Pig Stump

Somewhere in the vicinity of the Oldham County - Henry County border, this pink lipstick-wearing pig was seen in someone's yard, apparently sculpted from a tree trunk.

Mark's Pig

It's another sighting of one of those black-and-white concrete pigs, identical to the ones spotted at Joe's Older Than Dirt Diner in Lyndon and Ole Hickory Pit Barbecue. Somewhere, there must be something like "Crazy Clyde's Barbecue Restaurant Supply, Inc." that all these places are getting their pigs from.

Joe's One-Antlered Moose

I have yet to actually eat at Joe's "Older Than Dirt" Diner in Lyndon, KY, but I often drive by it and marvel at its decorative moose in the yard with only half a rack.


Bonus: in addition to Thidwick the lopsided moose, Joe's diner also comes with two pigs in the yard. The astute UnK reader will note that they are identical to the pig that stands sentry out in front of Ole Hickory Pit Barbecue House.

Somewhere there must be some kinda "Roadhouse Restaurant Supply" store where people are getting these pigs. Or, perhaps more likely, as BBQ joints come and go, the same concrete critters get traded around, auctioned off, lent out, etc.... just like the Pigs of Vernon Lanes.

Pigs at Vernon Lanes

Hey, we just drove by Vernon Lanes, a great old bowling alley in Butchertown, and just happened to see these stone pig figures newly mounted outside. Check out our old entry for The Frankfort Avenue Art House and note the pig in the back of the pickup truck and the pig amongst other stuff in the background - they're clearly the same pigs as these.

The Pigs of Ole Hickory Pit

To our menagerie of bulls and bugs and fish comes this honkin' huge pink pig on the rooftop of the Ole Hickory Pit Barbecue House, 6106 Shepherdsville Road, Louisville.


Bonus pig: this smaller model is out in front of the place, sporting exposed-rebar ears.

The Kentucky State Fair

All states in America have their own annual State Fair - at least I assume they do - and I've been underwhelmed by the few of them I've visited. The very notion of the "State Fair" seems to be something fading into the past for many regions, either devolving into a mere modern carnival-ride event or degenerating into apathy.

Not so with Kentucky. The old-school rural charm of a real State Fair is still here, with 4-H awards, vast displays of corn and hay for absolutely no reason but for the sake of looking at corn and hay, sheep-shearing, goat-shaving, cow-polishing, and pig racing. (Yes, we said pig racing. Once you see it for yourself, you'll never care about the Kentucky Derby quite as much again.)

The immense seated (and talking) statue of Freddy Farm Bureau is dragged out to the fair every year to entertain the masses in much the same way that Muffler Man "Big Tex" addresses the crowds at the Texas State Fair.

An art exhibit is held at the fair every year, in which anyone in Kentucky is welcome to hang their own artwork, from toddlers to grandmas. And they do. No one I know has been able to take in the entire exhibit at once, including myself. For the first couple aisles of it, you're simply chuckling to yourself about the amateurish art, but then you gradually start to see the sheer raw genius in much of it and develop a dizzying sense of newfound respect for all humanity. But then it all becomes too much and you find yourself feeling fevered from the sensory overload of naive art. Crude drawings of fighter planes and pro wrestlers rendered on lined notebook paper in ball-point pen. Extremely labored and ill-conceived paintings of
angels, Biblical figures, cartoon characters, elves, puppies and babies. The horror. The horror. And yet, who can say it isn't beautiful?

Even wackier is the "Critters" display of the produce exhibit, in which people are encouraged to look for weirdly shaped and anthropomorphic vegetables, and show 'em off. (Sometimes considerable artistic license is taken, and faces are simply painted right onto a tomato.)

To truly know Kentucky, you simply have to attend its State Fair. I can't recommend it highly enough to everyone reading these words. Rodgers and Hammerstein it ain't.