Kosciusko County Fair Senior Day

 A little before noon we drove over to the fairgrounds. This is senior day and admission was $1. We ambled past the food booths, finally settling on the Etna Green Lions Club operation. Cheese burgers, onion rings, sodas sated our hunger and thirst. Our neighbors who live behind and one over from us showed up a bit after we got our food. They joined us on the bench going around the perimeter of the wooden booth. We had a nice chat.

The two of us wandered through the antique tractors display, into the blacksmith shop, and into the local history cabin before heading for the events tent where a local retirement facility was offering wrapped Eskimo pies or ice cream sandwiches. In the past, they scooped up ice cream and offered toppings. A no-go during a pandemic. Two of the runners-up for fair queen came and sat across from us wanting to chat. We left to browse some displays; I see on Facebook that the folks in the events tent eventually played bingo.

We meanwhile viewed the Home Arts displays in a separate building and the 4-H projects in another building.

An historical costume in sewing competition

 

I was surprised to see that Grace Village's Artists in Residence program had entered some works, and they were displayed together. That was nice.

The 4-H projects are judged separately.

A lot of the entries were informational/educational posters which I did not photograph.

2 p.m. found us sitting on bleachers surrounding a wire cage where a tiger show was to take place. It was pretty hot today; I made sure to drink some bottled water. We did have a nice breeze though, and the show only lasted about 20 minutes. The young lady in charge explained that all of her cats were under 3 years old and still in training. Not terribly exciting, but the white Bengal was a magnificent animal. One of the Bengals was not willing to exit the temperature-controlled trailer.

The tiger was fed bits of raw meat as "rewards". Tigers are nocturnal so doing a daytime show meant less activity. 

The show started out with a 2-months-old tiger who frolicked with a dog. The trainers have the cats in Illinois part of the year, Florida during the colder months where the felines can stay outdoors and swim in a pond. Unlike housecats, these tigers like water. 

We were home by 3 p.m. The air conditioning felt good. At 3 p.m. the rides would start up, but we were not interested in them. We did not visit the animal barns this year either. 

There are harness races, truck/tractor pulls and events like that in the grandstand in the evening. 

Since the fair did not take place last summer, people were pleased to be able to attend this year. The 4-H animals were judged last year, but no audience was allowed, just a limited amount of participants and judges. 

Tonight we will have grilled chicken and our first local sweet corn of the season. Looking forward to supper. It has been a pleasant day. Tomorrow and especially Friday have forecasted rain and thunder storms.

Independence Day Holiday

 We started out the holiday festivities by eating  Kelainey's ice cream cones sitting on its screened-in porch on Friday afternoon. I was amazed how many people were walking around visiting the Village of Winona on a weekday.

Saturday morning I picked a few hydrangeas from my generous neighbor's bushes.

Since I took the blue vase off of the entry table, I put Covi there for awhile. I snapped this when the sun coming through our skylight shone right on the wood carving.

Saturday night we were able to see from our porch the higher fireworks from the Winona Lake show. I also enjoyed the numerous fireflies twinkling in our neighborhood.

Today we went to the boat-in worship service on Lake Wawasee which goes from 8:30 a.m. to 9. We sat in our folding chairs on the grounds of Oakwood Resort. There didn't seem to be as many boats around the Lilly Pad boat where the preacher and musicians are located. Maybe folks were busy with family. There was a big turnout on the land though. Our nice low-humidity days were to end today, but early morning was still delightful. It didn't really get muggy until around 10 a.m. We ate Sunday mid-day meal at The Boathouse restaurant along the shores of Winona Lake. 

Saturday I was just getting ready to take my shower when my husband returned from his woodworking efforts. He wanted to take a picnic lunch to the Stockdale Mill near Roann. We saw this mill when driving home from the apple store in Denver last fall. The mill was not open then.

We toured the open mill yesterday. Its power source is the Eel River.

There is a sub basement and 4 floors of pulleys, chutes, grinders, sifters which originally produced grain for animal feed and cornmeal and flour.

There was a rusty turbine in  the yard since the active one was in the sub-basement and thus unviewable.

This gizmo made a "patch" to splice together pieces of pulley.

Of course there were hazards working in a mill.

This historical still used for boot legging was an oddity taking up floor space.

I noticed that the brochure said the mill was handicap accessible. The ground floor had no stairs; there was an outside ramp to the second floor. The top two floors required climbing steep steps. Definitely not doable for the mobility challenged. 

There was a lot of ducking around equipment as well. It was interesting to tour.

Retirement Rolling Along

 It is hard to believe that my husband retired 14 years ago today, and we moved to Indiana from Texas just a few days later. It doesn't seem that long ago, yet at the same time it does seem like our life in Texas was pretty far back. 

