Hallowe'en haul of horrors

Hallowe'en arrived at last.  A ghoulish Girl and hippie Boy prepared for an evening of fun and foraging in the 'hood.

A potluck supper at a friend's house preceded the expedition, so the adult chaperones at least were well-fed before our long walk in the cold.  We certainly saw some horrible sights along the way (as well as finding out where a couple of teachers live)...

...but the full horror of Hallowe'en was only revealed   when we got back to base.

Halloween-een

Tomorrow night my children will go Trick-or-Treating.  But today at the Farmer's Market I was "Reverse Trick-or-Treating" with a bunch of fine kids from the same Middle School club that helped me out back in May.  They did an excellent job, handing out fair Trade chocolate samples and information on how to help improve the lives of cocoa farmers (buy fair trade, of course, and lobby the major chocolate manufacturers).  A couple of the girls were there for a full four hours and showed awesome dedication to the task.

So that was a tiring but very satisfying morning.  There was then just a little turnaround time before we set out to the annual Halloween party at our ex-English friend's house.  As usual there was a potted panto, followed by much eating, drinking and conversation - while kids of all ages and sizes marauded round in packs inside and out. 

Here are just a few of them mucking about by the lake.  Looks cold, doesn't it?  Of course, one fell in* -  and it wasn't one of mine, yay!



*He was fine.

The Man adds...later I enjoyed a rare Saturday night out with work colleagues in Saratoga Springs. Being Halloween, the city centre was very lively and we were virtually the only people in the bars who were not in costume (unless you count "middle aged balding geek").  It was a long evening - I got home after three - and a fun one, but tempered with underlying melancholy: we were bidding farewell to a friend who is going back to England tomorrow at the end of his three year contract in New York. He and his wife will be greatly missed.

Harvest Dance

Tonight was the night of the school Harvest Dance.  It was LOUD and a little crazy but lots of fun.  Our kids partied with gusto.  Interestingly it was quickly evident that Boy has a huge circle of friends he hasn't been letting on about.

Being used to the gentler events of the kids' previous much smaller school, the gym jam-packed wih families came as quite a culture shock for the Man and me.  Yet I didn't feel like a total stranger as there were many people I recognised - neighbours, acquaintances from the Farmers' Market, people I've met through the Farm-to-You Fest activities... 

There's a full-on weekend ahead, what with Halloween and all.  To my surprise, I haven't been very aware of that festival creeping up on us.  Last year I wrote rather snootily about people's extravagant Halloween lawn ornaments, but I have to admit I'm disappointed with the general lack of them this year.  A neighbour's mailbox draped with fake cobwebs is about as spooky as it gets round here.  So we're going to do our best and hang some trash-bag ghosts in our trees ahead of Sunday night.

Oh no - Noo-noo

We've had a spell of strangely warm weather recently, but it's about to come to an end so I made the effort to get outside this afternoon and finish painting those deck railings.

While I was out there I heard the hoovering drone of the municipal Noo-noo doing its rounds of the neighbourhood.  So as soon as I'd washed my paintbrush I dashed out the front and raked leaves furiously, until the rake head fell off and then I raked very gently.  Darn it, the Noo-noo never made it to our street!  But the goods will all be there waiting if it comes tomorrow.

And then the kids got home and I had to make a trip to Indian Ladder Farms so the Boy could choose a pumpkin (he wasn't fussy, it turned out, so long as his was bigger than his sister's).  And tonight I've been at a meeting.  So, quite a long and productive day all told.

H-H-H-H

My kids signed up with the local 4H Club this evening.  4H is a kind of agriculture-based version of scouting, without the salutes and uniforms.  It seems mostly to involve making crafts and entering them for shows - a concept we're very familiar thanks to the Linton and District Garden Club; and studying farm animals.  This year the club will do a project on sheep and the children might also get to try rearing chicks in an incubator - cool!  (Or rather, warm!)

