Walking the Horse

As I've mentioned before, the girl-girl's been taking horseback riding lessons this Fall as her post-11th year birthday present. Here's some pics of her walking the horse to help it cool down post lesson. I'll try to get some more pictures of her with the horse on trot next time.

Sunshine Birthday Church Bell Craziness

Here's what the place I now reside and work at looked like (at least, one of its buildings) right at the end of August this year. This picture was taken by the now-11 year old right after she and I arrived here.

You might also recall when I started posting here again in September that the photo I included featured a building with a bell tower on it too.

The point is, this place has bells. I'm glad for that. I love bells that sound the hour from buildings only slightly in the distance. It was, in fact, one of my favorite parts of Montreal--there were old churches, and so too bells, everywhere.

The thing is though, where I live now, they ain't playing typical hourly civic, or church bell announcements. Yesterday at noon I was walking along the green and realized that the bells were chiming a contemporary love song. I JUST TOLD YOU THE CHURCH BELLS WERE CHIMING A CONTEMPORARY LOVE SONG TO ANNOUNCE THAT IT WAS LUNCHTIME. DID YOU READ THAT?!!

I mean, to put it another way, WHAT??!!

Unfortunately, I kept ALMOST recognizing the song, and then not. So, I can't tell you what contemporary love song it was.

I can tell you this, however. Tonight to announce that it was 10 p.m., the church bells played the tune to "You Are My Sunshine." I kid you not. Then ten minutes after 10 the bells played "Happy Birthday." You may know already that t.v. shows can't play the tune to "Happy Birthday" without paying royalties for the song. You think the church here had to pay royalties to chime that tune too?

Anyway, I'm charmed to discover that my college home for the year seems to be inundating me with two of my favorite things simultaneously--the ringing of church bells with the iconic hopefulness of love songs. What a world!

Halloween River Harvest

image from the Keene Sentinel

The drive between the town I live in, and another town just twenty minutes south takes drivers alongside the Connecticut river. Just before a turn in the road there is a dam designed merely as a waterfall containment. Last week the area was inundated with rain; as a result debris that had been along the shore of the river was washed into the water and caught up just before the dam.

Driving along the river earlier today, I passed the waterfall area and noticed a ton of large branches, and small trees caught up in the containment system. Then I realized that, oddly, there was also a wealth of floating orange debris. Caught off guard I couldn't sort out what the orange bobbing objects could be at first.

It turned out up river the Newmont Pumpkin Farm in Vermont rests right alongside the Connecticut River. Over 100,000 pumpkins had been picked and were ready to be transported to the Keene Pumpkin Festival in Cheshire County Vermont when it started raining. In the midst of rising flood waters most of those 100,000 pumpkins were washed away. Apparently, 4000 of them washed up on one shore of the river on the New Hampshire side of the river's route. Then the rest continued to float down stream with many of them getting caught up with the dam system.

Some people have plucked pumpkins out of the river and sent money on to the Newmont Pumpkin Farm to help make up for the loss. Amazingly the farm has enough pumpkins left on field that they expect to be able to still supply the annual pumpkin festival. In the meantime, the Connecticut River is floating orange.

image from WMUR New Hampshire

New England Schtick

It turns out that (at least in the expanse that is the combination of New Hampshire and Vermont) New England, U.S.A. amounts to a conglomeration of small towns that pride themselves on having their own unique schtick. You know, that thing that is meant to make them unlike anywhere else. Each town is quaint, with a very country-esque sort of charm, but blended into this commonality is a slightly different feel, and very different local attraction to each. At least, that's supposed to be the idea.

Driving on US 4 across Vermont this weekend the 10-year old and I happened upon Killington, Vermont, the town that celebrates itself through hay. I was taken with the absurdity of it--from what I could tell the area isn't actually overwhelmed with hay harvesting, but they pride themselves on hay sculptures nonetheless.

Killington calls itself "the heart of the Green Mountains" and does sit in a beautiful area. In the winter they have a ski and boarding area. Spring offers the Maple harvest. Summer has water sports, and the Autumn has Vermont's multi-color foliage.

We discovered this weekend though that Autumn also brings The Killington Hay Festival during which the area celebrates an enormous Motorcycle Rally, and a Hay Maze. Local businesses get in on the hay celebration by using enormous round hay bails to construct enormous hay sculptures of various types of animals. A drive along Route 4 offers several miles of the hay animal extravaganza. Here's a few pics from this year's sculptures. Apparently, they generally stay up till the first snow fall.

Touring the Extended Area: The Tunbridge World's Fair

the fair stage showcases live music throughout the weekend

The Tunbridge World's Fair showcases historical agricultural equipment, as well as other artifacts pertinent to small town life from the last couple of centuries. The extended area we are residing in hosts many towns that were established around 1761, it turns out. The fair celebrates this longevity by displaying numerous antique hand tools, and cattle driven farming equipment. The local historical society also gathers volunteers to offer living history enactments during the four days of the fair.

living history actors at the Tunbridge World's Fair

Within the historical area of the fair there are also displays of people today that still do crafts by hand. There was a woman demonstrating yarn spinning, for example. The most remarkable display, however, was given by Gregoire's Violin Shop where the owner still makes violins completely by hand. He worked on carving a violin for fair goers and also had one of his handmade violins on display. The wood of the violin, he said, was tiger maple, which, when varnished, offers a gorgeous striping effect, as shown clearly on the back of the violin.

Marc Gregoire displaying and working on his hand made violins

The ten-year old and I took a couple of fair rides, and she played a couple of games too.

the ten year old being the strongman, and the two of us on the merry go round