Lennie is a chip off the old block

What do you do with the stem ends of your asparagus, the ends you break off?  Do you put them in the trash?  In the compost? Not in this house.

I trim the very woody ends off, cook the remainder of the ends, let them cool, and feed them to Lennie.  He loves 'em.  He also likes his salad dressing.  I put the remnants of salad down so he could try it and say "Yuck".  Oh no, not him.  Ernie also liked veggies (broccoli), and his 1/4 tsp of salad dressing, plus his tablespoon of milk at breakfast.  Lennie clearly appreciates this tradition. 

Ernie was a food mooch, and Lennie is just as bad.  I have to shut him in the bathroom at feeding time because he will get under my feet (I'm rather sensitive about this behavior), and as I try to put the dish on the floor he leaps up to knock it out of my hands, so he can get it sooner.

I would put up Lennie pix, but both FB and Blogger have now changed their photo interfaces so that if you have rotated the image the rotation doesn't work.  "Portrait" (vertical longer than horizontal) pix now come out sideways.  I knew FB started this in 2011 but Blogger has only done this the last couple of months.  Anyone know a solution?

Beth, Betsy, Thelma and I took a visit to Cornish, NH today, to visit the St. Gaudens National Historic Site today.  Augustus St. Gaudens' name cam back to prominence in the modern era because he created the Shaw Memorial, which you will recognize if you saw the movie "Glory".  It took St. Gaudens years to complete this. Every soldier's face and rifle is different. Every blanket roll is different.  The soldiers and the angel are in high-relief, but Shaw and the horse are a three-dimensional sculture.

It was a perfect day for a field trip, bright sun and blue skies.  That's Mount Ascutney in the background.

I will send a link to the St. Gaudens pix when I get the pictures up on Facebook.  I took them all in landscape mode and will do some careful photoshopping so they look like portrait when they should.  It's a marvelous place.  Be warned!! If you pay me a visit on a nice day, we are likely to pay that Historic Site another visit!

Tunbridge Fair 2012

One of the highlights of the year in this part of Vermont is the Orange County Fair, more widely known as the Tunbridge World’s Fair. This is (I think) the oldest county fair in the state, and it has a checkered past. But that was before our family found Vermont and today Tunbridge Fair is large, well-attended and still focused on agriculture but with a very wide appeal. 

In 2010 I began to volunteer at the fair, as a knitter, sitting by the sheep and goat barn and answering questions like “what are you knitting” and "how do you do that", and about the yarn. This year I volunteered Thursday afternoon and all day Saturday. There were other knitters, and also spinners with their fleeces and wheels, making yarn (they get most of the attention).

One event I try not to miss is the Sheep Dog Trials on Thursday evening. A Border Collie and its handler try to get 3 sheep to go through gates, water and over a bridge and end up in a pen. It’s very hard to do, and each attempt is timed at 4 minutes, so the whole thing usually runs about 90 minutes. The sheep are everything from indifferent ("I would rather eat grain, thank you") to fiercely rebellious ("Don’t you come near me, dog, or I will STOMP you!"). Some dogs get so excited about herding that they forget to pay attention to the handler. Everyone always wants the dog to do well, so there is a lot of audience participation (moans and groans, cheers and applause). I don’t think this helps the dog’s concentration.

This year I persuaded my favorite dance partner to go to the trials with me – he’d never seen them. He said “There are entire afternoons of this?” “Oh yes, at Queechee and a couple of places in New Hampshire.” “Well, it's interesting, but this is long enough for me!” Still, he says he’ll come next year.

At noon on Saturday and Sunday of Fair weekend there is a Cavalcade of Agriculture, a parade that circles the harness racing track, made up of animals large and small. Not many horses, but lots sheep, goats, dairy cows and calves, and oxen. Every animal has to be led,  by adults, teens, and kids, including some little kids. This year the parade lineup started near the sheep barn: sheep, goats and dairy on one side, the ox pairs and singles on the other. We didn’t need to move. We sat in our chairs and watched the animals come by. Very close by.

There are stage shows, a midway, non-stop Bingo games, animal barns (cattle, oxen, sheep, goats, poultry, rabbits, horses). There are judged horse and livestock shows, and horse pulling, pony pulling and ox pulling. There are exhibits of all sorts from heavy equipment and solar energy vendors, to Antiques Hill, where age-old arts and crafts are demonstrated, antique tools are on display, and ancient steam-driven machines puff and blow. 

In the Dodge-Gilman building you find the judged cakes, muffins, jams, jellies, relishes, fruits and vegetables. You can learn about Christmas tree growing and bee-keeping.  You get to admire the largest pumpkin, which this year weighed in at 650 pounds.  Technically, it is no longer a pumpkin. It is a pumpkin-squash cross.  Nowadays there are special seeds for growing giant pumpkins.

There is Fair Food, most of which is very bad for you. Sausage/peppers/onion on a roll. Burgers and corn dogs. Apple crisp with ice cream. Fried whatever-you-want,  including fried dough, the charm of which I will never understand.  Yes, donuts are often fried.  But fried dough is not a donut.   Starting last year, you could find the occasional smoothie vendor (a poor second to smoothie stands in airports), and this year you could get made-to-order vegetable crepes, Vietnamese food, and (my favorite) a pulled-pork quesadilla that was so juicy it required two paper plates and far more paper napkins than I took with me.

Not the least of the exhibits are the craft exhibits and flower arrangements in Floral Hall. The Junior Section is for kids under 16 (although most of the entries are from kids age 14 and younger). This year the Vegetable Costume Class had some wonderful entries.

I was happy that friends from work, my neighbors the Flints, and people from the Montpelier contradance stopped to say hello. Actually, it was more like “Hello!! What a surprise to see you here!” I really had a good time.

Want to see more Fair pictures?
2009: 
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.503444816335080.121140.100000086971614&type=1&l=5347ad28d6

2011:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.503444123001816.121138.100000086971614&type=1&l=7bfc77776c

2012:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.503441506335411.121134.100000086971614&type=1&l=640a33bbc3

I hate politics, especially this year

I have not been encouraged about American politics for many years, and I have been disgusted with American politics for the better part of four years.  The President's leadership has left a great deal to be desired, and his failure as a political leader is even greater.  Then there are the Republicans, who no doubt have Lincoln spinning in his grave.

I didn't think I'd be paying any attention to the conventions, because neither Obama nor Romney are worth writing home about.  But speeches have been getting my attention.

Condoleeza Rice gave an incredibly statesmanlike Republican Convention speech. Who'd a thunk it?

From the Democrats, here are the things that have caught my ear. You probably heard them, too.

Ted Strickland: Mitt Romney never saw the point of building something when he could profit from tearing it down.  If Mitt was Santa Claus, he'd fire the reindeer and outsource the elves.

Lily Ledbetter: Women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar men make. Those pennies add up to real money … when we lose 23 cents every hour, every day, every paycheck, every job, over our entire lives, what we lose can't just be measured in dollars.

Gov. Duval Patrick: [Barack Obama] is the president who ended "don't ask, don't tell" so that love of country, not love of another, determines fitness for military service.

Cecile Richards: Women are no longer pre-existing conditions.

For some reason I recalled the late Ted Kennedy's 1980 speech, given right after he lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter. Remove the specific Reagan references, and the references to inflation, and this is a speech that could be given today, 32 years later.  And probably should be.  Take a listen. I can't find a video of the entire speech, but the text and audio link is here.

This year's speech-writers and speakers want Americans to believe that what they say will make a difference.  But Congress is still full of no-compromise Republicans and no-backbone Democrats.