the squibix family blog

After the parade we headed over to the fair, where the first thing we did was park our bikes in the free bike parking coral and put on stickers letting the world know that we biked to Bedford Day. The tree we're accustomed to using as our home base during the fair was a little less peaceful than usual thanks to the kiddie train ride (new this year!) that stopped right by it, but we're creatures of habit so we didn't let that put us off. Plus it's convenient to the karate demonstration.

The boys now have two good friends who wear the red jackets of the Callahan's Karate leadership team, so it was extra fun watching them go at it. Although Zion says the adults' pretend fighting gets less convincing every year. Callahan's is maybe the biggest of Bedford's youth-oriented institutions, so there was a lot of karate energy at the fair. Zion and Elijah each had the opportunity to break a board.

All that activity was balanced out by tons of calories from sugar. Besides all the parade candy we could pick up more from many of the booths. And there were a couple Evangelical churches there, always good for some treats. The line for the free cotton candy was too long for any of the boys, right up until they ran out, but Zion went back to the free shaved ice booth three times. I ate my share of candy, and Harvey and I also split a thing of samosas from Bedford Embraces Diversity and some cookies from the soccer bake sale. Plus we all had lunches from home!

Our fair energy stared to fade at about the same time as everyone else's; we weren't the absolute last to retrieve our bikes from the corral this year. But even then the thrills weren't done, because apparently Bedford Day fireworks are now a thing we do regularly. Yay! So after dinner we headed back up the hill to meet up with lots of friends. Not that you can really have much of a conversation over fireworks, but it was still nice to share the evening with so many great people from our town. The show was good too!

Over the three-year gap since last time we went we stopped using the cargo bike, so I wondered briefly how we would get all the food and supplies for the day to Concord. As it happened it was no trouble at all with three strong kids who can carry their own bags. We shared the load out and, while mine was the heaviest with the tent, rug, and extra waters (and ice packs!) the boys did their share too. We rode in with friends, including a friend of Elijah's who did fantastic on the first "long ride" of his life.

We did all the fair things: listened to music and danced; bought cotton candy, popcorn, lemonade, and pie with ice cream; played on the playground; sprayed the firehose; and watched dogs catch frisbees. We also played Uno. And of course there were the field games!

We're a competitive bunch, so I'm happy to report we acquitted ourselves well. Zion won a sack race and a three-legged race (with me as partner), and Harvey and I came second in another three-legged heat. And Zion and his friend won three out of the five sponge toss rounds they entered (Harvey and I again came in second in a different round). And Elijah was happy with how well he did against the competition. He and his friend were amazing at the three-legged race, and would definitely have won a contest against people with similarly-sized legs who actually tied them together.

It wasn't a celebration of United States patriotism—I don't know how much we're feeling that these days. It was a celebration of summer, and local community, and friends, and it did that perfectly.

Besides the food—hamburgers, grilled cheese, chips, brownies, popcorn, Hawaiian shaved ice—they bought raffle tickets, stuffed animals, and books. Which was almost everything they could have spent money on. Some of their friends also paid for henna tattoos, but that didn't interest them. The stuffed animals were delight enough!

And of course, it wouldn't be a proper old-fashioned fair without some field games. Besides the tug-of-war pictured here (Zion and Elijah's team won that contest, I was on the losing side every time I participated), there were sack races. They provided all the excitement anyone could hope for.

The event was pretty well attended, and it was a cheery sunshiny atmosphere all over the grounds. I didn't take any pictures of the animals, but they were the main attraction: you could visit and pet cattle, sheep, and goats—including a few adorable tiny baby goats. And the horse girls were riding in the ring, showing off their skills. And when the boys needed some time away from the crowd, the fairground has space for that too.

This was the first ever Spring Extravaganza; usually Middlesex 4H is content with just the one fair in August. But I guess they've been missing inviting the public to the fairground over the last two years! Of course, the end-of-summer fair is still on the calendar, and promises to be a whole lot bigger and better. We're looking forward to it!

Besides the bounce houses—the heart and soul of any fair—there were all kinds of very simple games to play. Some of them gave you raffle tickets when you completed them, but I wasn't sure how many times we were meant to play in a row. It was less stressful to just play on the things we could do ourselves, like the cornhole courts.

There was also unlimited free cotton candy, and pizza, salad, fruit, and juice boxes (not unlimited, to the boys' dismay); a painting table; and a fun photo booth. Harvey didn't have the best time after all—he was maybe a little old for the games, and he couldn't help thinking he could have been home playing Minecraft—but the other boys and I had a fantastic time.

As delightful as the fair was, though, the bike ride to and from was even more fun. It's been a couple years since we ventured down to that end of the Minuteman bike path, and there was lots to see and enjoy. Like playgrounds! Even the crowds on the path between Arlington and Cambridge were exciting—we never get half that many people on our end of the Minuteman. Best of all was Spy Pond, at its finest on a beautiful April day.

I can't remember either of the other boys being so into face paint at seven, or any other age. I think they lack his commitment to personal ornamentation, and also his willingness to communicate with strangers. Which you need to do if you want someone to give you that kind of attention! He's also really patient: there wasn't much of a line for the face-painting booth, but he still needed to wait at least ten minutes before he got his turn, and then the painting itself took close to that.

