County Fair Time

I love outdoor evening activities in the summer.  Living in New York, there are only a few months a year when one can comfortably socialize outdoors after dark.  Yeah, I know every city and town has a "First Night" celebration that is supposed to be sooo much fun, but admit it; they suck.  Everyone stands around freezing and wishing they were indoors drinking champagne rather than outdoors choking back lukewarm Swiss Miss Cocoa trying to avoid hypothermia as some guy with a chainsaw carves something out of ice.

I still remember when the first trendy restaurant opened on Smith Street in Brooklyn (yes I am that old) and they had a wood burning stove on the outdoor deck so patrons could dine al fresco in February.  All of us twenty something Carroll Gardens hipsters would huddle around this major fire code violation while we ate our steak frites shivering.

Before we had the farmette, we did what every other New Yorker without a weekend place did in the summer:  We went to every free outdoor event there was.  This was fine before kids when you could lie on a blanket sipping your smuggled in wine out of a coffee mug while listening to the Philharmonic or Metropolitan Opera, but once the kids came,  this all changed.  For every 200 people who were at these events to eat and drink outside with friends and see fireworks, there was one who was there just for the music.  Yes, I did feel bad as Prince and James Dean chased each other around and around the picnic blanket as the people next to us tried to hear the music, but if you really wanted to hear the tenor hit that note, you probably should have gotten here at noon with the rest of the opera aficionados instead of 6pm with the unwashed masses.

The straw that broke this mama camel's back was when we decided to take the boys to see the original "Superman" in Bryant Park.  To this day, one of my fondest memories of my years in New York City is when the Bryant Park film series first started (again, dating myself). I went with some friends to see "Casablanca."  Since the film series was new, there was plenty of room to spread out and watch this amazing movie under the stars.  I think this may have been my first outdoor movie experience ever.  It was magical.  Fast Forward 15 years and the magic was gone.  Thousands of people crammed into the park to watch a mediocre movie.  When the French guy with the lawn chair planted himself on top of James Dean in his superman costume, I knew my summer days in the city were done.

So what do we look forward to doing on summer evenings upstate besides BBQ's and the Drive-In?  The Otsego County Fair!!

This is our fourth year going to, "The Best Six Days of Summer."  It should probably be called, "The Most Expensive Six Days of Summer."

I liken the fair to childbirth.  Every July you forget about the pain of the previous year and assure yourself that you will not drop $100 in the first hour and every year you remember that that is impossible.

Scrappy Doo and I went opening night and though there was the momentary lapse in judgement as we paid $6 for an unimpressive face painting I could have done myself as a myriad of shirtless men who would never make it as Abercrombie and Fitch models wandered around the fairgrounds, it was a wonderful night.

We started out in the Poultry Hall which is my favorite 4H hall.  There were so many crazy beautiful looking chickens, though I did not see any hens as beautiful as Chicky Rivera or any roosters as ridiculous as Kyle.  I think next year I will take at least two poultry blue ribbons.

Noelle will also win Best in Show next year.  I know she is not "technically" a pure bred Jersey, but she is so much prettier than any other heifer out there that she will surely win.

When we ventured into the Food Hall, I realized I will surely win all of the top prizes for jams, breads and muffins.  Strawberry Rhubarb Jam?  Boring!  Try some Umami Blueberry Jam with fish sauce and Sriracha.  Buyah! Or maybe the Blueberry Bacon Jam?  I am pretty sure I figured out how to avoid that pesky botulism problem.  I can hear Martha Stewart's people calling me now to appear on her show.

After we visited all of the halls and I realized I would be taking home every blue ribbon next year except for possibly the singing competition, Scrappy and I headed over to the Fire Service and School Band Parade.  This is one of my favorite events of the fair.  While I will admit to enjoying the Demolition Derby as well, watching all of the volunteer firefighters and their rigs parading around the racetrack is the greatest thing about small town America.

Scrappy managed to scoop up some of the treats thrown by Miss Junior Fire Princess and we sat down on the grass to suck on some maple candy.  After the last of the fire trucks passed, the antique tractors came by.  You would have thought I was front row at a Jason Wu fashion show, it was amazing!  I am not a car girl.  I have three kids.  I drive a mini van.  End of story.  These tractors were gorgeous.  1937 Farmall is the new Ferrari.

