Fall Activities: 24th Annual Mississippi Pecan Festival

It's been three months!  Three months since I last regaled you with snippets from my life.

It's been three months, so here I go playing catch up.  Again.

September 24, 2011

My family loves to do things together, which is how 11 of us ended up traveling together to the 24th Annual Mississippi Pecan Festival last month.  Think tons of shopping, activities, and food in the middle of nowhere under a canopy of pecan trees.  It was great!

There were vendors selling everything, including some Amish with beautiful wagons.

They also had some benches.  Aaron chose to model on one for us.

Of course there was also farm equipment . . .

Then there were the authentic homesteads.  Papa and his sidekicks, Linzey, McKayla, and Aaron on the front steps of an old farm house.

Inside was an old bed with a beautiful quilt, and three monkeys, McKayla, Aaron, and Linzey.

And then off to see the farm animals, where goat petting is apparently all the rage!  The little ones, Cadence (partially hidden in her stroller), McKayla, Aaron, and Linzey, supervised by Heath, Nana, Papa, and Ellie.

What?  Petting goats not enough?  Well, lets see if we can find some horses!  Linzey (held by her Big Daddy, Jason), McKayla (held by Papa), Aaron (held by his Uncle Heath), and Candace and Carter walking toward another horse, no doubt.

And, here's Papa with his two grandsons, Carter and Aaron.

Of course when petting horses doesn't get the job done, the next thing that one must do is ride a pony!  Right?  In this case there were two ponies and two horses.  Aaron and McKayla got horses,

while Linzey and Carter rode together on a pony.

Then we stood back and enjoyed a little square dancing.  I hope more young people take an interest in this dance form.  It was beautiful to watch, but it was obvious that as a whole, unless more young people get involved, it is a dance form that will slowly fade away . . .

And we were off again . . . to see what a farmer can do with a border collie or three when he puts them to work!  

Of course after the work is done little voices pipe in, "I want to pet the doggie?"  So, Aaron and McKayla pet the "doggie."

 

The final event of the day for us?  The mule pull.  These were some bedecked and bedazzled creatures!

On the way out, we picked up our craft projects from earlier in the day.

Nothing left but the ride home . . . where one tuckered out little Aaron promptly fell asleep!

P.S.  Stay tuned to hear about my and Aaron's adventures in the corn maze!