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This is a continuation from
Last Week's Wednesday post/meme participation 'cause it turned into a lon-n-n-g post. If you missed the day's entry a week ago, you can open the link; opening in a new window....
By the time we left the park and entered once again the little burg of Calallen, Texas, we turned south and headed toward Robstown again. The Fairgrounds for the county is a huge complex! [This is where we went to see Hillary Clinton & she gave her presidential campaign speech in February 2008]. As you've probably already heard in the news about the Fort Hood, Texas massacre a couple of weeks ago. At the time, President Obama ordered that all Federal buildings [governmental be they U.S., state, county] fly the American Flag at half mast to honor those who had their lives taken because of the shootist. Here, at the outside area of the Fairgrounds Pavilions, our state flag [which by the way is one state flag that can fly at the same height as the U.S. flag because it was once a republic of its own ---flag protocol does not allow state flags to fly as high or higher than the country's flag] Anyway, this photo is showing our respect for those who perished. But to be a little political here again, I'm not sure I agree with the 'half mast' for JUST Fort Hood Texas...Why? Because each and every DAY, overseas on foreign lands, some of our brave men and women die in combat!! Why then, just for Texas? Okay...I've said my piece. Now I'll move on to the Show we went to....
This bi-annual event is called the
Peddler Show. It's held each year, on a specific weekend, in February and November. I like to go in November 'cause they have a lot of holiday crafts and gifts. The place is humongous! Acres and acres of land, arenas, stadiums and pavilions and dance halls. In the main area during this show, the indoor stadium is cordoned off in sections for the peddlers selling their homemade/homecrafted goods. And few come from all over the country...but, mostly just from Texas. There are a 'gazillion' choices, and fantastic stuff. From jewelry, home canned foods, plants, holiday crafts and gifts, woodcrafts, locally [state-wide] canned and cured food items, clothing, art, and so much more. Anyone can easily spend the entire day here and not see all! And I could easily spend a fortune! We began with the outdoor peddlers. Bud was much interested in one booth that had some iron work. He bought a couple of iron spurs that he used to add to the 'western' guest bedroom decor. While he was paying for those, I walked across and watched an artist do his sketching...he was from Houston and worked quickly and precisely on his project. He had hundreds of pencil sketches for sale...cheap. There were several sections roped off that had a lot of huge items such as Wooden Christmas Yard Decorations and huge Wooden Patio Chairs...rocking chairs mostly. [Remember, everything's bigger in Texas...and the chairs were as big as Texas!!] We then walked the rest of the path, perusing as we strolled slowly toward the main pavilion entrance. Once inside, the little kid in me...with eyes full of wonderment, takes hold!! I wanted this, and that, and can I have this? You know the feeling.
And I always have to go 'into' each 'booth'!! There were some that I felt no need because I'm not interested in their products, but MOST of 'em, I just hafta check 'em out. Especially anything holiday, jewelry and food booths. Yes, food. It's a priority while attending these shows. They always have such unique and tasty treats/samples. Okay then, while munching away on some locally made Summer Sausage I spy a great jewelry craft shop. The ladies that were selling had a lot of holiday trinkets. I found ....you guessed it.... Santa, dangly earrings. That was my first purchase. Let me back up a bit on this. That was the FIRST item
I bought. Bud and I also found something we both have been wanting for years, and it was PERFECT. But it was huge, we had paid for it already, and the proprietor put a 'hold' on it so we could continue on our merry way. It was too huge and too cumbersome to carry around with us all day. Entering through the wide opening into the arena/stadium bleachers, another of the booths I stopped at was to sample their candy....peanut brittle.