As the sun set we ate our $4 hot dogs and waited for the fireworks.  Scrappy snuggled up in my lap and we had a great view of the show. We headed home around 9:30 and I had to scrub the Green Lantern mask off of a sleepy Scrappy Doo.  Today his greenish pallor makes him look as though he may have tasted some botulism tainted blueberry bacon jam, but we both have some great popcorn bowl memories.

Mommy's Day Out

The day of reckoning is looming for our first group of meat chickens.  The husband is hard at work on his chicken defeatherer which he has named the "Mutha Plucka". By the end of this we probably could all fly to France and dine on coq au vin to our heart's content for the amount of money we have spent housing, caring for and ultimately killing and freezing our birds.  The initial capital investment of owning a small farm is crazy, but hopefully in a few years  we will be saving money as well as raising our own food; unless of course we all become vegans after this first round of butchering.

The combination of trying to ensure the boys have a Popcorn Bowl summer while attempting to keep up with all of the farm chores is daunting.  Even if I managed to pick every weed in the garden, collect all of the ripe blueberries, make the jam, shovel the cow and horse's stall, clean the chicken house, prune the tomato plants, plant that flower bed I have been threatening to start since we bought the place, the cow would inevitably drop a load in the stall; there would be another quart of berries ripened on the bushes, I'd run out of canning jars; the dogs would dig up the flowers; the weeds in the first vegetable bed will have grown back before I finish the last bed, and Kyle would do something to piss me off. My hatred of that little shitty rooster is somewhat psychotic.  I am hoping he will be the first test run of the Mutha Plucka.

But let's just pretend I manage to do all of the farm chores, this would mean the boys would be on hour 157 of playing Xbox.

I have tried to get them interested in helping with the farm.  Prince is pretty good about putting the chickens in at night and collecting eggs, though the dogs would probably starve or die of thirst if I truly held to my pronouncement that they are his responsibility.  Ditto for James Dean and the rabbit.   We have tried paying them for picking blueberries.  The husband told them he would give them each $10 if they picked blueberries for a half hour each day last week.  Granted it was 95 degrees outside and the deer flies were everywhere, but I literally saw James Dean bring an egg timer up the hill and set it for 30 minutes.  God forbid he go a minute over the required time.

What is a farm mother to do?  Hire a babysitter and take the day off.

I really cannot remember the last time the husband and I have done anything without the kids besides lift heavy things in and out of the pickup truck or try to fix broken equipment.  The boys have been begging to be left  in the care of our friends' two fabulous teenage boys for a few hours.  Actually, they probably would have preferred a couple of days, but they made do with an afternoon.

The husband and I decided to go to Glimmerglass Opera.  I am not a huge opera fan, but figured a cultural outing would be good for us.  It's funny.  When you move out of NYC the first thing other New Yorkers says is, "Won't you miss the culture?"   But aside from the occasional trip to the Museum of Natural History when the temperature has either been below zero or above 90 for a week straight, no one I know who lives in the city with kids really does anything "cultural".  It is expensive and usually very crowded.  Now that it isn't a subway ride away though, I am always looking for "cultural" experiences. Ironically, the first time Scrappy visited an art museum was on our first visit to NYC after moving to the farmette.

One event we did look forward to as city dwellers was The Philharmonic in the Park where we would get dirty looks from the childless couples trying to listen to the music over the din of our shrieking children running in circles around our blanket.

I consider myself a rather sophisticated person. I watch "The Daily Show".  I know all of the cultural references and laugh at the inside  jokes on "South Park" and "Community" but when I was sitting in the theater watching "Guns and Rosenkavalier" at the Glimmerglass Pavilion, I was suddenly struck by how little I know and really care to know about opera.  When the crowd roared with laughter as the performer started to play an opera riff on his electric guitar, I realized we probably would have had more fun going kyaking on Otsego Lake than sitting in the hot theater.

Opera was followed by a delicious meal, which I did not have to prepare, at Blue Mingo's on the lake.  All in all a good day.  So good in fact, that I have decided to take the next two days and go visit some of my friends in the city.  There will probably not be any museum going, and definitely no opera, but there will fun. The weeds and blueberries will surely be waiting for me when I return.

