Despite what the calendar has to say, the end of summer is at hand.

Tomorrow is the first choir practice of the fall season for my youngest son, and Wednesday is the official start of school for students not on a year-round calendar in the county where I live; for all practical purposes, summer has ended.

So, while the temperatures have not yet cooled, fall is most definitely in the air. In fact, the online registration for the 2010 North Carolina State Fair competitions is up and running. It is working so well this year, that the notices of successful registration went to my Inbox, not my Spam folder.

Today, after I successfully completed my online registration, I turned my attention to the behemoth that is my raison d’etre these days and the primary reason I enter the competition at the fair.

Here it is with the first five rows completed:

Here is a detail of the first five rows:

Here it is with a the sixth row laid out and ready to be assembled:

Another view of the first five rows:

To learn more about the opportunities to enter the fair competitions, you need to read over the categories in the premium book carefully. The way some of the categories are organized is not what I would call intuitive, and you might miss the appropriate category for your item if you do not look at ever category that might (or might not) possibly apply.

I hope that everyone who can, takes this opportunity to share their work. Meanwhile I need to figure out which deep-fried food I am going to try this year.