Congratulations!

Congrats, you two! What a blast! Very nice!

Congrats on the wins. Sounds like you had a wonderful time.

Fun! Congratulations, and thanks for sharing your beauties at the show and also with us!

I entered a Boston Fern at the great frederick fair last year... it took second place... out of 2 entries. I do think they'll skip awarding ribbons if they don't think an entry has earned a "place," but I also think grooming plays a big part in making a smaller or even lopsided entry worthwhile. Joyanna and I spend a while picking off dead leaves and snipping brown stems. :-)

I'm not sure if we'll enter plants/flowers this year or just put 3 entries in the household division (baking... refrigerator cookie, snickerdoodle, pumpkin bread... and if we don't get all 3 finished by tomorrow night I'll enter a piece of jewelry or some other craft item). The GFF has $10 entry tickets, good for up to 3 items anywhere in the division (plants/garden/produce/flowers is separate from household). Ribbons are worth some $, so we've gotten some of that back... and for the price of your entry ticket, you get a sheet of entrance tickets, 1 for every day of the fair. Kids under 10 are free, so Joyanna and I can go every day if we want.

I had fun looking at your entries again this morning! The EE leaves make a stunning display. It's no surprise to me that you came home with a fistful of ribbons -- your plants look great! Has Ric pinned the ribbons inside the greenhouse door?

Not yet, we won't get the ribbons or the plants back until after next weekend.

More time for them to be admired! I didn't remember that it was a 2-weekend show. :-)

Household entries due tonight for GFF... The past couple of years I've been getting back from a trip with my folks on the day entries go in, so I've submitted flowers & plants rather than baked goods. But I have a pumpkin bread recipe I've been working on... and if I bake cookies, Joyanna's friends can eat them up at the party Sunday. I do have some sedums that are looking really good, though, so I might have to pop for a second ticket.

Heya! I had to report that I won exactly enough in premiums ($20) this year to pay for my Frederick Fair entries! We did really well, only 1 non-winning entry, a barrel cactus surrounded by babies that I thought looked great but may have been considered overpotted or simply not large/striking enough. (Second place was a bromiliad without a "bloom" that had broken leaves.. whazzup with that?)

Blue ribbons for pumpkin pie bread, watermelon pickles, sedum (cut stems), and most fragrant rose (Redox Bouquet), plus a red (2nd place) ribbon for stained glass cookies.

Any photos to share, Jill?

Oh, you probably meant photos of our entries..

Pumpkin Pie Bread (Jill & Joyanna's recipe) and Watermelon Pickles (like my mom made)




I know I have a photo of the sedum, next round of downloads I guess... the rose was a just-opening bud when I cut it, and by the time I got to the farm & garden building it had bloomed out and dried up!

good for you two!
and nice pics. #2, Chicken with the head turned to our left, is a great pose

Thx! I went back to the poultry barn without kids, spent a good half hour trying to get pix... got a couple, but chickens are not very cooperative subjects. The one with head to left was crowing like anything... until I took several minutes of video, hoping to capture a loud cock-a-dooo. LOL

Looks like you have had a great time! Jealous of the chicken with all that "hair". I can use some of that .

Great showing Jill, Just got my computer back may take awhile till I get it all figured out again.

Good to have you back online, Holly! Got together with Aspen & Donner last weekend, and we were saying that you and Ric had been pretty quiet lately... we were hoping all was well. I think Ric posted something about a recent week at Ocean City, too. :-)

BTW, turns out I was six for six, I think. I went to pick up my little cactus after the fair, and "third place" was written on its tag. I commented on that to the guy in the office, and he looked it up on the computer and said there's nothing in the computer about it, so I guess the tag was a mistake. Well, I didn't want to argue, 'cause I knew he was trying to avoid a fight about the premium (checks had already gone out, so it would have been a mess to get me $1, LOL)... but *I* believe the mistake was that it didn't get entered into the computer system.

So, I'm choosing to believe my little cactus with its ring of babies really did win third place. (I didn't see any other succulent with a 3rd place ribbon.) Hah!

LOL Jill, Ric and I have been terribly busy. We were in Atlantic Beach for a week then drove up to Duck for a week. Then we were home for 5 days and then headed out to Ocean City for another week. Now we are finally home and trying very hard to play catch up. Not sure how much posting we will do but all is good here other than Ric fell off a 6ft ladder yesterday. Then he got back up on it and fell again. So after he fell off the ladder twice he called Jamie and had him bring a 12ft ladder over. Luckily by the time Jamie showed up with the taller ladder he had gone to lay down so there was no third attempt. He is hurting pretty good but doesn't seem to have anything serious wrong.

Yikes! He just hates to give up on anything, I know. Glad he wasn't seriously hurt and hope he continues resting today.

OMG! I am very glad that Ric wasn't hurt too badly. Time to take it easy for a few weeks.

Hoping Ric is feeling better, now

He is better from the fall. We have an awful lot going on right now. Ric's Dad is here just picked him up from the airport yesterday. Not sure how long he will be staying. He hates flying but we arranged a wheelchair escort door to plane and plane to door service. With a direct flight here (well almost here) Regan Airport we drove down for him. Nothing like rush hour traffic in D.C.
We told him if he will stay until after Thanksgiving we will drive him home. But if he gets too homesick he will have to fly back down.