It's not going to expand their social lives vastly - there are only four other kids in the club (and two of them weren't there tonight).  But the Boy instantly hit it off with the 5th Grade lad who shares his interest in aircraft, and the Girl found it an excellent forum in which to expound on her summer goat-tending experiences.  They both clamoured to fill in the enrollment form, so I guess we've found them a new niche.  It's actually the first time the Boy has volunteered to join anything, so it's a bit of a giant leap in that respect.

Here's the 4H pledge, to explain what all those Hs are about:

I pledge:
My head to clearer thinking
My heart to greater loyalty
My hands to larger service
And my health to better living
for my club, my community, my country and my world.

Back for more

My fat-faced friend was back on the birdfeeder again today - here he is, caught bang to rights.

And in other news, I had the car's brakepads changed today.  This means that we'll no longer have to put foot to floor and listen to a juggajuggajugga sound whenever we come to a stop sign.

While I was waiting for the car to be fixed I paid my usual visit to the Salvation Army Thrift Store and stocked up on secondhand jigsaws: a total of 2,500 pieces for less than $2 -  unbeatable value.

A cheeky side order of chips

I started putting seed in the birdfeeder again this weekend.  We were able to admire the usual wonderful variety of birds for a couple of days, but now the thieving squirrels have cottoned on to the free provisions.  Oh well, maybe that means they'll leave what's left of my daffodil bulbs alone now.

Before the squirrels had completely emptied the feeder for the day, I noticed another uninvited visitor (you may have to click on the picture to get a better look).

Silly creature.  He got himself in and filled up his cheeks, but then couldn't get out again.  In the end I took pity and released him, rather than waiting until he ate himself free.

Noises off

This afternoon we made a trip to the Palace Theatre with some cheap tickets (generously subsidised by Price Chopper supermarkets) for an Albany Symphony "family concert".  The title was "Mendlessohn's Magical Dream", and it was part orchestral concert, part theatre-in-education.  The conductor, playing Mendelssohn, chatted with an actor playing Shakespeare about the themes in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was all an excuse to play extracts from the music Mendelssohn composed for the latter.

The kids were reluctant concert-goers, but though they wouldn't let on I hope they secretly got something positive from the experience.  The Man and I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been for a pesky family behind us that arrived late, having first bought out the concession-stall in the lobby.  They sat throughout munching loudly on popcorn and candy from a rattly box.  I came this close to turning round and hissing at them "You're at a concert, not a bloody picnic!"

People often mistake me for a calm, good-natured sort of person... 

Fall (nearly) over

It feels like we're hurtling towards the end of October now.  Today was the last day of the outdoor Farmers' Market, from next weekend it moves indoors.  The stallholders won't be sorry, I'm sure, as it's getting darned chilly.  This morning, along with local veg and our usual Vietnamese take-home meal we managed to pick up some second-hand books and a musical version of Twister.  This afternoon the Girl and I started thinking about Hallowe'en, with a pumpkin-carving session at a friend's house.

At least the trees are giving us a final burst of colour, even as the leaves tumble.  We needn't have gone all the way to the Adirondacks the other week looking for the glory of the fall - it's right here on our street.

Visiting Uncle Sam

I had to drop the Man (just back from Montreal) at work today, and decided on a whim to go and visit the grave of Uncle Sam in Troy, something I've been meaning to do for, oh, about three years.

For British readers Uncle Sam is an iconic figure who crops up rather a lot, especially in parades and at ball games, often on stilts and dressed in a sparkly red, white and blue three-piece tailcoat outfit to go with his extra tall stars-and-stripes top hat.  So I have to admit, I was half expecting (and rather hoping) to find his grave surrounded by razzamatazz - balloons, streamers, marching bands and the like.

But no, it is a very low-key monument, in contrast to the many grand obelisks and mausoleums of the same period found in the sprawling Oakwood Cemetery.  Signage to the site is discreet and you actually have to look quite hard to find the simple stone with its restrained patriotic floral tributes almost hidden by fallen leaves. 