Farmyard Feminism

Let me just start this post by saying I love my husband and I am very happy that I am the mother of three boys.  If I had had a daughter, I would probably be that gross mother who made her wear matching Hanna Andersson outfits and read the "Twilight Saga" with me. Thanks to my boys, I know every Thomas the Tank Engine train ( I have a soft spot for the strong quiet Henry).  I can also tell you who the most dangerous Marvel Comics villain is: Magneto.  He has super intelligence, super durability AND super energy projection.

Let me also say that if the husband had just offed the damn chickens last week instead of waiting another two weeks,  I wouldn't have had to come up with a new topic for this week's post, but as I was mulling over ideas in my head I came up with this notion:  Females rule the farm.

Let's face it farming is all about the female animals. Chickens can lay eggs without a rooster; all you need is a syringe of bull semen to have a milking cow. I like having my strong man around but male farm animals are the first ones to end up on your dinner plate and with good reason. They are mean.

I am not sure why I am just coming to this conclusion now.  As a card carrying feminist I am ashamed to say that I think I was a little bit of a sexist when it came to my animals.  I felt bad for poor Kyle the Rooster when the hens didn't show him any respect.  Why?  What the hell does he do except spur them and lead them into the street?  Why did the chicken cross the road?  Because there was a dumb ass rooster making her go.  She was more than happy foraging around her own yard, she didn't need to risk her life for bugs on the other side of the street!

Noelle is perfectly happy with her female horse companion.  She doesn't seem to really need a bull humping her all the time.  Even my beloved Pepper is kind of prick when it comes to bossing poor Athena around.  In his defense, that may be his breed and not his gender.

The other day as I watched out the window, Kyle tried to spur Chicky Rivera. She went into full on attack mode and chased that little bastard all around the yard.  He is not allowed within 10 feet of her or the sunflower seeds without facing her wrath.   Barnyard female empowerment is a beautiful thing.  Move over Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan; feminism has a new face and her name is Chicky Rivera.  I would fist bump her if she had fists.

Summer To-Do List

It's July what?  How the hell did that happen?  I had big plans!  The kids were going to be tennis pros by now and the stone wall around the herb garden was going to be three feet tall and I was going to whittle or weave or whatever it's called a willow fence around the berry bushes even though I have never whittled or weaved anything in my life.

Every summer I have grand dreams about all of the things the boys and I are going to do and accomplish in those two short months and every summer...not so much.  As the husband will gladly tell you, I am not the most organized person in the world, but I love lists.  It is so gratifying to check off the tasks you accomplish. Unfortunately, my summer To-Do List is always way too ambitious and there are very few checks. I should probably just shorten the list to two items:
1) Sleep until 8am
2) Have the boys play Xbox

But, I keep pushing that rock up the hill hoping that we will all be playing the ukelele and speaking fluent Spanish come September.  Here are ten of the items on this Summer's To-Do List.  Perhaps if I put them out there for everyone to see I will get some of them done.



1)This year I am absolutely positively going to learn to play the guitar.  Never mind the fact that I have owned the guitar for close to twenty years.

2) We are going to watch documentaries with differing viewpoints on the same subject and then discuss how facts are not always black and white. I am feeling good about this one since I love to stuff my opinion down people's throats and who better to subject to my lectures than my children?

3) Spinning Pepper's molting fur into yarn and knitting a scarf out of it.  You are probably asking yourself, "Is she kidding?" and the answer would be, "not intentionally."  It seems like a plausible thing to do. His fur is coming out in big soft clumps much like that of an angora rabbit.  Why not a dog fur scarf?  Oh that's right, I suck at knitting and don't know how to spin wool.

4) Science Friday.  Given my love of NPR and this NPR program, how could I resist devoting a day to science experiments with the kids?  So far we have done one Friday out of three, but in my defense, I was working the first Friday of their summer vacation and last Friday we were away for the weekend.

5) Succession planting so I get the most out of my garden.  Tomorrow I am definitely planting those cabbage seeds.  I swear!

✔6) Geocaching.  I did this one!  What's not to love?  Outdoor treasure hunting and the kids learn how to read longitude and latitude coordinates.  I should probably get Science Friday credit for this one also. Now they will never get lost in the woods they never venture into.


