The Wind Blows, The Rain Holds: Prairie Fest 2009 A Huge Success

Well, I remembered (after a reminder) that today was the Prairie Fest and I managed to spend a couple hours at it, unlike last week's Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival, which I forgot to go to.

Prairie Fest appeared way bigger than last year. I met Prairie Fest organizer, Don Young, for the first time. I said something about it being way bigger than last year. He told me it was 30% bigger. I don't know where that figure came from, but to my eyes there were at least twice as many people and way more cars parked on side streets, streets that did not have cars on them last year.

I did not get to hear the band Trigger Fish this year. I listened to the Blackland River Devils. That's another thing. Last there were just a few people listening to the band, this year there were a lot of people listening. Now that you've got me thinking about it, I'm guessing Prairie Fest more than doubled in size this year.

I took a lot of pictures and shot some video. It was very windy today. At one point I watched a canopy get blown apart. I quickly got out my video camera, and that quickly turned into me being asked to help. So I did. That quickly spun out of control as the wind continued to batter the tent. Eventually Don Young was called in to help get the destruction under control.

I'll get around to making a YouTube video later. Making videos is not the funnest thing for me. The novelty has worn off. I'm sort of a klutz at taking video. I'll have it in pause mode when I think it is in record mode, or vice versa. It's frustrating. And then this morning I finally figured out, after over a year, why the video does not seem as sharp as it used to, not that it ever was all that good. I somehow had it on manual focus, which overrode the auto-focus.

A lot of kids were having fun at the Prairie Fest today. I saw way too many dogs. I don't get why people bring dogs to things like this. Kids I understand, but not dogs.

That's the band I got to listen to this year, calling themselves the Blackland River Devils. Last year's Trigger Fish plays ol' time Rock 'n Roll, I knew the genre. I think the Blackland River Devils played sort of bluegrass country music. I'm not sure. It's not one of my few areas of any remote sort of expertise.

As the Blackland River Devils were warming up this little kid was having a real good time dancing in front of the stage. He was quite a good little dancer. But, when the real music started up he stopped the dancing and just listened. He probably started up dancing again when I wasn't paying any attention.

I got a call telling me I had to come take a picture of this booth where you could make these little dirt balls that contained wildflowers seeds, that you could then deposit on the land like a Texas Johnny Wildflowerseed.

The landscape painters were seeming to be having a bad time of it due to the high wind. It appeared that a lot of them had taken a break. I don't blame them. It was real windy.

This landscape painter had a more elaborate setup to protect her from the elements. But there was little protection from the wind.

A couple ladies manning a booth promoting a project I have promoted before, that being returning Heritage Park, in downtown Fort Worth, to its original glory.

These little cars looked sort of silly. I think they were called Passions. I'm not sure. I thought it'd be real uncomfortable inside, but instead I was amazed at how roomy it was, as in Cadillac type roomy. With no back seat and a little trunk. I'm guessing these are going to be very popular. Once the Great Depression II ends in another decade or so.

Finally, I got an answer to what the mysterious short metal fence that was added to the play area of Tandy Hills Park, months ago, was for. Apparently it was put there so cool looking Texas red white and blue type flag banners could be hung, along with a Prairie Fest sign.

There were quite a few kids in interesting garb wandering about. I think they were promoting some sort of performance thing of some sort. Or maybe they were being Prairie Fairies. I don't know. I guess I could have asked, but I really wasn't all that interested.

Prairie Fest attracts an interesting demographic that you don't see at most of the Texas events I've gone to. Let's just say the percentage of pickup trucks was very low, the percentage of small cars was very high. Walking back to my vehicle I saw 4 Prius's. And several little bitty Honda cars, the name of which I do not know. This felt more like walking through a Seattle parking lot than a Texas one.

At Prairie Fest you see a way lower percentage of overweight people than you do at most other Texas events. And the people, for the most part, were seeming happy and having a good time. Well, that's actually what it's like at pretty much any Texas event I've been to. At Prairie Fest some of the happy people may have been happy due to the beer and wine they may have consumed, but I doubt it. Beer was $3 a bottle. That's $18 a six pack. That's too much to pay for beer.