of the Fairgrounds which also sells corn dogs. Never a line. I've never had either, so I can't say for sure, but, how much better can one corn dog be than another? And, seriously, there still ARE Jobies?
Thursday morning, just after a seminar about water wells, I met my friend and neighbor, Lorri, at the Fair. She brought with her, Dolores, who is HER friend and neighbor. I guess that makes Dolores MY friend and neighbor, now, too. Dolores needs a wheelchair from time to time, so Lorri and I took turns pushing. I might have been a little aggressive.
We watched a show of trick dogs (mostly frisbee-catching), which was fun, munched our lunches to a bluegrass band and toured the exhibits, including the plants/bonsai displays and the fabric arts building. Quilts are always fabulous and I love looking at the knitted entries. Also, the spinners (wool, llama and alpaca fibers) and weavers. Colors! Speaking of which, I threw in a picture of some of the rides against the trees. I love the contrast between the natural and the not-so-much...
We all left mid-afternoon. I had to go help set up the Hospitality House booth at the Thursday Market.
Friday, I didn't make it to the Fairgrounds until early evening, when I brought my last Fair entry to the salsa competition. The kind you eat with chips. There were nearly forty bowls of salsa lined up on the tables. Mine was in the middle, which had no bearing on the outcome, I'm sure. I had made a fresh salsa, which turned to soup by judging time because I had forgotten to drain it. Oops. Still, it made it past the first round. I was clearly out of the running, though, as the field was narrowed to a dozen or so. My salsa game has some room to improve. Maybe a cooked one with a little chipotle flavor? Next year.
But then I dashed home because Rachel, Mike and Megan were scheduled to arrive for the weekend.
OK, it's time for the Nevada County Fair Round-up. Get comfortable.
So here in the first shot is the largest iteration of the little logo I drew for the Fair that I saw. It was posted on the street corner as one approaches the first parking lot. That would be Parking Lot One, where, ahem, VIPs such as myself were given passes to park for free this year. Well, just beyond the disabled spaces. Still.
I arrived on the first day, Wednesday, around 10:45 to drop off my entry into the cheesecake contest to be judged that evening. Besides all the foods/crafts/art/etc. that get judged the week before the fair begins, there is one food contest each day of the Fair when one brings one's entry to be judged in front of anyone interested and then all the entries are sampled by the audience.
Day One: cheesecake. Two divisions--traditional (plain) and exotic (everything else). I got second place in the exotic for my made-up peanut butter/chocolate/caramel concoction (prize=a twelve-mini-cheesecake pan. It looks like a muffin pan, but all the little cups have false bottoms. Oddly, I didn't already have one). First place for her made-up marguerita-flavored cheesecake was our realtor-friend, Flo. She sold us our house. Tom and I sat with her and her husband and a few of their friends during the judging, which takes forever. Goin' after Flo next year!
Earlier in the day, I had sat on bales of hay to learn more about wild birds in the area, native plants and worm-composting.
Meanwhile, I checked out the crafts barn and found that I had gotten second place (out of two) for my little basket. Clearly, I was out-woven, though I did like my wild manzanita "fringe". Next year, I'll think a little bigger (which means a little sooner, I guess...).
In the Tall Pines building, I "earned" blue ribbons for my music calligraphy (out of one) and my pastel (and again, in a field of one). 
That's the beauty of a small county, right? Still, it's fun to have stuff hanging up there. In the pastel, I was trying to knock myself out of my usual color instincts. That's all I have to say about that. No plein aire this year, for reasons I couldn't learn.
Among other things, I listened to a bluegrass band, watched a mini-horse demonstration and patted the alpacas. I drove home to pick up Tom so he could watch the cheesecake competition. Very fun first day...
I do believe that the general idea behind any kind of submission of one's work to a county fair exhibit is the implication that this is what folks in this community have been up to since the last fair, a year prior--preserves, quilts, artwork, animal-raising. Most people grow what they preserve. Most quilts take more than a day. These things take time.
For me, especially this year, it was all about what I'd been doing, oh, say, last week.
I'm not exactly certain why I just can't do my thing all year, then leisurely pick a few samples of my continuous, ongoing effort in specific areas.
My style seems to hinge more on how crazy I can make my life. On Sunday, July 24th (last possible day, of course), I went online and listed a bunch of items that I thought it would be fun to offer for judging at this year's Nevada County Fair. I chose various examples of my work--none of which I had actually even begun at that point, 10 days before turn-in day. I guess it would have been more appropriate to check the box next to "work I would really like to start and finish". The extra little joke I played on myself was that I somehow had gotten the submission date wrong, and it turned out to be a day earlier than I'd planned (if you can call that "planning")--Thursday, August 4th.
That's just how I roll, as they say.
Inevitably, there were a few casualties along the way. Plus, it would be difficult to call any of the pieces exactly a crowning achievement of the last twelve months.
I signed up to exhibit seven creations--a calligraphy, a pastel, a basket, a cartoon, and an appliqued wallhanging to be judged before the Fair began (which is this Wednesday). A cheesecake and a batch of salsa are to be made and judged same day. "Simplify" was my rallying cry! I thought I could do it all.
The calligraphy was a Victor Hugo quote about music I'd wanted to do for some time. I kinda knew how I wanted it to look. Three attempts later, along with various technical difficulties (fussy pens, non-sticky tape for paper-stretching, etc.), I ended up with something entirely other. Fine, but definitely other.
I cut the pastel paper in half to make it a more likely survivor. Pastel is newish to me, and I'm still trying to find my voice with it. Every piece is highly experimental. I'm not so sure that what I ended up with is what I want to say. But it was fun and I learned a bunch. That counts, right?
In this photo, you can see three attempts at the Hugo quote (two unfinished) and one rather intense version of my neighbor's front yard in pastel.
I only work on baskets in the evenings for a couple hours at a time. And I haven't finished even one in the last year. I have a mostly-made one from last summer, but a cord in the tenerif snapped and, well, never mind. So, I started a new fifty-plus-hour job with only about 15-20 hours available. It's a small basket.
You can see how far I got with the wallhanging. I will finish it. Later.
And I just forgot about the cartoon, which was supposed to be a picture of a miner having fun at the Fair. Since they are using my drawing of a miner on all the promotional materials this year, I thought I might just do well on this one. At the top of the page, that's a picture of the posters we're seeing all over town these days, by the by. Fun!
As for the two food items, well, I had some fun with some last year. I got a second place with my enchiladas, so I thought I'd give the cheesecake category another try (Wed night's competition) and whip up a batch of salsa cruda (Fri).
The Fair begins on Wednesday. It goes until Sunday--five days. I'll probably go over there every day for at least a little while. Because of having had my drawing chosen for the Fair Logo, I get free tickets, parking and rides. Yeah, I'll be over there a lot, flashing my VIP parking pass.
And I'll visit my little pieces, now and again and vow that next year will be different! Yup, the Fair is in the air!!