I visited, but only for a few minutes.  Though I don't think cemeteries are spooky (in fact I find them quite reassuring) it was just too cold to hang around for long.

Getting back to our roots

I had a lot of email business to attend to today, so it was quite frustrating that the computer kept crashing.  And I couldn't get on with the (still unfinished) deck-painting, either, because of intermittent rain showers. 

So I took myself out on some errands, and while I was at Indian Ladder Farms couldn't resist this fair trade hand-knitted carrot, which seemed to call out to me on so many levels.

The Boy is getting with this week's veg theme, too.  Remember Silly Bandz?  You can get them everywhere now that they've become a bit old hat.  Anyway, the Boy came home from school today wearing an ordinary rubber band and announced, "Look, a Silly Band shaped like a potato!"

Good-o

Thankfully we had our first Noo-noo collection this morning.  It sucked up a nice big pile of leaves from the edge of the front yard, making room for the next pile which we'll be assembling soon.  The leaves are dropping at quite a rate now.

And the nights are definitely getting colder.  When I put the kids to bed tonight the Boy requested a hot water bottle, and I've had to dig a thicker quilt out of the closet.

The Man is somewhere possibly colder. To get there he had to endure a hostile interview. The view from his hotel (right) includes a 1970s landmark known locally as "The Big Owe".  Enough clues? A royal mountain of them.

LOFT living

I've just got back from a film screening at the local Middle School, organised as part of the Farm to You Fest that prompted all that giant carrot-making last week.  Called Fresh it was about food production, industrial and otherwise.

There was nothing in it that I didn't already know, having read The Omnivore's Dilemma, but even so the sight of industrial animal farms - which are just vast here - nearly made me weep.  It's such a disgusting, unhealthy system, and propped up by government subsidies which is how the food that comes out of it appears to be so cheap (while being so costly in terms of human health and environmental impact).

The movie was optimistic, though, that we can turn the system back to something healthier and more sustainable - but only by each of us as individuals informing ourselves, advocating for change and making a conscious effort to "vote with our dollars".  Local, organic, fair trade (LOFT) - they're all good tablemates and those of us who can afford to support them should certainly try.

Hit the deck

An early start for the Man today, taking our guest to the station to see him off.  We are sad he had to go as we all enjoyed his company.

I'm involved in organising a big fair trade market at the end of November - an exciting project - so my morning was taken up with a planning meeting for that.

This afternoon I got outside with paint and brush and started getting a second coat on the deck railings which we first began painting mumble months ago.  Well, you can't paint anything in the winter, it's much too cold, the spring is always over before it's begun and the summer's way too hot, and this September was so busy with other things...  But today I had no excuses.  The weather and my schedule are looking clear tomorrow, too, so I might even manage to finish the job.

Vegetable matter

If you looked carefully at the carrot photo on Friday you may have noticed that I wasn't just creating a giant vegetable from my imagination - I had a life model. 

Here it is later on, relaxing after the session.

It turned out to be a very versatile vegetable.  At lunchtime today it made the ultimate sacrifice and joined some celery and a butternut squash in an excellent soup.

The soup kept some of us going on a Five Rivers hike this afternoon.

Spot The Man

The Man writes...after a disappointing, wasted journey to Cherry Plain State Park (closed for the season) our visitor and I ended up at an old friend: John Boyd Thacher State Park. The combination of sunny evening light, Fall colours, unusually watery waterfalls and great company made for a special visit to the Indian Ladder Trail.

Here I am standing behind the waterfall for scale.

Storm 'n' Norman

The Man had booked the day off work today with thoughts of going hiking with our guest, but the wildly wet weather made that a not-too-attractive option.  So we decided to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum instead. 

