Monthly Archives: November 2008

Tractor Chores

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I managed to get out on the tractor early this morning and get the field mowed. Well, not all of the field, but most of it. I managed to get stuck twice and had to use the bucket to pull myself out of the mud. Maybe 15% of the ten acres is not cut–too wet and mucky for this tractor.

My little boy came with me while I was out there. He wanted to come along so he sat on my lap. The tractor was at the edge of the field, close to the house, and needed to be filled with gas. I decided to drive it around to the garage, where the 5-gallon talk sat. Five gallons of diesel isn’t easy to lug too far. So he sat on my lap and steered us over there.

I was impressed with his steering ability. Maybe all that ride-on car/truck riding really has paid some dividends. He got us around the house without running into the clothesline or the wood pile or the car. I had to guide him a couple of times but really, only a couple of times. If he could reach the peddles he could almost do it himself.

I also turned the compost pile again and we hauled the old fence posts away. We took down a rotting fence this spring and all the posts were hiding, rotting, in the tall grass. We loaded the bucket and I drove them to the far edge of the field. I stacked them in hopes that some birds or other critters will shack out there while they take a few years to crumble. Maybe that is a bad idea and we will attract foxes who will eat our future chickens, but we have no real plans to get chickens so we are safe for now.

I am thinking we can get one more job in before we give the machine back. We have some dents in our driveway that could use some filling; fill them, smooth them, pack them and maybe we will not have to bump our way down the driveway so much. It shouldn’t take long.

I need to get the wood in still and I need to get cracking on making that pie. I should have enough time this afternoon to get to the latter. Maybe I can do some stacking while the pie bakes. But only if I get to it.

Ready to Get to Work, Now the the Weekend is Here

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I had a busy week. I put in a few long days. I made phone calls at night, did paperwork after the children went to bed, and rose early to get letters out. I am ready to put down the job for a day or two. Unfortunately, I will have to do some work this weekend to make some deadlines. Actually, I already missed the deadlines but I want to be less late.

We did not finish mowing the field last weekend and the tractor still sits at its edge, waiting to be fired up. The garden is only partly turned. The wood pile is smaller than a week ago, but remains at the edge of the lawn. The front storm door still needs new glass. The compost piles need some work.

So I have plenty to do this weekend. I look at the wood pile every day and it calls to me that it wants to be inside, out of the rain. I need to listen to it. And we need to get the tractor back. It ain’t ours you don’t you know. With the dump run, a trip to the market and the cooking I’d like to do (my boy requested waffles for breakfast, and we need to use those apples in a pie) I will be busy.

How am I going to fit the running back in? I will start rising early next week and getting the miles in. I am hoping the week isn’t as busy as this one, so I can give up a little sleep. Once winter sets in those outdoor projects either need to be done or need to wait until spring. Then I will have some time to run. I will just need to stay motivated once the air gets icy.

We will get the field cut. I will get the wood in. Maybe I will get the garden dug and mulched. I might even manage to come close to those deadlines. I imagine I will do all right if I can rustle up some hot coffee and some waffles. And if I can bake up a pie, I can probably even get that broken storm door fixed.

Seeing Stars

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How many of us get out and simply watch the stars?  Do we stop to look up at night?  Can we be awed enough by the vastness and glory of the universe?  I don’t think so.

The problem around here is this:  in the summer the stars come out late and in the winter it is cold.  Even now, the air temperature drops pretty quickly when the sun goes down.  By the time the stars are at their brightest it is dang chilly.  In the summer the sun might go down after 9:00 pm.  Who remembers to look up by then?

When I wake up at night I look out the window.  Lately I can see Orion rising in the east.  This means winter is just about here.  The hunter comes out for hunting season.  I do not often go out to simply look up however.  I used to do just that but I find it harder to be motivated to take the time now.  When I do take the time I feel the same awe I always have.

I am thinking of getting a telescope.  That would motivate me to look up at night.  When I have used telescopes in the past I have seen the moons of Jupiter and the surface of Mars and the brightness of the Milky Way.  It was amazing and I can’t imagine much has changed.

I can’t see as much here in this house as I could before we moved here.  There are lots of parking lots whose owners feel a need to be able to see the empty asphalt 24 hours a day.  And there are many people who feel the need to light the porch or driveway in case the raccoons or the skunks need to see where they are going. We even have a huge street lamp that lights our road for seemingly no reason, burning all night.  All those lights fade out the stars and the show is less grand.