7) Teach Scrappy Doo how to ride a two wheel bike.  If it ever stops raining here, this may be accomplished.

8) Butcher 50 chickens.  The first round is set for this week.  I guess we all know what next week's blog will be about.

9)  Read these two books.

10) Wake up every morning at 5am and do sunrise yoga.  Oh yeah, I hate yoga.

All's Quiet on the Western Front

I am not sure how I went from the mom who wouldn't even utter the word, "gun" in the house to the mom who is running some sort of survivalist summer camp, but I have noticed a growing interested in all things guns and war with the boys.

It all started with the slippery slope that is the Xbox.  James Dean preferred shooting aliens in the game "Halo" and Prince somehow convinced me that he would be studying the American Revolution if he was allowed to play "Assassin's Creed."  (insert buzzer sound here)  They are now all gleefully shooting zombie Nazis in some other game.  The joyful sounds of the three of them happily playing together is the only thing that quiets the "Bad Mommy!" mantra ringing in my ears.

In an attempt to get the boys away from screens as much as possible, we bought a ping pong table, badminton set, crochet set, slip and slide, water shooters, not to mention the five cats, two dogs, cow, horse, 1 bunny and 72 chickens that love to play.  All of these have been mildly entertaining, but when the husband came home with a few $10 paint guns he got at a yard sale, they were over the moon.

They play D Day landing for hours.  JD loves to camouflage himself as he crawls commando style through the pasture. Scrappy Doo's elaborate death scenes are truly inspired Method Acting.


Playing with toy guns was never an option in the City.  In the hot weather, neon water guns that looked like they came from the Starship Enterprise were acceptable playground toys, but on the rare occassion that some kid from the Midwest or ironically a peace loving country like Sweden showed up at the playground with a real looking toy gun, we gun hating liberal helicopter moms would herd our precious pacifists away from the little sniper in training with looks of horror and disdain pointed directly at the parents of this future killer.  Of course, the WWF Smackdown our boys participated in was probably a whole lot more dangerous than running around with a toy gun.

The whole gun obsession reached critical mass when James Dean presented the husband and I with several guns he painstakingly researched and recreated using Legos.  We were both speechless at first because on the one hand, they were really good but on the other hand it was really messed up. Trying to be a supportive dad, the husband said, "Wow, that is really good.  I mean, it's not GOOD that you are making guns, but you did a great job."

I now find lego weapons all over the house and the husband has even stashed the paint balls in the bowl where I store my potatoes, because I guess, why would they ever look there.  Perhaps getting shot in the ass with a paintball would be the perfect cure for their love of firearms.

Just to be clear, I would be very happy if they all wanted to take up hunting.  The whole point of moving to the farmette was to be self sustaining and to teach the kids that is far better to eat food you grow, raise, fish, or hunt yourself than it is to buy it at Price Chopper.  It is the romance of guns that kill other people that disturbs me.

I am well aware that banning anything is a sure fire way to make your kid want it that much more, so I decided to embrace their love of guns and war with gusto.

I took Prince shopping for "realistic" looking guns and costumes for the Vietnam War/Alien Invasion movie he is currently writing a script for (PS, it is surprisingly well written so far).  Luckily he stuck to the toy department.  I am not sure if he actually knows they sell real guns at Walmart.

James Dean has been asking a lot of questions about WWI and WWII and why they occurred.  Sadly, I don't remember enough of the backstory to give him truly informed answers so I declared that we would read a variety of books and articles on the subject and maybe watch a few documentaries or movies."  Prince rolled his eyes and groaned upon hearing this.

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"You are just going to read a sentence and then talk on and on about why war is bad."

"No I won't."

Little does he know that many of the movies and books I choose such as Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States  and "All's Quiet on the Western Front" will not require my usual running commentary.  I also think that no study of World War II is complete without reading about the internment of Japanese Americans.  I learned nothing about this as a kid in school.  My godfather sent me an anthology of stories for young people for my 12th birthday and I still remember to this day reading in disbelief about a young girl in CA who lived in a camp.

Perhaps my evil plan to take the romance out of guns with reverse psychology will fail miserably and the 3 Muskateers will be back to killing zombies in Rio with aplomb, but hopefully we will all learn a little something and at the very least, the boys will have plenty of popcorn bowl memories of what a wack job their mother is.