Locally [Texas] owned and operated. Of course I loved it. And bought a small bag to munch on as we browsed the many more aisles and booths. Peanut brittle, and pecan brittle and one odd sounding [that I didn't sample] Jalapeno Brittle? Uh-uh....just doesn't sound good. Still, any candy with the name "Annie" can't be all that bad, right? And trust me, it's the best tasting brittle I've ever had. And I asked for a order form so I can buy more later on. She also has a website called,
Mrs. Annie's Peanut Patch, in case you'd like to taste it. IT'S DELICIOUS...and all natural with no preservatives added. YUM!! And it's not all that expensive either. Bud and I spent several hours in the main pavilion. I've always loved going to these, especially to get my OWN ideas for craft projects since we're both quite capable of seeing something that we like and we can go home and make replicas of what we liked. LOL As you can see, I have a 'thing' with crosses. This one I'm showing, with the barbed wire -above, in the outdoor photo, reminded me of the crown of thorns. Altho, I didn't care for the 'Texas' implication of it, with the horseshoe in the middle, I still took a picture of it for future reference for another project for Bud someday.
And yes, I also like the crosses in jewelry. I found this one at another peddler's booth, a beautiful brass and Austrian Crystal pendant. Yep, bought that too. We continued walking around and loved everything Christmas related. We stopped and sampled some of Texas's Own soups. This particular peddler had dried soup mixes such as Chicken enchilada, Cajun Chicken, Gumbo, Cream of Potato, Texas Chili, Broccoli...along with samples of the dried dip mixes such as Lemon, Strawberry, Cajun, Dill, and so many more flavors I can't recall. I think tho, I tried 'em all, didn't buy any 'cause each one of their mixes had MSG in it. In fact most of the of the dried food items for sale had MSG. But we didn't let that stop us from the free samples! LOL And we enjoyed it all. Some of the stuff is so unique, it was perhaps adventurous for us to sample so many many different things all in one day without any ill effects. By late afternoon we were just about ready to go pick up our first large item that we had on hold.
We finished walking through to not miss anything and found our way back to where we began ... she had wrapped it for us and we hit the potty spot and left. It was a fun, fun day. We stopped to eat a very late lunch [or early dinner] in Corpus, and returned home unloaded our new piece of art, cleaned it up to put where we had agreed to have it...Let me tell a little bit here...Bud has always wanted a painting of the Texas Longhorns [even when we lived in Colorado]. Can you figure out which one we bought? We both have been fascinated by the breed and how sturdy they are and their ability to survive the vastness and emptiness of the desert lands and ranches. He has always liked to read books about the cattle drives of the West and the Cattle Trails along the land...how they herded them to ranches long ago. We've been tempted several times have another hide tanned for a throw rug. [We had one before, and it was stolen from our house!!] Well, to continue here, both of us found a wonderful canvas transfer. Done by a local, Texas artist from Happy Texas....
Roberta Wesley. The painting is entitled "The Day of the Horns".
We both loved the rich colors and the intricate detail of the animals and even the depiction of the dust swirling as they're herded onward. With the price asked, the barnwood frame was included. Wow. Good deal!! As you can see, [the photo above] here's Bud marveling at another Texas Longhorn framed work...it had a longhorn in the center and the matting part was all different cattle brands. Just look at all the animal prints!!! We always figured someday we'd find one perfect work of art...well, we found it. It fits so well with Texas and our Western decor.
With my zoom lens, I stood back a little way from the fireplace and took this 2nd photo to show a little of the preciseness and detail of this woman's work. I also liked the lonely looking windmill in the background 'cause the country girl in me remembers her grandparent's farm out on the prairie. The photos really don't do it justice. But it's a good fit, and we're happy with it being here at home with us. So, this is the 2nd of my two posts for Wednesday. Sorry I really got way too gabby on this little day trip, but there was so much to tell. LOL
POSTED: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
4:25 A.M.
For Thursday 13, I sometimes do research to find 13 facts. Of course, Google comes into play. I always learn so much doing it this way. In fact I told Bud "I sure wish we would've had Google back some 50 years ago..." I then added: "We'd all be brilliant!" He so sternly disagreed with me. In fact his comeback was "Not really, I'd still be getting C's and D's. I'd still be trying to figure out how to log in and use the keyboard." It was funny. You had to be there!! Mainly, 'cause it's true!! He can't type worth diddly squat and hunts and pecks at the keyboard....
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