A Day at the Fair

In our family, Labor Day Weekend means the local county fair. If Brian is home and not on a trip, he takes the Friday before the weekend off and this is our fair day.

It was very hot and humid, but thankfully a few clouds rolled in and made it a bit more tolerable.

We like to watch the tractor pulls to start off our day. The children aren't huge pull fans, so we only catch part of it, enough to satisfy all, but not cause too many "can we go do something else" remarks.

I never tire of watching these huge, powerful machines do their best against the pull machine...this year named "The Humiliator".

They are very loud, so we make sure and bring ear protection for everyone.

The poultry barn is a favorite. There are so many strange and interesting types of poultry. Dan wanted to know, "Where are his eyes?". Under there somewhere, Dan.

Dan looks a bit concerned about this whether this big turnkey wants his balloon.

We all enjoyed the fried dough. The local high school booster club has the best booth and their fried dough takes up two plates...yummy!

Dan and Hannah await the woodworker who is making them each a "magic wand". It is amazing to watch this men work on the lathes.

I love the baby goats. This little Nubian was so cute.

Dan wanted me to take his picture through the tractor wheel. The poor guy has a nasty cold and was sort of droopy all day. He did pretty good and did not complain too much.

Even though we do not do the midway portion of the fair, I love to walk around and see all the pretty lights and hear the booth tenders hawking for their games. It must be quite the life living traveling from small town to small town.

Check out these huge engines. I can't imagine the amount of time, effort and money it takes to keep these big tractors working.

A great day at the fair.

Winter Falls

We have had a nasty cold working its way through our family for the last 10 days or so. I enjoy being home, but I was getting a touch of cabin fever. Today was the first day in many that I felt well enough to get out for a bit. Gabe and I took a walk down to the falls on "our" river. We love the river and there is always something interesting to see. Today the ice and water were very lovely.

The Lois McClure

This week a notice was sent through a local homeschooling group about a replica of a 1862 canal boat that was going to be at a local town dock. They were giving free tours. Living so close to the Champlain Canal, we love learning about canal life and the boats that worked the canals.

We decided to go out early. The Lois McClure is a lovely sailing canal boat. We were able to chat with the crew about all aspects of living about a canal boat. One of the women said we would be a great family for canal life. She was probably referring to our family size. Gabe especially thought it was cool to think that in two years at the age of 12, he would move out of the family quarters to the workers quarters.







I'm not sure after having all the comforts of modern living, I would like to go back to living this way, but it sure seems like a wonderful way to life. The flow of the river and the bustle of each town as you traveled through.

This is what the boat looks like when all her masts are up. They were tabernacled to navigate the canal with it's many bridges. When she is home on Lake Champlain or down by New York City, the masts are put back up.

Or course, the boat they used to model this one is at the bottom of Lake Champlain with many other canal boats, I guess it wasn't all romantic and slow paced. Life on any body of water has it's hazards.

The children enjoyed asking all sorts of questions from what the people wore to what they ate. We bought some wonderful books on canal life and early exploration in our area, some great additions to our home library

Monkey Time

As you can see by the pictures, these were taken before Gabe broke his arm. One of our favorite local places to visit is the school playground. There are several different climbing structures around the school. We can only go after school hours or the weekend, but the children have a ball.

It is conveniently located on the way to the library, so a quick stop at the playground sometimes follows our weekly library runs.

Maple Sugaring

We completed another lapbook this spring on maple sugaring (lapbook post to follow). The timing was just right for a visit to one of the many local sugar houses in our area. Spring is the season for the sap to run and the sugar houses were in full swing.

The sugar house we visited is also a working dairy farm and we were able to see the cow barn and visit with some calves. We also took a nice ride on a wagon pulled by a team of draft horses.

The day was gorgeous, cold and a bit windy, but blue skies and plenty of sunshine. A terrific day was had by all and the children got a first hand reinforcement of everything we had learned in our studies.

Enjoy a slideshow of our visit.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Good Brown Earth

While I was out driving yesterday, I passed this field. I love the look of a freshly plowed field. Around here the earth is dark and rich, with a smattering of field stones for good measure.

As I stopped to take this picture, snow was spitting in the air. Weather in the northeast can be so crazy, 80 degrees one day and snow the next. Before long I'm sure this field will be sprouting up green with corn.

The Berkshires

We live in an area with a lot to offer. Within three hours, we can be in a major city, at the ocean or in the largest mountains in the northeast.

Over the weekend we were driving through the Berkshires. They still had quite a bit of snow and the views were lovely.

The mountain peak that is almost in the middle of the picture below is Mount Greylock, the highest spot in Massachusetts. If you look closely, you can see the Memorial Tower that sits on top.

The land that runs along the evergreens was once owned by my mom's family. They ran a large dairy farm. It is no longer in the family, which I find sad as I have a fondness for "the land", but it is nice to drive through this area once in a while.

Skybus

My sister came in from Ohio the other day on an airline I had never heard of before called Skybus. This is a very no-frills airline with very low fairs. They do not fly out of regular airports, but do have quite a few cities on their list of destinations. My sister was able to get a flight from Ohio to MA for $35 one way. You can't even buy gas that cheap.

If you want something to eat you have to pay on board. If you have to check luggage, you have to pay extra, but if you don't need a snack and travel light, this is a great way to go.

I did have to chuckle when I went to pick her up at the simplicity of the whole operation.

Workers waiting for the plane to arrive

Workers preparing to move ramp over the plane

Four people moved the ramp into position

Unloading passengers

Baggage claim area...yes it is outside and this is the northeast
They fly out of quite a few cities. Check them out.

Grand Courthouse

The Finalization occurred at our County Courthouse. This is an old building that has recently undergone major renovations.

It is a beautiful building, very grand, with so many wonderful details, fancy wood trim all over, marble pillars and stained glass. I wish I had a bit more time to wander around and explore all the details, but I took these quick pictures.

Beautiful stained glass ceiling in a two-story atrium

Just lovely
The pillars in this room were marble