Interlude ... a little about me

I've been busy socially just recently and last week I had two amusing events. I attended my usual Monday Rotary meeting and, on arrival at the Armidale Bowling Club where our meal was held, I discovered that it had been designated as a "hat night". That means everyone should wear a hat on the evening ... and lots of amusing themes were involved. For example, there was a hat quiz and everyone was asked one impossible to answer question. Mine was to name the place from where one Queen Elizabeth II gets her hats from. Anyone out there know the answer? Anyway I was fined $A 2 for not knowing the right answer! Well, I forgot the meeting's theme and arrived hatless, but not the only person! So I amused myself by placing my napkin on my head to everyone's amusement and the El Presisente turned up and worked on my head-gear to make it stay in position and look amusing.

So here I am. It's amazing what one can do with a bit of tissue paper!

On Thursday, I and several friends met up for our usual 10.30 coffee break. This is usually held at a trendy cafe called the Goldfish Bowl, which attracts young people with laptop computers among others. But last week this was different because one of our group, Russel, and his wife are two weeks off departing Armidale for a new life on the NSW Central Coast near Lake Macquarie south of Newcastle. So we met at their place which is a rural residential property of around 45 hectares north of the University of New England. Their home has a rustic charm and the view over the surrounding countryside is lovely. The ridge in the background is actually Australia's Great Divide - the mountain ridge running down the whole length of the east coast. The range is hugely long, running for about 3,700 km (or 2,300 miles) and at the place shown here the altitude is about 1,100 metres (or c. 3,600 feet).

I took this picture of us sitting at the table out of the veranda having our drinks and pastries.

And we also had two formal pictures taken of our party. We're all retired ... or in Russel's case nearly so. He's just in front of me on the left in the first picture.

Membership of our informal groups has declined a little over the years as people have departed for other locations. I suppose this is a routine part of life these days as people have less attachment to place and / or their families depart for other locations. Our immediate family is now a 10 hour drive southwards or a 20 + hour flight north-eastwards.

AS

Farm Tour in Vermont

Back in mid-July 2019 I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in a conference called the Rural Quadrennial. It is held every four years in Britain, Canada or the USA and participation is restricted to scholars from those nations. There is, however, the possibility for occasional Australian and New Zealand people to be included and I have now been invited to four such events over the years. In sequence they were Halifax (Nova Scotia), Spokane (Washington State), Brandon (Manitoba), and just recently Burlington (Vermont). On this occasion I got in via being made an honorary Canadian! Each conference has interesting paper sessions, but this post will focus  on the four and half days we spent on the road visiting farms and farming communities. Such tours are central to all these conferences and highly valued.

This post focuses on some the farms. Late on Monday 15th July we headed off the Bread and Butter Farm to see its approaches to farming and community development and, subsequently have an evening meal there.





















Here we have the suitably rustic entrance to the bead and butter farm, a plaque stating the community values of the enterprise, and warning sign about roaming kiddos. This farm is about ethically and ecologically sound food production, strengthening the local community and school education. Let's a look around the farm.






















Farm produce ranges a wide range of veggies and livestock, especially in this case little piglets.







And the business serves food out of doors - fine for the summer's day we were there.

The following day we started our from Burlington for what's called the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. We visited the Laggis Bothers farm. It's partly a dairy with around 500 cows located on about 1500 acres (c. 600 Ha.) of prime hill-top land. It's a small operation by Australian standards. But the farm also produces a variety of 'green' produce. Here's the owner addressing his audience and a view of some of the farm buildings.

This last one shows the 'cow shed' and we can take a peek inside.

And, of course, the winters get very cold in the far north-east of the USA, so we found a shed stacked high with dry feed for the long winter months.

And the remaining pictures show the surrounding countryside and some of the veggies being grown.

All up, it was an interesting sample of what seemed to us a good model of local agriculture.

The third farm visit was, for me, a bit of a surprise. I like to eat Belgian waffles coated in maple syrup, usually Canadian in origin. I've always associated that lovely ingredient with, of course, Canada. After all, the maple leaf is the national emblem enshrined in that country;s flag.  Well, the next farm we visited in Vermont was called the Bread Loaf View Farm and its main output we found to be maple syrup. We saw the farm's maple abundant maple trees of varying ages, the collection of their sap, and its subsequent processing into the syrup one buys in the shop.


Here's the farm's mascot at the entrance. And we made our way to the Sugarhouse to meet up with our hosts. And I took a quick peek inside.

The we headed off into the forest of maple trees to learn about their growth patterns,

and how holes were drilled into the bark, tubes were inserted to draw of the syrupy flow, and networked to drain a strong uptake of the product - see below.