It was a good deal busier than the last time the Man and I went - loads of coach parties touring New England in the Fall (and the autumn leaves would have looked fairly spectacular if it hadn't been for the driving rain).

As well as enjoying a gallery talk and Rockwell's familiar work, we also found the temporary William Steig exhibition entertaining - lots of funny cartoons and children's book illustrations, including original art from Steig's most famous book, Shrek.  And then we took a look inside Norman Rockwell's studio, a barn converted into an enviable art-space.

I had to make do with the kitchen as my art-space earlier in the day, taking over the floor with the giant carrot project.  Lots of fun! 

Oh, and speaking of enormous vegetables, that pumpkin a couple of weeks ago weighed in at a hefty 500lb.

In the picture

Another day, another film-screening.  Only half a dozen people made it to the chocolate movie at the library, but given the horrible weather tonight I was pleased with the turn-out.  One of the Middle Schoolers from yesterday's presentation brought his grandmother along - good on him. 

On getting home I was pleased to find a guest from the UK.  Not a surprise guest, we knew he was coming, but it's always lovely to have a visitor.  He's over from the UK, staying with us on his (indirect) way to Princeton. Since he is a climate scientist, we will be happy to answer your climate change questions for the next three days.

We have also received information about the kids' school photo (picture day is coming up soon). There are 29 different portrait-pack combinations, some featuring mouse pads and "beverage mugs", and 25 different backgrounds to choose from including aurora borealis, school lockers, the stars and stripes and even one that looks very much like the Ready Brek glow.   Basic retouching, in case of acne, is an optional extra.  What about retouching in case of scowling? That would be a useful service.

Brightest and best

It's been a busy day, with two fair trade presentations this afternoon.  One was the follow-up to last week's film-show at the High School.  Then I had to hot-foot it across town to the Middle School to talk to about fifty kids there.  In each case the audience seemed pretty engaged and asked good questions.  Tomorrow night I'll be showing the chocolate movie at the public library - it'll be interesting to see if any of these kids' friends or family turn out for it.

On a lighter note, I also had to go out shopping for giant carrot materials - more of that in a day or two.

And, having been impressed by the trees outside school when I walked the children there this morning, I made time to pop back and take a photo or two.  With more bad weather in the forecast, I thought I'd better grab the chance while the colours are still at their finest.

Pita luck

The Man writes...usually lunch for me means a trip to a chain sandwich shop in a local strip mall, but today my colleague/lunch taxi driver suddenly declared "I feel like a falafel".

Soon after we were making the short trip across the Hudson to the historic city of Troy.  We found a great little Middle Eastern cafe in the Antique District serving a delicious lunch. For some reason, every time I visit Troy I'm surprised again by how attractive parts of it are.  There are any number of unique cafes and stores, spilling on to the street on a sunny day, among splendid Victorian buildings which remind us that a hundred years ago this was once one of the most prosperous cities in the country.

Although it was lunchtime and the weather was perfect there were very few people around. Of course the strip mall is quick and convenient, but if you have the time this is sooo much better...

Small blogworld

It's that time of year again when friends of ours always hold their daughter's birthday party in their backyard and by some miracle it never rains.  It didn't rain again today, and the kids enjoyed each others' company, a performance by a ventriloquist and an enormous inflatable slide, while parents stood around in the autumn sunshine, eating and chatting and catching up with each others' news.  There was more news than usual for our family to share this time, after our kids change of school. 

The Girl was happy to be reunited with a bunch of her girlfriends, the Boy teamed up with his old buddy, and I was very happy to see many friends too.  The Man, meanwhile, had decided not to take Columbus Day off and had gone into work, which he rather regretted.

Before we set off for Lake Placid on Saturday I'd spent the morning at the local farmers' market, promoting an upcoming public screening of the Dark Side of Chocolate, the film I wrote about the other day.  I tell you, you feel like a right old prophet of doom standing in a sunny marketplace telling cheery shoppers that their chocolate is tainted by slavery.  But anyway.  I was quite startled when someone came up and asked me if I was Albaniana.  The first time that's ever happened!  Turns out it was someone I was also already aware of in the blogosphere - a certain Profussor...