Totally worth it though! I only wish the paint job itelf lasted a little longer... it was already smudged by the time we headed home an hour or two later, and after 24 hours all that was left was the white triangles above his eyes and a lingering spray-tan looking orange cast to his cheeks. He tells me we have our own face paint set somewhere in the basement though, and he's already planning his next look.

I don't know if there were more people out than the last time we celebrated as a town, but enthusiasm certainly felt higher as we arrived at the center of town for the parade Saturday morning. We met the same friends as last time—well, mostly, since in the intervening years all the kids have gotten older so some of them are now marching with karate or soccer. So we waved at them. There was a little less candy-throwing than past years but still plenty, lots of which—again—failed to reach the barricades along the side of the street. We didn't let our kids crawl under, but they still managed to get enough to kick off their sugar rush.

Not that they needed much parade candy, because the fair following the parade was full of sugary treats. Elijah was possessed by the idea of cotton candy so the first thing we did was wait in a long line to get some at $3 a shot (Zion too; Harvey chose a much shorter line for pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream). We felt a little sheepish later when we found another booth with free cotton candy, but that just meant the kids got another hit. We also enjoyed snow cones (free), popcorn ($2), and homemade chocolate chip blondies ($1: much the best deal). Plus we even found time to eat the lunches we brought!

Zion's two best friends were in the karate demonstration this year, so it was extra fun to watch. And there were balloons to play with, and fire trucks to tour, and the library book sale. Elijah got face paint. Then everything started closing down and we went home.

But unlike past years, that wasn't the end of the festivities! In Bedford we have Fourth of July fireworks only every five years, and we missed our shot in 2020. Never mind, leftover fireworks are much better in September, when the show can start at 7:30! We rejoined our friends—they brought glow sticks!—and the kids ran and played until the sky lit up with the most amazing fireworks display I've seen for at least two years.

The expedition was not everything that we could hope for. Parlee Farms, where we've long picked all our berries, is every year becoming more and more of a PYO theme park. Continuing in that theme, they've now switched the strawberry pricing from by the pound to a flat rate: you buy a box before you head out to the field and get to bring home as many berries as you can fit in it. The prices were never outstanding, but now they're much worse. $11 for a quart box that you have to fill yourself?! We paid $35 for a box that was said to hold six pounds, and we went in determined to fill it to the absolute brim!

For all my gripes about the farm, the picking itself is fantastic. And this year all three boys were awesome helpers, so we got our box filled in no time at all. More than filled: we carefully stacked the berries well above the rim. We had to get our money's worth—and it's so hard to leave berries behind! The strawberries are at a far end of the ever-growing farm property, so the tractor wagon ride to get there (can't call it a hayride anymore: all hay has been replaced with wooden benches) took a considerable time. In fact, after we'd picked all our berries and walked back to the tractor stop we had a couple minutes wait before the arrival of the same tractor we'd ridden out to the field, one of three doing the round trip. I guess part of what we were paying for was that ride, since it was the longest part of the visit!

Well, that and the animals too; we happily spent some time admiring the goats and, especially, the bunnies. We would've had to pay extra to feed them though, so we didn't do that. We did pay a little extra to feed ourselves some donuts and chocolate milk as a reward for our hard work, but there was one final disappointment: they don't make strawberry donuts any more. No blueberry donuts in blueberry season, no strawberry ones now... just boring apple cider. It's too bad. We've been regulars for a long time, but it's about time to find a new place to pick. That and keep working on our own strawberry beds!

That trip was disappointing, but at least we could look back at one purely wonderful strawberry-related event this week: the return, yesterday evening, of the Strawberry Festival at the Congregational Church. It was cancelled last year, obviously, but things are looking up enough that it happened this year. Outside, which made it even better! It was so wonderful to be out among people, and eating even! Sure, five dollars is a lot to pay for strawberry shortcake, but it felt totally worth it under the circumstances. Especially since Lijah's bowl of only chocolate sauce (they offer chocolate and ice cream as well as the traditional components of shortcake; he cares only for one component) was free: it should've been five dollars too, but he's so cute and it's such a fun thing to ask for that they didn't charge us, even after I insisted. It was a lot of chocolate too!

Besides the big slide and another bounce house (well, bounce obstacle course really) there were big Connect Four games and corn hole, and lots folks to hang out with: it seemed like almost everyone we know in town was there! And then of course there was the music too, which was surprisingly better than I had expected. I don't always trust the quality of "Caribbean music", but The Kolors Band had enough bass in the mix and plenty of energy to make things fun. I wanted to dance, of course, and the band wanted everyone up and dancing... sadly, in Bedford people don't, generally. But you can always count on kids, and once the band realized that nobody else but the kids was actually going to interact with the music they gave up on the rest of the crowd and had a little dance party for under-tens (and me). Here's Lijah getting down; you can also see us for a couple seconds in this video!

The show closed with a full 15 minutes of limbo madness, as pictured here. Amazing! There's no way tomorrow's show can possibly be as good. We'll probably still go anyways. Yay for summer music.