Pumpkins, Aye!

This past weekend turned out all about pumpkins.  To start off the weekend, we participated in the first ever Great Pumpkin Race for the Town of New London.  The ad said to stick two axles and four wheels on a pumpkin, decorate it, and bring it to race on October 17th.  This was trickier than it seemed, as it turned out, since we quickly realized we'd sold almost every toy with removable wheels (tractors, loaders, dump trucks) at the yard sale we'd had last May.  The only thing we had with easily removable wheels was some new rollerblades, so that's what we ended up using.  Two dowels and some screws later, we had a pumpkin on four wheels.  Did it travel in a straight line?  Not even close.  Oh well.  As it turned out, neither did anyone else's pumpkin, save for one (the winner, clearly) created by the daughter of New London's Recreation Director.  The race turned out to be on our street, which makes sense, since if you've ever been to our house, you probably noticed how many skateboarders love to cruise down the long gentle grade at all hours of the day and night.  Anyway, it was convenient that the race took place right out our front door, and it was totally hilarious too.  Pumpkins were very creatively decorated, but not so well designed as racing vehicles!

Saturday was pumpkin filled too, as we traveled south to the Keene Pumpkin Festival.  We met an old college friend of mine, Rachel, and her family at the festival, since last year we'd both posted photos from the Pumkinfest only to find out later, on facebook, that we'd both been there.  This year, we coordinated.  Rachel's kids Nate and Emily are about a year older than Aiden and Haley, respectively, and by the end of the day all four kids were chasing each other around the sprawling pumpkin madness that is the Keene Pumpkin Festival like they'd known each other for years.  Rachel and I had a good time catching up on literally a decade of not seeing each other too.

Later that evening we attended the Anderson's annual Scottish Dinner.  They really outdid themselves this year with an unbelievably delicious feast including filet mignon with a whisky cream sauce, scottish eggs, and bread pudding with scotch caramel sauce.  We also tried the canned lamb haggis that I found online- surprisingly tasty!  It was a lovely celtic-inspired evening, enjoyed by adults and kids alike.

One Mountain, Two Fairs, and Many Birds with Grandma Chris

Grandma Chris came to visit for a long weekend, and we dragged her all over New Hampshire!  Or at least that's what it felt like to me... a very busy four days.  We started with a stop at the Warner Fall Foliage Festival on Friday night, to visit the midway and listen a little to Buffalo Plaid.  That night we learned that Aiden should never be allowed to gamble at Foxwoods or anywhere else when he gets old enough.  His 7-year old version of gambling is the cork air gun game at the midway.  He is SO excited to shoot, gets his corks, pumps the lever to cock the gun, and aims... and he's a pretty good shot.  He can hit can after can after can.  The problem is, you can hit all the cans you like and you just win a small dopey prize that he doesn't want.  If you want a BIG prize (and he does) you have to hit a little metal square like a zippo lighter, and you have to hit it clean off the shelf.  Which, I should mention, is fairly impossible to do, which is why the big prizes like real air rifles and pogo sticks wired onto the walls look like they've been there since 1983.  It's hard explaining this reality to a kid though.  Every time he didn't win the big prize, Aiden got all mopey and depressed (classic gambling low) and even mad.  He refused to pick a small prize several times and we had to pick one out and give it to Haley (who by the way made out like a bandit with a rainbow pony, bubble gun, and glow light saber)  He would agree the game was totally rigged and stupid.  But give him another three dollars and what did he want to do?!  Oooh, oooh!  The shooting game!  (Sigh.)

On Saturday morning we hurried through breakfast and drove straight to the Massabesic Audubon center to help with a bird banding demo.  When we arrived, it was mass chaos- over 20 birds had hit the nets right off the bat, and they were getting them bagged and lining them up on a clothesline to be banded.  There were lots of ruby-crowned kinglets, white-throated sparrows, cardinals, and chickadees.  As the morning wore on, the birds slowed down considerably, so that by the time the demonstration was actually open to the public at 10am, we were crossing our fingers for birds to band and show the crowd.  Luckily, we did get a pretty steady trickle of new birds in the nets: downy woodpecker, goldfiinch, house sparrow, song sparrow, house finch, white breasted nuthatch...  it was a good day, and as always it was fun to help with extracting birds from the nets.

We went straight from bird banding to Mount Sunapee and a birthday celebration for Ben.  This included a quick donut-on-a-string game courtesy of the Mt. Sunapee BBQ Festival, and then we took the chairlift up the mountain through the drizzly fog to the summit.  The plan was a hike to Lake Solitude, but it was so chilly at the top that Grandma Chris and Haley decided to stay in the summit lodge instead of hiking.  The rest of us carried on into the fog.  Despite there being absolutely no views, it was actually a very cool and almost creepy hike through the misty and moss covered forest... the kids chattered on about zombies the entire time they were hiking, and the images from the day sort of remind me of a Lord of the Rings scene.  After the hike we all convened at the Andersons for pizza and cake and the warmth of the first wood fire of the season.

