My kids have been in training all summer for the Haywood County Fair.

They haven’t been raising giant pumpkins nor whipping their dairy cows into shape for the show ring. Nor have they been boning up on their bingo skills, perfecting recipes for the cake walk contest, or even rehearsing comedy routines for the variety show.

The scramble is on across WNC to pack in a few last drops of quality family time before school starts back.

Living within walking distance of the farmers market has lots of perks. For starters, it’s a great excuse when asked, with a tinge of poorly disguised incredulity, “You don’t even grow a few vegetables, not even a couple of tomato plants?”

Sylvia Russell remembers how crucial it was to wear the “right” clothes to school, how the “right” outfit could win the acceptance of peers.

I never realized little old ladies had such sharp elbows, or just how willing they were to use them, until my first experience with the Friends of the Library book sale at the Waynesville library several years ago.

A whirlwind of global cultures, languages, costumes, music and dance has landed in WNC this week. The annual arrival of the Folkmoot international music and dance festival is a welcome respite from the mid-summer doldrums. 

Ever since we splurged on a $2.99 plastic magician’s wand at Santa’s Land last year, my daughter has treated us to the occasional magic show in the living room. They are 90 percent theatrics, and 10 percent tricks. 

My husband is from South Carolina — the state where you don’t have to wear helmets on a motorcycle and you can detonate a backyard fireworks’ show packing enough TNT to last Wile E. Coyote for a lifetime. 

As a kid, my sister and I had an unspoken pact. If one of us heard Cyndi Lauper come on the radio, we promptly ran through the house hollering “Come quick, she’s on!” 

We have lots of bug barns in our house: from the old-fashioned Mason jar with holes punched in the lid to a new-fangled, plastic-domed “ladybug playground” with tiny slides and such.

I wager in most families bug barns are relegated to the backyard. Ours, however, take up residence on the kitchen table, with up to four bug barns simultaneously occupied by caterpillars, ants, moths, beetles and even spiders.