Yesterday while I had a therapy session in Fort Wayne, my husband did some shopping. At Northcrest mall he browsed Kohl's; then deciding he didn't have enough time to look in other stores, he went to AAA also in Northcrest and visited with the travel agent we used  to book our Panama cruise. She advised him that if he wanted to cruise in winter 2022 he should book soon as the ships are filling up fast. I am not yet comfortable with the idea of cruising. Not so much because of fear of getting sick, but because of the risk of cancellation. The bugs in this new way of doing things on board also need to be worked out. 

When he rejoined me, we went to Asakusa for lunch. We have not had much experience with Japanese restaurants. This was a new restaurant for us. We ordered the (Bento) box lunch. For my 2 entrees I selected shrimp and vegetable tempura and teriyaki steak. My husband picked chicken katsu (a sort of breaded and fried chicken tenders) and the Texas roll (sushi). Besides a mound of rice, sauteed mushrooms, and a few carrots and pieces of broccoli, this meal came with soup and salad. The few times I have eaten Japanese soup (miso), I have not been impressed. This soup was not miso. It had mushrooms, green onions, and tempura crumbs. It was delicious. The salad had a ginger dressing. We will have to go back sometime, but in the same strip mall there is in an adjoining building another Japanese restaurant which we will probably try before returning to Asakusa.

I chose this restaurant because it is close to Costco where we needed to stop to buy some hearing aid batteries. It was so hot (upper 80s) and humid, it was wearying just to go from the car to the entrance. We are in a stretch of rainy days. Last Friday we participated in our condo community's garage sale. It rained almost all day and sometimes had downpours. It just started raining now as I am typing this. 

Before heading home, we stopped at Ollie's because of the Customer Appreciation week. The extra 15% off wasn't much of a discount, but I bought two books for $7.25. 

As long as my eyes work, I will be a reader. That is just a normal part of my retirement life carried over from pre-retirement.

Scammed

 Last week I became victim of an internet scam. It is the only time that I know of and it had minor consequences.

 I had installed my new Canon printer, but when I printed/copied the pages the colors were faded and somewhat grayed. I tried cleaning the print head and doing a nozzle check. The nozzle check printed all of the colors, but they were washed out. I saw searching the internet that I could choose manual settings for color rather than automatic, but the pattern check that was spoken of didn't appear anywhere. I felt like I needed some guidance.

I searched for Canon help. I clicked on the first site listed that had Canon in bold print. The site that came up had the Canon logo and color scheme. I chose to "chat". I was told I could have a one week trial of help for $1 but after that week I would be charged something like $46 a month for membership. I had no intention of staying with a membership with that monthly fee. I just needed one day of help and then I would cancel.

The "trial" could be paid for with a credit card or Paypal. I chose Paypal. I described my problem to an "assistant" who then told me she would refer it to a technician. As soon as the chat with the "expert" started I knew I had been had. He wanted me to change the paper setting to "rough paper" as the paper quality might be affecting how the ink was absorbed. Of course there is no such choice. I told him that and started looking for the cancel option. I also looked at the URL and realized that I was on a site called JustAnwer.com not Canon. 

Before I could cancel, he replied that he could for an extra fee remotely look for the necessary setting on my computer and help me. Yikes! I knew better than to allow anyone unknown to me to access my computer. 

I did find the cancel button. I was relieved to get a message from Paypal that the automatic monthly charging of my account had been canceled. At least that part of the "story" seemed to be true. With the cancellation, I no longer was chatting.

But he wasn't ready to give up. I don't remember giving this site my email address, but it would be associated with my Paypal account. I received an email telling me that I hadn't clicked on the link he provided with answers. I deleted it, but a few minutes later came a second such email. I didn't even open the emails. I blocked the sender. Later I checked my spam box and saw another two attempts.

So I am out one dollar, but it could have been much worse. If I had used a credit card, there could be all sorts of charges put on it. I could have had my computer taken over. Who knows what the emailed link would have done. 

I did find the legitimate Canon help site. My printer had not been on display at Best Buy but sitting in the stockroom somewhere. The ink cartridges that came with it were not in a box, but in the plastic cups with the sealed plastic across the top. I have no way of knowing how old they are.

 This real Canon site had a big banner warning customers of scam sites that looked like the legitimate site. No kidding. I knew what the Canon site looked like because I had checked the specs of their printers before deciding what to buy.

 To get help through the internet or by telephone I needed to register my printer which I did. I thought I might call and see with the serial number if they could see how old this printer really was. When was it manufactured? I suspect it has been sitting in the stockroom at Best Buy over a year all during the pandemic. Instead I ordered two ink cartridges (black and color) via Walmart. They should arrive Tuesday. If replacing the cartridges doesn't solve the color quality problem, I will call someone at Canon. The printer is under warranty. 

So I am out $1, but it could have been much worse. A rather cheap reminder to always look at the URL that shows up before interacting.