Tonight the clouds have moved in and Orion walks across the sky above them.  He will be there tomorrow.  Perhaps I will get a chance to greet him then.  Change has been something I have heard lots about this campaign season and I should not be left out.  Maybe one change I can make is to simply get out and see the stars.  Unlike elected officials, they will never disappoint.

Staying Up Late to Watch History

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I had a busy day today and I knew I would have to get up early, but I love election night.  I always feel excited about watching what is happing across the nation.  OK, I understand I am not really watching what is happening right then, just the prediction of the summary of what happened throughout the day, but still, it is exciting and I like to watch it unfold.

Any election is somewhat historic.  It marks a transition of power that unlike so many in the world, is peaceful and (for the most part) fair.  Aside from attempts to keep people from registering to vote, most adults can register and then vote.  That in itself is pretty amazing.  This election was certainly the most historic in my lifetime.  Barack Obama came from a modest background to be elected president of the most wealthy and powerful nation in earth.  Not bad.

I watched Fox News throughout the night because that is the only channel we get that does not have a double image or simply fuzz.  We do not have cable or a satellite dish (why pay at least $30 per month to get a few channels we want and 40 we don’t?) so we make do with what we can receive.  We get our news from The New Yorker, Mother Jones, The New York Times and lots of online sources.  Television news usually doesn’t make the cut in terms of quality or quantity.

But last night I wanted to watch, to see things unfold with sound and pictures.  I was glad I did.  I was skeptical of the Fox News coverage, which seemed to be focused on being the first to report who won each state.  At every milestone they would call a winner for several states.  At 10:00 they were calling the winner in states where polls had just closed.  Literally no results were officially in and they were predicting a winner for the presidential race.  It was hard to believe.  Remember Florida?

At 11:00, right when polls closed on the west coast, and with two states’ polling places still open, they announced Barack Obama the winner.  I was at first, again, skeptical but soon understood that I no longer had to wonder if this man would pull it off.  He did.  And come January, we will have our first president to break through the color barrier.   That is one for the history books.  I had considered going to bed once I heard a result, but I realized I needed to be a witness, in the moment, to history.

That is plenty to celebrate, but Obama’s speech made me cry.  He was humble and honest and inspiring, not because he turned out the usual political jargon, but because he understood that this moment is only partly about him.  It is about this nation and what we have the potential to become.  It is about moving forward in a new and positive way.  He showed in that speech that he understands that we need to make sacrifices and that we all need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  We can’t sit back and wait for him to do it.  We need to be the change agents ourselves.  I was moved that he said that this is really just the opportunity, the chance to change things.  His election is not change.  We need to make that happen.

He inherits some damaged goods.  I can’t imagine doing the amount of work he will need to do to begin the process of healing the wounds of divisiveness we have faced internally and to create a new image of the United States in the world.  i was dumbfounded when George W. Bush was elected the first time.  i couldn’t even believe he had become the nominee.  I was doubly baffled when he was elected to a second term.  We got what we chose, and I hope enough of us can see that now.  We have work to do and I believe our new president can see much of what needs to be done.  Whether we can really get it done, well, that is up to you and me.

Voting Day

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I have been looking forward to voting and, like thousands of other Vermonters, and millions of other United States citizens, I did so today. I made sure to have the car with four wheel drive so I could take the back way to the polls. Like everywhere else, high turnout was expected here in Hinseburg, and I wanted to avoid a line of traffic on Route 116. So I went the bumpy way.

I brought my daughter with me. She got off the bus and then we waited about an hour before we left. She needed a snack and a break before we headed out. I was excited to vote and was itching to get out there but I was patient. My morning was too busy to get to the town hall to vote so I had planned on doing so in the afternoon. That meant my daughter could come along.

There was plenty of parking in the lot below the town hall and the place was not busy. As we walked in, I overheard one of the poll workers tell a voter that she “must be special,” joking, because she got to go to the Chittenden 1-2 district table to get her ballot. I went in an noted that I must be special as well. Here was the irony: a small fraction of voters are in my district but I had to wait behind one person while no one was getting a ballot from the five poll workers for Chittenden 1-1.

It was not a long wait. My daughter and I found a booth (open, no curtain here, but private enough) and I marked my ballot. I was proud to be able to vote across parties for local races. i voted for Barack Obama (as I write the New York Times reports that so far 66% of Vermonters voted for Obama–not bad for the whitest state in the union) and it felt great to finally be able to fill in that oval. I also voted for my former state representative, Gaye Symington, for governor, although she has had little chance of winning.

