State fair ’03

We went to the NC State Fair this afternoon. We enjoyed: airguns at the Fish & Wildlife stand; giant sand sculptures; a dozen baby pigs suckling; the rabbits; a goat getting its hair cut; little brother tossing two baseballs at the piles of blocks; big sister tossing two rubber balls into a small wastebasket; a chronological display of old plows and threshers; the smells of roasted corn, silage, cotten candy and barbecue fused in the seamless die of a clear, blue fall sky. Our favorite activity by a country mile: holding the baby chicks at a table in the poultry barn.

A carnie tipped us on how use the bb-machine gun to obliterate the red star target and win a prize — rather than trying to cover the star with holes, shoot a circle around the star and cut it out. Also, he said, boys with two front top teeth missing are usually seven.

Check out the fair webcam.