At the Apple Festival

We spent Sunday at the Apple Festival in Bayfield.  I pretty much love everything about Bayfield, and we always enjoy the apple festival, although it is a bit crowded with tons of people.  The kidlets and Dr. Peds tried many different kinds of carmel apples and other apple treats.  I stuck with my tried and true apple pie with ice cream that is always sold on the exact same corner and is utterly delicious each year. We bought a few bags of apples.  YaYa and I took a quick trip to our favorite store, a Scandanavian gift shop.  We staked our place on the curb in plenty of time before the afternoon parade started, and as usual, a bunch of people came and stood right in front of me so I couldn’t see large swaths of the parade.  This ALWAYS happens to me at the Apple Festival.  It is actually amazing that I manage to have this experience every single year, when down the sidewalk from me, no matter where we seem to sit, there are no people standing and everyone can see fine.  This year, it was particularly humorous that the people standing in front of me were the EXACT same people who stood in front of me either last year or two years ago.  What are the chances of that randomly happening?

I write every year about how much I enjoy all the marching bands in the parade, and especially the joint mass band with all the bands from Wisconsin schools that march together playing On Wisconsin at the end.  The conductor rides in the back of a pickup truck so the long procession of instruments can see him.  On Wisconsin is such a big deal in Wisconsin, so the whole idea of the mass band always makes me happy, and I love to see all the kids playing together at once.

This year I had several favorite bands.  I love hearing the drum and pipe company from Thunder Bay every year, because what is better than a professional ensemble dressed in traditional Scottish kilts with fingers flying over bagpipes perfectly in unison?  It’s always awesome.  The band from Maple, Wisconsin sounded particularly good this year, and the brass section of the band from Grand Marais was terrific too.  But, you faithful readers already know that my very favorite marching bands are the ones from teensy tiny towns in Wisconsin that don’t have perfect rows and aren’t really in tune and are somewhat sparsely populated especially in certain instrumental sections.  I love those bands down to the tips of my toes, and they make me homesick for North Dakota every year!  This year, I was especially in love with the band from Butternut, which quite simply, didn’t sound all that good, but there were at least 8 kids who I am convinced HAD to have been sixth graders marching in that band!  They were tiny!  They were YaYa-size, and one of them was doing a super amazing job playing the drum, a much better job than the big kids marching right next to him. Go Butternut!  I cheered with extra conviction for them!   I tried to get a picture of the Butternut band and their drummer, but I was wrestling with Mr. Trouble on Feet and it didn’t happen.

The Banana as usually fully appreciated the flag wavers in the marching bands and the princesses waving from the cars.  We always like the grandmas dressed like apples who dance down the street, and Mr. Trouble on Feet really liked watching the tractors and apple tillers.  Actually he liked pretty much everything except for the fire trucks and their sirens.  Mr. Sneaky Pants fully enjoyed the candy being thrown at him.

After the parade was done we drove to one of the orchards to pick up more apples so that I could make applesauce this week.  While we were inside getting the apples the kidlets were playing outside on the tire swing and swingset.  This is what Mr. Sneaky Pants’ attire looked like when I came out of the orchard store:

I am forever amazed at how fast boys can get dirty, really dirty.