Ten out of ten out of ten

We're home again from our short stay in Lake Placid.  Breakfast overlooking Mirror Lake, more boating, dips in the hotel pool/hot tubs, a visit to Ben & Jerry's and another trip up Whiteface Mountain were the highlights. 

It was cold and clear at the top of the mountain, with views for 80 miles around - pretty spectacular.  We could just about see Canada to the north. 

We saw the best Fall colours on the drive home.  Not many glorious reds this year, but stunning stretches of gold - alas, not captured on camera.

Awayday

Just a brief post tonight.  We're out of town again, at a favourite haunt: Lake Placid.  We're checking out some Fall colour and getting a preview of colder conditions - it's woolly hat weather up here.

And so to bed

After several days of rain (we've really made up for the dry summer now, I think), today was lovely.  I made a brief visit to Five Rivers between errands, and I also managed to plant some daffodil bulbs in the front garden. I just hope they don't suffer the fate of the crocus bulbs I planted last week, most of which turned into expensive squirrel-feed.

The children have done very well at school this week, and as a reward we made a trip to the local gift shop where they (sigh) picked out stuffed animal toys (because you can never have too many, as I'm sure you know).  The good news was, they were on special offer.  The Boy chose a little polar bear, while the Girl went for a cuddly Rottweiler - read into that what you will.

Earlier in the week a guy came and did his part in closing up our swimming pool (making sure the pipes won't freeze etc), but tonight the Man and I had to finish the job by scooping out the last of the leaves and fixing on the safety cover.  Though nobody has swum in the pool for a month, it still felt like an end-of-season-marking task. 

Top carrot?

A PTA sign-up form came home the other week offering me a double-sided closely-typed page of opportunities to volunteer my time.  One option was to join the school's Healthy Kids Committee, part of a districtwide effort to persuade children to eat vegetables.  A lost cause as far as my kids are concerned, but I can but dream, so I ticked the box.

The HKC has a big week coming up soon, with special events tied to local farms and the farmers' market, and a fresh produce collection for the "Squash Hunger" food drive.  Anyway, one thing the school team requires is a five foot carrot to chart the number of pounds of produce donated - a bit like those giant church-roof-fund thermometers you see around.  Guess who volunteered to make it?

But here's the thing.  Other people are vying for the job.  I know of at least two others with their eye on that carrot.  It makes me feel rather insecure about my carrot-making talents - what if my carrot is a bit weedy compared to what they could have produced, and they spend the rest of the year tutting and shaking their heads whenever I pass by?  Perhaps I should just relinquish the carrot right now...

Meanwhile, bizarrely, I've been receiving emails from the kids' former school requesting detailed instructions on how to run a tombola (and even one hopeful message begging me to come back and run it myself at an upcoming fair - Nooooooo! was my reply).  It seems I really did start a tradition there.  Would you credit it?

Bitter chocolate

I had business at the local High School today.  I was there to show a film about chocolate - one I'd seen at the Fair Trade conference the other week, about child slavery on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast.  Heavy stuff, but the students gathered all have an interest in social justice issues and they watched attentively. 

About halfway through I sensed some of them were close to tears - which came as no surprise as it was during a scene that always gets to me, too.  The price of a child is discussed: about 230 euros ($320, or £200), before haggling.  The price includes transportation from a neighbouring country, plus indefinite use of the child.  The children, forced into hard and dangerous labour, are rarely if ever paid.

Those kids are typically about the same age as my Girl and Boy.

There was no time today for discussion after the film.  So I'll be back there next week, with a fellow FT advocate, to follow up.  I'm really interested to know what they all made of it.

Any US-based readers who'd like to see the movie can get hold of it for free here.  I urge you to do so.

