Holy Vegetables, Batman!
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Before you admonish the kids about playing with their food, perhaps you should rethink your strategy.  They could be budding artists.

After we ate our fill at the local fair last weekend, we found ourselves right next to the building displaying the flowers and vegetables.  Since this is always Butterfly’s favorite thing to see, we headed right on in.

She likes to see how her flowers compare with the winners.  When I was a little girl, she used to enter her blossoms in the local fair where we lived at the time.  I can vaguely remember following her around the yard, helping her cut the best blossoms and carefully packing them to transport them to the fairgrounds the day before the fair.  After the fair opened, it was always so much fun to run to the flower building to see what prizes Mom won (and she always won many!)

My brother and sister also had 4-H animals entered.  It was a true family af-“fair” – I was too little to do much of anything but tag along and try to stay out of trouble.  And beg my father to buy me one of the ponies from the pony ride vendor.  I do remember getting lost once.  I got separated from my parents and ended up with the fair “guards”, who found my parents for me.  I was about 4 at the time and can only remember being terrified, thinking I would never see my mother again.

I loved that fair.  Our entire school (when I was old enough to go to school) got to close early on “Kids’ Day” at the fair (a Wednesday, I think, or maybe it was a Thursday) and walk en masse to the fairgrounds.  We would all be clutching our special stash of quarters that our mothers had given us to spend on midway rides and cotton candy.  Ahh, yes, the ‘50s and ‘60s were an innocent time … until those darned hippies took over!

But I digress, as usual.  Things at the current fair started off normally enough in the vegetable department.

look tasty

It looked like a regular old farmers’ market set-up to me.

pretty colors

Yup, if you’ve seen one gourd, you’ve seen them all.

looks like a zoo

Wait!  What do we have here?  We stumbled upon the kids’ projects and now we were having some fun!

a new use for canteloupes

Quick Draw McGraw!

This child watches way too much TV.

Eeeeek!

This creation is almost frightening.  But it made me laugh.

What's going on here?

I’m not sure if this is a bed or a coffin.  I’ll let you decide.

horses were popular

Frosty the snowman

Who thinks of a snowman in the brutal heat of summer?  But what else are you going to do with onions?

Happy Feet

The only thing that can be said about this is, “Adorable!”

Yes, folks, I say let your kids play with their food if they can come up with this kind of art!  How much fun would dinner-time be if this is what would be on your table?  And, hey, how much zucchini can one family eat anyway?