Greetings from the Harraseeket Inn! The good news about our August weather is that the fire danger is LOW here in the grand state of Maine! Along with that, the gardens, both vegetable and flower, haven’t required any watering at all and are looking quite lush. August is summer camp season, and I can imagine all the arts and crafts the kids were doing while it poured out. I was lucky enough to be asked to give a sled dog demonstration at Riverview Foundation in Topsham, a really wonderful summer camp that teaches the children non-competitive martial arts in the morning and conducts all sorts of neat wilderness education activities in the afternoons. I brought my lead dog and all my distance racing gear and had a great time with the kids, though Merlin, my dog, thought it was odd being harnessed up when it was eighty degrees. (Don’t worry, she didn’t have to do anything except cuddle with the kids.) The kids became the team of dogs, taking turns as the driver, and they had a blast hauling the loaded toboggan sled up hill and down over the mown fields. One of our servers in the Maine Dining Room, Carlos, is an instructor at the camp, which is how I happened to be invited to speak. He invited me to come back for a morning session to see what the kids do, so I’ll be writing about that in a future newsletter, just in case any of you want to sign your kids up.
Along with summer camps, the fairs are in full swing. Because we sponsor the Topsham Fair, my mom was invited to present the winning horse of Monday’s second pacer race with a blanket. So, off we went to the fair. It rained the whole time. We had a blast. We spent four hours wandering through the animal barns, admiring pigs the size of Ford Escorts and bulls as big as Mac trucks, petting baby goats and calves, watching donkey agility trials and learning where the expression “stubborn as a mule” came from when the mules got their turn at the course. Some of them wouldn’t budge off the starting line, but a tiny donkey called Stubby handily won the blue.
Then it was off to the race track, a one half mile dirt oval covered with mud. Whatever colors the jockeys were wearing were brown after one turn around the track. Everything, horse, driver, sulky, was covered with mud. My mom and I placed a bet on the number seven horse for no other reason than it was my lucky number, but he didn’t like having mud kicked up in his face so kept wisely to the far rear. We lost twelve bucks that we could have spent on French fries, fried dough and pizza, but we got to present the winning horse with a beautiful blanket!
Summer may be winding down, but being in Maine keeps the spring in our step. For a schedule of the upcoming fairs, go to http://maineagfairs.com/fairdates.php To name just a few; Skowhegan Fair, Farmington Fair, Union Fair, Windsor Fair, Fryeburg Fair, Cumberland Fair, Oxford Fair, and my very favorite, the Common Ground Fair. Also, mark your calendars for Freeport’s Art and Music festival on September 6th. Check out the line-up at www.freeportusa.com. This is the same weekend as the air show at Brunswick Naval Air Station. Don’t miss out on the excitement!
And now, this month’s trivia question. (It’s ‘fairly’ difficult to google.) What was the name of the winning horse in the second race at the Topsham Fair on Monday, August 4? First correct answer wins dinner for two in the Broad Arrow Tavern or Maine Dining Room. Good luck, and we hope to see you soon!
The Gray family
Updated: Aug 18th, 2008 - 13:56:50
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Harraseeket Inn 162 Main Street, Freeport, Maine 04032
Phone: (207) 865-9377, (800) 342-6423, Fax: (207) 865-1684
Email: Reservations
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