Mad Math

Write an algebraic expression to represent the total number of silver dollars that could be in a 24-gallon tank.  Let d = number of silver dollars.

Data: Silver dollar (a type of fish) is 8" in length.

This is my 10 year old daughter's math homework.  Can you make any sense of it?  We can't.  A prize if you can get any kind of answer at all.

The Man is kinda down about it. That and missing out on the Nobel prize for Physics yet again.

What we need is a Maths Expert.  Preferably one with fish-keeping experience.

Appley ever after

The upshot of all that apple-picking yesterday is that we now have a lot of apples.  I used a tiny fraction of them today in these rather yummy cinnamon-apple muffins (and in another half dozen that have already been eaten).  Tomorrow maybe I'll bake a pie, then perhaps a crumble, and the day after that...  Your apple suggestions, please.

While we were out in the orchard, the Girl was with one of her friends visiting another farm, finding her way through a corn maze and going on a hayride to pick pumpkins.  She came home with two very nice pumpkins which we'll no doubt carve into something evil-looking before the month is out. 

And the Boy was with his friend gathering a haul of a different kind.

It was billed as a "family fun day" sponsored by a bank, and seemed mostly to involve different agencies, like the NY State Police, handing out freebies hand over fist.  All the mini flashlights and pens etc are inscribed with messages about things like DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), safe sex and looking after your kidneys.  Not that the Boy minds what's written on them, he's just no-end happy to have a really cool collection of ...stuff.

All for Fall

After a morning of yardwork, the Man and I went apple-picking this afternoon at Indian Ladder Farms.  Unlike when we go to pick strawberries, we weren't the only ones there.  In fact most of the Capital District had arrived before us and the place was teeming. 

I find it quite charming how everyone around here celebrates the season by picking apples.   Though even more than that they like to sample apple-cider donuts - here's just a portion of the queue patiently waiting for those deep-fried delicacies. 

On account of the recent rain, many of the apples had been harvested a few days ago and we were invited to "pick" them from crates like this:

Though we did do some more traditional-style picking, too:

And then there were the gourds, so many and varied:

And big!  "Gourd"on Bennett! Guess the weight of this monster pumpkin:

Deluge 2

We had a full morning, what with a visit to the local farmers' market (where the Girl is greeted like the regular customer she is at the cafe stall where she always orders a plate of fresh home-fries), and a quick trip to the mall (where ice-skates are not yet available), and between times a look-in on this place:

The Man was there yesterday along with this party, and thought it was a sight the rest of us should see.  Cohoes Falls aren't necessarily always so impressive at this time of year, but you'll remember we've just had quite a lot of rain...

This afternoon there has been swimming and skating at the Y, followed by playdates for some and yardwork for others.  The Man and I spent a while tidying the pool.  The guy's coming to close it this week, not a moment too soon before it completely fills up with leaves.

Deluged

When I said it was pouring with rain yesterday I really didn't know what I was talking about.  Turns out  it was barely spitting compared to the torrents of water that fell overnight and first thing this morning.  It was as if all the rain we hadn't had over the summer had suddenly decided to fall in one go.  I believe in some parts of the country (North Carolina?) they've actually had the equivalent of their entire normal annual rainfall just in the last couple of days.  We put out the Boy's new rain gauge yesterday, but it was overflowing this morning.  The weather station at the local High School (where they probably look after their equipment more conscientiously) recorded 4.84 inches overnight - at a rate of up to 1 inch per hour.

I know I've already mentioned homework this week, but I have to say it's a real relief to get to Friday and not have to make anyone do any.  And a lot about this new school makes me suspect that its objectives are as much about training parents as children - there seem to be endless charts and notes I have to remember to initial, and don't get me started on all the fundraising catalogues and PTA sign-ups that come home or arrive in my email inbox and I'm supposed to do something with them.  It's exhausting just trying to keep track.

So, vive le weekend!