Sunday was an entirely different day, weather wise.  Blue and beautiful.  We decided to enjoy it by visiting Poverty Lane Orchards in Lebanon to pick apples in their heirloom orchard.  The heirloom orchard turned out to be such a cool experience- each tree in this relatively small orchard is numbered, and you get a "key" when you start which lists each number, the variety of apple, and what the apple is good for (eating, baking, cider, etc.).  We tasted so many apples that morning!  Most of them we'd never even heard of- Wicksun, Chisel Jersey, Pomme Grise, Yellow Bellflower, Winesap, St.  Edmond's Pippin... literally dozens of different heirloom apples.  Some were truly horrible.  Others were delicious- our favorite was the "Granite Beauty" which was huge and red, tart and crisp.  Chris filled half a bag with them to bring back to Dan & Paulette on Long Island.

And then, on Columbus Day monday, we were back to another fair- this one was the biggest I have been to in New Hampshire- the Sandwich Fair.  It was a nice weather day and we enjoyed the agricultural exhibits and a cool frisbee dog show.  Haley got traumatized by a bunch of over aggressive goats in the petting pen, but a gentle mini-pony redeemed her love for farm animals later that day as she got to brush and comb it's mane and tail.  Aiden was sucked into the emotional roller coaster that is the cork air gun game at the midway, once again.  We managed to get him out with only two or three games played this time... and of course, no big prizes!  It was a fun day, but I'm all faired out for the rest of this year.  I will happily wait until next summer for another taste of cotton candy, fried dough, bacon on a stick, or the thrill of the cork popping out of that air gun!

Parishville & Back Again

We headed back to Parishville last weekend for some fall fun and to close up the house for the winter.  On Saturday morning, we went for a hike along the St. Regis River.  It was a beautiful morning on the river, with gorgeous fall colors reflecting in the water and lying underfoot on the trail.  Haley hikes "like molasses" as my mom put it- she's not always complaining (at least until she gets "tired") but she just likes to move slowly, talk incessantly, and examine every detail of everything she passes by.  So it can take awhile to get anywhere.  Once we reached the river, the pace was fine, as everyone wanted to explore.  The dogs were lapping and wading, the kids poked at frothy foam on the water, and Andy took beautiful photos of the scenery.  We also hunted out a geocache to log and trade a few trinkets.  Back at the farm, we made mountain pies for lunch- first cheese and hot dog ones (savory) and then raspberry pie filling (sweet).

Sunday promised to be dreary in P-ville, weather wise, and the closing chores were not as onerous as we had imagined, so we made a group decision to close up the house on Sunday morning and head back to Vermont where the weather was better and our time could be spent more productively.  So, we split wood on Sunday afternoon and stacked it in the sugarhouse, and vacuum mulched leaves and picked crab apples on Monday.  There was also quite a bit of leaf pile jumping going on. Even Kimball joined in.  And Aiden learned to drive the 4 wheeler all by himself, bringing loads of mulched leaves back and forth to the garden.  We'll be back in a month to help my mom with some winterizing chores in Vermont- I'm guessing Aiden will be ready for another ATV "lesson" by then :)

Busy Fall, Work and Play...

Andy and I have had both had to work at least part of the last two weekends.  This does usually seem to happen in the short autumn season here- the weather is so beautiful for being outside that our jobs demand as much time in the woods as our family does.  So we pass the kids back and forth, try to do the obligatory weekend errands, and definitely fit in at least one fun activity as a full family each weekend.  Two weekends ago, we made it to the NH seacoast on Sunday for the Piscataqua Oysterpalooza.  It was held at Ordione Point State Park, which is one of our favorite places to visit anyway, so it was a no-brainer.  Plus a certain seven year old can slurp down a plate of oysters faster than you can (or at least I can) shuck one.  The oyster fest was not well advertised, I don't think, and when we arrived we basically had a giant tent, decent irish band called the Squid Jiggers (of course) and tons of seafood dishes for $1 each all to ourselves.  Lobster rolls for $1.  You can't beat that.  And oysters from Maine, Canada, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.  The ones from NH were my favorite;  not sure if they are actually more flavorful or if the difference in taste was just because they were harvested that same morning, but they were delicious.

Aiden's been enjoying second grade at his new school and has been taking full advantage of the fact that we now have enough free time (without the 1-2 hours of commuting/carpool) to let him participate in afterschool activities.  He's doing soccer, flag football, and fencing at the moment... swim lessons start in a few weeks, and he's now mulling over whether he'd like to add French, guitar, boy scouts or karate.  Life is tough.  Well, not really, but it is busy... heap onto this full plate a hefty load of homework including daily math fact practice, reading, and some super-tough spelling words, and we have a very tired boy on our hands every night.  He's excelling though, and we couldn't be prouder of him.  

First place ribbon for the top score in 2nd grade math league competition!

Last weekend, our one fun family activity between bouts of "mom or dad has to work" was Molly's birthday party at Beech Hill Farm.  The day was perfect Indian Summer, and everyone had fun running around the farm, rolling down hills in the grass, decorating pumpkins, conquering the corn maze (ok, not me, I still hate those things), and eating elaborately decorated ice cream sundaes.  Our short-lived fall season is here in earnest now- only a few more weeks before the snow flies, I'm afraid... so we'll be making the best of it while it lasts!