What's on this weekend? Mackerel Snappin'! Horse & ox pull! Variety Supper! Strawberries!

I hope you can get out and enjoy some of the classic Lun. County events on offer this weekend.  I have yet to attend the mackerel snappers picnic, but by all accounts it is a 'must attend' event.  I do love me some mackerel....

The Conquerall Mills horse/ox pull and variety supper is one of my perennial favourites.  If you love comfort food, this is the supper for you.  All the greatest hits will be there (i.e. swedish meatballs, chop suey, scalloped potatoes,etc.) and more!  

Decisions, decisions....have a great weekend!

Breakfasts

Saturday, July 13, 

St. Martin's Anglican Church hall, Martins River

7 - 11:30 a.m.

Scrambled eggs, baked beans, hash browns, pancakes, bacon or sausage, toast, tea, coffee or juice. 

Adults $7, 5-12 $3, under 5 free. Proceeds church maintenance.

Community Events

Saturday, July 13, Rain date July 14

Mackerel Snappers Picnic, 

Graves Island Provincial Park, near Chester. 

Noon until 6 pm . 

6 hours of Classic country Music: Featuring Coastline; Matt Balsor; Buddy Boutilier/Wilfred White; Ron Muise; Memory Lane; Newfound Country. Many others. 

Bingo, games of chance, raffles. 

Best ever Mackerel dinner with all the fixins. Variety of pies for dessert; 

$9 per plate. No admission. 

Come and bring a friend, don't forget your lawn chair. More information: 275-3645.

Suppers

July 13

Horse and Ox Pull,

Conquerall Mills community hall, 

weigh-in 9-11:30 a.m. Pull starts 12:30 p.m. Random prize draws for teamsters. 

Variety supper starting at 4:30 p.m.

Adults $9; children 5-12 $4; under 5 free.

Saturday, July 13. 

Strawberry Supper. 

Lapland & District Fire Hall 

4 p.m. 

Ham, beans, scalloped potatoes, potato salad, breads, cakes and strawberry shortcake or just berries. Adults $8.50, 12 and under $4, 5 and under free. Sponsored by Auxiliary.

July 14

Seafood and Corn Chowder Supper, 

LaHave fire hall,

4- 6:30 p.m. 

$12 (seafood) $7 (corn) 5 and under free.

Truck Tractah!

Spotted this beauty of a truck tractor near Conquerall Mills.

Shots courtesy of Kat Frick Miller, check out her blog!

Conquerall Mills Variety Supper

June 21, 2008
Conquerall Mills, NS

I've waxed poetic about this supper before, so I'll probably be repeating myself with this one. What can I say, there is little to say other than: "wow". This supper is an elbow macaroni, ground beef comfort food celebration! If you don't eat beef or sugar...uh...this isn't the place for you.

Like the seasoned pro's we are, we lined up ~10 minutes before the doors opened. Not as steamy and hot as in recent years, intermittent rain was a nice relief from the heat. As we waited, the medium class team pulls carried on in the background. Finally, the line started to move.

Hmmm, how to describe what awaited us on the buffet table, lemme see what I can remember: potato salad, egg salad sammiches with crusts cut off, lunenburg pudding (blood pudding), rolled up deli meats, scalloped potatoes, various meat casseroles, swedish meatballs, chili, one amazing ham (dang, it was smokey and GOOD), mac 'n' cheese, more beef concoctions and apparently some spectacular baked beans. For some reason, I didn't put them on my plate!?





The ever popular pitchers of red Kool aid were present, as well as the urns of tea and coffee. The desert table had rhubarb pie, incredible looking apple pie, cheesecake (looked like mostly dream whip) and other delectables I can't recall.

Oh, and good 'ole molasses brown bread, biscuits and rolls:



For once I neglected to tuck in to the enticing table cake located every 4 or so place settings, though the brownies topped with sliced almonds down the table had me rethinking that decision..

Tomorrow, stay tuned for the church cold plate luncheon review and this weekend's upcoming suppers and breakfasts (hint: fresh strawberries and long lineups are involved)

Conquerall Mills Horse/Ox Pull---Medium weight team class

June 21, 2008 Conquerall Mills, NS Horse teams are usually more exciting to watch than single horses and this day was no exception. The 'old fullers' in attendance liked what they saw:



It wasn't all work for the guys who stack the weights on the sled:



Finally the teams started pulling, action!:





And then, 'the kid' arrived. Pretty impressive and inspiring to see this young boy drive ~2,800 lbs of horse, pulling ~7,000 lbs. of weight.

To all the kids out there, put down your 360/PS3/Wii controllers, go join 4-H and drive a team of horses. Talk about a real thrill!:







Stay tuned for the review of the variety supper that followed the horse pull (hint, it involves LOTS of ground beef)

Horse/Ox pull & Variety Supper--single horse class

Horse/Ox pull--Single horse
Conquerall Mills, NS
June 21, 2008

I look forward to this event every year, and with good reason. An afternoon of free entertainment, followed by an elbow macaroni and ground beef comfort food extravaganza, what's not to love?!

We watched the single horse and medium team horse pulls for about an hour. The air was muggy and thick with the smell of horses, hay, manure and cigarette smoke. Lots of men sporting 'muffin top' bellies in attendance, thank god for belts!

It was interesting to watch the various styles of driving horses. Some guys like to shout, snap the reigns and push on the horses:



One senior teamster simply whistled and the horse did his bidding:






Hehe, that horse looks like it knows it did a good job, eh?

I've worked with both, young/fiery horses and older/calm horses and believe me, slow and steady gets way more accomplished in a day than a young 'hot' horse.

Tomorrow, pictures from the medium class teams. Keep your eyes peeled for 'the kid'.

Conquerall Mills Soup and Sandwich Luncheon

Conquerall Mills Community Hall
Soup and Sandwich Luncheon
Conquerall Mills, Nova Scotia
Oct. 27, 2007

These are hard to pass up. Imagine an endless supply of little sandwiches filled with all manner of good things: egg salad (with onion and without...ya gotta get it with onions!, turkey salad made from REAL turkey, ham and cheese slices, mayo and cucumber, mayo and tomato.....sadly no devilled ham. I guess we were too late.

Soups were from scratch and delightful. Turkey, a very smoky split pea and ham were our choices...both were the perfect antidote to a fall afternoon.

I was a train wreck that afternoon, a veritable bull in a china shop. I kept smashing my leg against the table when I would go to stand up. Spilling our teas all over the table. Repeatedly. Sorry for the mess I left behind!

And then came....the dessert table...oh man, the desserts....sorry some of them turned out blurry...:


The coffee cake in the foreground was amazing!








I think this might be my favourite picture of the lot..

The moral of this story, is arrive early if you want the devilled ham sandwiches!