Pumpkin Festival!

I missed this event last year!  So this year Jerry and I went to Edmonton.  You know, it's just a little town in Kentucky, and the county seat of Metcalfe County.  They close down the whole downtown square except for one street.  They have the basic Festival there in the town square but take the "Punkin Chunkin" (pitching pumpkins by various means but usually by some sort of catapult) down at the Fairgrounds.
We parked over by the old jail and I'd been meaning to get some photos of it for some time.  Thankfully, I remembered to bring my camera so you all could see it. Check out the thickness of the walls!  As Jerry said, it would take a long time to dig out with a spoon!

Those are just humongous blocks of stone.  And the door is solid iron.
Here are a couple of views of the streets and the festival:

That's the courthouse you see in the right in the second photo.  Still operational, still awesome.  I love going in there, it's at least 100 years old, probably more.  It also has very thick walls.
The first thing that we saw after the old jail was the Tractor Exhibit.  Personally, I think old tractors are cool, even cooler than old cars.  In Kentucky, many of the old tractors are lovingly restored to nearly new condition, in many cases, after 75 or more years of service!
This is an old Allis Chalmers, with the new courthouse behind it.

This is a Farmall:

This is a Ford. Fords are always blue.  The top photo is a restored one.  The second one is partially restored.  People are proud of them anyway, and bring them to show them off.

John Deeres are always green and gold.  This one was fully restored.  You can just see some old farmer, who borrowed some money from the local little bank in the 1940s, buying his brand new shiny tractor, sometimes from places like Sears or Montgomery Wards catalogs.

That's Jerry in the second photo, I told him to wave:

He likes these old tractors, too!

Then there are the little tractors.  Jerry said these weren't that old. Then he said "they are of our generation". Um.  OK.  :)  These were the original little yard tractors that you could attach a mower to or haul around a little garden wagon with dirt in it.

The next thing we saw was the entertainers.  I have to tell you that EVERYONE down here sings.  Gospel, bluegrass, country, rock and roll.  Karaoke is a big thing down here and you see it in the bars in Nashville and in the road houses here in this county (a dry county).  Nearly every night you can find Karaoke going on somewhere and people lined up to sing.  They also have events call "Sings" down here where people just gather to sing, mostly gospel.  We went to a housewarming party last evening and our friends had their own Karaoke machine, everyone from their 9 year old daughter on up was lined up to sing.  One girl was quite good, and really loved it.  The nine year old was pretty darn good, too.

Here were the entertainers. They were singing gospel when we got there:

Sadly, I did not note their names and unfortunately cut off the woman singer's face.  Sorry.
There are a couple of humongous Magnolia trees in the courtyard square, and I noted that the seed pods were dropping the bright red seeds.  If anyone wants some of these, Jerry gathered up a few and I'll mail you some.

I'm not sure if the bottom one is ready to pop out red seeds or whether it's already dropped them off.  These things are twice the size of my fist.  The leaves are also enormous and don't fall off the trees in the wintertime.  They are shiny and always so nice looking!
There was a booth or two that made some really interesting things out of gourds.  One guy made designs on it, sort of like carving.  I missed that photo.  But I did get one that someone did of a flamingo:

In the background you can see some smaller ones that she did of little birds. Those were also very good!  I thought about bringing one of these home but am still trying to decide where I want to put things, and wasn't sure where to put it.
There were lots of booths selling food.  I bought some oatmeal and cranberry cookies that were quite good and very chewy.  They had lemonade, breads, honey, apples, you name it.  There were several trailers that were selling barbecue and pork shoulder which is VERY GOOD.  There was something called ribbon potatoes where they are cut in a long ribbon, deep fried and then they put bacon, cheese and sour cream on it.  It looked so yummy but I was good.  Then I saw these signs:

We didn't try one of these but I will someday!  :)
Lastly, I got some photos of the historical markers that were around the square:

Later on, we went to the Roller Coaster Garage Sales, which covers a number of counties.  Nothing spectacular but we did find one that had some awesome old antique things, spinning wheels, that sort of thing.  Another had a slew of ancient axes that were still in pretty good shape. I guess I never knew there were so many kinds of axes but it makes sense that there would be different kinds just as there are with knives.  The one thing of note with the yard sales is that it is almost de riguer to place your items on a flatbed trailer or farm trailer.  When you are done, you can just wheel that whole thing back into the barn and pack it up at your leisure!  I'll try to get a photo of this sometime, too.
Anyway, it was a fun couple of hours looking around the Festival.  I hope you enjoyed coming along, too.  My next blog will be about Wrangler Camp and camping with horses.  I did that this week, too, and had a very good time!