I drove out to Brimfield today to go to the antiques show. I’d never been there before. The newspaper reports make it sound exquisite, but the merchandise really runs the gamut from the junky to the exquisite, with much of the stuff closer to the junky than to the exquisite. Lots of dealers from all over the U.S. have booths there, most of them under awnings or tents. There are also a number of little booths where one can buy a lunch. For most of the sections of the fair, admission is free. There was one area with somewhat better booths for which the admission was five dollars. I entered that area around two o’clock and at that point I didn’t notice anybody interested in collecting money for admission. If somebody had asked me to pay, I would have, but since nobody asked I didn’t go looking to pay. I spent about two and a half hours at the fair, and then my attention began to wane. I had parked at a three-dollar lot, at St. Christopher’s Catholic church, that wasn’t very far from the fair. Closer lots would have cost $5 or $7. I didn’t buy anything, other than a tuna melt and a cranberry juice, but some of the small Oriental rugs were tempting.
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Today the three little chipmunks are looking out of their hole in the ground. Sometimes they will venture as far as two feet from the hole and then run back. Yesterday only one was venturing away from the hole. According to what I’ve read online, within the next two weeks the mother will either kick them out of her burrow or will move into a new burrow herself. I suspect she’ll kick them out, since she likes sitting on the nearby woodpile to survey the little valley at the back of my yard. Also I give her sunflower seeds, cracked corn, and peanuts every now and then, on the ground to the right of the woodpile, often two or three times a day.
