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The Big E

10/01/2010 18:18
Went to the Big E (Eastern States Exposition) in the rain today. My bride won several ribbons, so we had to get down there! I’m going to enter something next year, even if it’s only photography. They need a blacksmithing category. The 600 pound butter sculpture was really something...

It was a weekday and pouring, so most of the people there were 4-H kids and people selling pillow pets and steam mops in the “Better Living” building. This fair covers the entire New England area -- it seems to be about 1/2 the size of the Minnesota State Fair, based on attendance. Funny thing is, I grew up less than 100 miles away, and never heard of it until I was an Aggie at UMass.

Fun day had by all, in spite of the dampness. That’s a fair-record pumpkin behind me, on the right, from Benson Vermont. I think it was 1,254 pounds. The one on the left, from Erving Massachusetts, was “only” 993.

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The Pioneer Experience

07/05/2010 14:42
Spent the 4th of July with the whole family, as usual. But to change things up a little, we all spent the weekend in a log cabin in upstate New York, living as if it was 1802 (or so) on the Pioneer Farm at the Genesee Country Village and Museum.

We all lived in a single room that probably measured no more than 14x20 feet. We slept in beds we’d roped ourselves, on mattresses we’d stuffed with straw in the barn. We cooked on an open hearth, thankfully with the help of Aunt Marie, the Director of the Pioneer Farmstead.



The Museum was open over the Fourth weekend, of course. So technically, we were one of the exhibits. And this place gets a LOT of traffic (a regular patron told me he’d recently been to Williamsburg, and was disappointed because Genesee had set his expectations so high. I’ve never been to Williamsburg, but I can believe it -- Genesee is that good). But before opening at 10:00 AM and after closing at 5:00, we had the Village to ourselves. We fetched our own water, fed the animals, read (and wrote with quills and ink) by candle and firelight, learned how to shoot a 1793 “Brown Bess” flintlock, and even made a few nails at the village blacksmith shop. But that's just the tip of the iceberg (ice would have been nice...did I mention it was HOT!!)



The place is fantastic, but it’s the people that really make it great. The clothes were REALLY HOT!! I’ll be writing more about the whole experience, and setting up a permanent page with slide-shows and videos. That may take a few days, as we sort through the thousand-plus pics and videos we took...but in the meantime, here were our thoughts as we were leaving, before we even changed out of our HOT period costumes:

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