 Eventually the sap reaches a tank back at HQ and from there it is taken into the Sugarhouse to be refined into the final syrup product.
























Here we can members of our party watching the refining process, while below a shelf was stacked with samples of the final product.











As we exited from the building on our back to our bus I was taken by this sketch of what the farm looked like maybe a century or so ago. I'd have to agree that the processing system has improved significantly between then and now.













That's all I'm posting about farms in Vermont, but in the next few days we'll see many of the other interesting dimensions of rural life in the USA, assuming I find time to wade through hundreds of pictures I took.

AS

Our First Rotary Car Boot Sale

I belong to the Armidale North branch of Rotary and am on the branch's executive as organiser of the youth directorate. Our branch often attempts new money making enterprises to fund our charitable activities, and on Sunday 8th September - a little over a week ago - we held our first car boot sale at the Armidale Showground in partnership with the Showground Trust.

Basically, we invited anyone in Armidale and its surrounding districts to pay us a small fee to come to the show-ground with wares they wished to sell or even give away and distribute them either from a car boot or small fold-away table or any other merchandising contraption. Club members helped with the set-up in a variety of ways and provided both breakfast and morning eats culminating in sausage sandwiches before the lunch-time closure of the event. Another food supplier produced some rather good ice-cream, which I also tried. So we had a Rotary 'chef' to do the cooking.

We intended this first sale to be a try-out of the idea and it worked quite well in the sense that we made a profit, part of which was shared  with the Showground Trust. They were happy too, since the facility we used is mainly used for infrequent agricultural events. It['s our intention to hold this car-boot sale once a month on the third Sunday. The timing means that Armidale now has Sunday commercial events every week throughout the month, except perhaps those months with 5 Sundays. The first and third Sundays are the popular farmers' markets down on the Creeklands.  And the last Sunday sees the Markets is the Mall, where suppliers deliver much more varied goods than the farmers' markets. Let's hope for our sake that selling or otherwise disposing of surplus household items also becomes a must-see event.

If Armidale's households match ours in having a large surplus of unused items we should do well. Tome will tell.

You can see from these pictures that the large open-sided 'shed' where we held the sale was ideal for the purpose. It had lots of light and space for participants and also provided good cover should it have rained. The latter is extremely rare at the moment as we're experiencing probably the worst drought in the last two centuries ... and remember that Armidale wasn't settled until the 1830s!

The goods on sale included everything from clothing, machinery and equipment, foods, household goods and so on. I, for example, bought a dozen guaranteed cage-free eggs!

And this stall had a lolly distribution machine at the near end, which rather interested me. However, the fact that we're crowded with stuff eventually put me off the idea.

Here's our Secretary, Joyce, seeking to raise interest in Rotary ideals, and you might notice the BBQ behind her where a local medic, who shall remain nameless, practiced his skills at cooking eggs and sausages.

And, finally, here's the quite popular ice-dream stall.

Let's hope this turns into a regular event for Armidale and district households! Remind me to take a selfie the next time around!

AS

Squash Reunion

On Saturday 17 August, Dot and I were invited to a Squash players' reunion at the Armidale Bowling Club. It brought together people who were playing the game back in the 1960's and !970's, which included Dot. It was a time for reminiscences about who won tournaments, who tended to play against each other, who were friends and even enemies, and who organised what.

It was a lovely evening for both of us, although Dot knew far more people there than I did. The Bowling club put on a decent meal and for much of the time we nattered to others at our table. But there was vigorous discussion of the past as we stood around before the meal and, while were eating, a screen provided historic photos of many different people and occasions.

Here are some of the photos I took of the occasion, many from the table where we were seated.

A happy duo.

The screen I mentioned earlier showing one player on a squash court.

More of the room. Each table hosted about 10 guests.

Here's Dot again on the left and, to the right, a Selfie I took. I think you'll recognise the bloke involved. I suppose you might say I'm wearing hippie gear again - referring back to the previous post. I think that our age we shouldn't be conservative but keep on trying new things.




















We had speeches from various participants. And, after those at the end of the meal, we had an opportunity to roam the memorabilia stacked on the edge of the dining room.


There were lots of trophies and newspaper clippings going back over 50 years.
















And there were also several honour boards recording excellent squash achievements.

One sad thing occurs to me. Squash used to have a large following. However, few seem to play it these days. Our university's Sports Union has great facilities, but the squash courts have been reduced from 3 to 2. Moreover those courts are used only infrequently.

What's gone wrong?

AS