My daughter fed the ballot into the electronic scanner and we each took an “I Voted” sticker. We got a couple of donut holes (she made sure to take one for her brother, who we were headed to pick up after leaving the town hall–I love her for that kind of thing), thanked the poll workers, and headed back out. The whole process took all of ten minutes. There was a line of traffic heading into town as we left town but we skirted that problem.

My daughter asked me later who the first president was as well as who “the last” president was. She asked me more about his last president. What could I say? I just told her that some people are good at their jobs and some people are not and that he was not all that good at his. We talked about that for a few minutes, with me struggling to explain national politics to a child whose first experience was a mock election at school today. I am sure we will have more such conversations.

It looks like a good bet that my children will remember Barack Obama as the first president of their lives. That is historical and powerful. It is amazing. And I am happy to be part of it.

Election Eve

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Tomorrow is voting day.  It is a day to which I look forward in general.  Tomorrow will be an exciting one.  Lots of people will be voting and it promises to be an event at any time of the day.  Many Vermonters have voted early, including my wife, but I have been waiting for election day.  I want to be a part of the ceremony.

Voting in Hinesburg is an experience that makes me feel part of the place.  There are two districts here, the first of which consists of almost all of the town (Chittenden 1-1), and then mine, which consists our our house plus a handful of others (Chittenden 1-2).  We share a district with Charlotte in some weird districting.  There are 3,137 voters in town as of the end of January but only “a couple of hundred Hinesburg voters in Chittenden 1-2.”

What this means for Hinesburg voters is that for one race for state senate, there are different candidates.  Otherwise the ballots are the same.  What this means for this Hinesburg voter is that I get to go to a separate table where is no line.  It is like the frequent flier business class check-in for voting.

So tomorrow I will vote mid-afternoon, not the morning rush and not the evening rush.  Hopefully things will go smoothly and I will be on my way.  I am hoping there will be some donuts left and that my daughter, who will come with me to see democracy in action and all that, will have the patience after school to bear with it.  I plan to take the back way on the class four road to avoid possible traffic.  That may not be necessary but it will be fun anyway.

I can’t wait to vote.  It feels great.  Voting is not just a privilege but a duty.  Many people do not see it that way, I know, but I want to show my daughter that not only is it the right thing to do, but if you time it right, you might meet some neighbors and even get a donut.  Not that democratic duty should mean donuts, but if that helps her remember it, I’m good.

I hope you get out and vote yourself.  If you can, you should.  Otherwise you are a slacker, and I will tolerate no complaining about any elected officials.  Even if you voted for the other candidate.

Tractor Riding (and Other Stuff)

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Yesterday I noted all the things I was hoping to get done today.  I pretty much got to all of the things on that list.  I spent about three hours mowing this morning, with frost on the grass.  It was wet.  I didn’t get stuck but I did have to move slowly at times.  Plus, I stacked a bunch of wood, got the snow stakes in the ground, made that banana bread and even did some garden maintenance (read, digging up weeds).

Here is evidence of the brushhogging:

Mowing the North End of the Field

In the Driver's Seat

The Rig With Brush-Hogging in Progress

The Rig With Brush-Hogging in Progress

The banana bread, by the way, was top notch.  It did not make it through the day.

Getting Stuff Done on a Saturday

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I felt like I didn’t get enough done today but I did get something done.  Here is a list:

  1. I gathered the trash and recycling and took it to the dump, including the vinyl inflatable pool that has been sitting outside the garage for a year now, deflated and filled with sand;  yeah, that was good purchase.
  2. I took my son to the dump and convinced him to be happy about not taking the always-offered lollipop because he had had so much Halloween candy lately.  That may have been the biggest accomplishment of the day.
  3. I purchased some snow stakes to line the driveway.  Our old fiberglass stakes are pretty shredded and are nasty splinterizers.  We need to get the new ones in as the ground has been considering freezing lately.  At least I got the first part of that one done.
  4. I rolled about on the floor with my kids and laughed quite a bit.
  5. I made lunch for my son while my wife and daughter were out for a hike–he even ate most of it, including a large peeled carrot.
  6. I hung laundry on the clothesline and then folded a huge pile of it in the late afternoon.
  7. I washed a whole mess of dishes.
  8. I took out and stirred the compost, although I was sad to see it is not cooking as much as it had been in the warmer weather.
  9. I brushogged for two hours.  Last night my brother-in-law dropped off his tractor and I had a grand time mowing the field.  I got only part of it done (it will take 8-10 hours to get to it all) but the kids each rode for a while (I also purchased an additional set of ear protectors at the hardware store) and they had fun bouncing about on my lap.  I only got stuck once but got out with the bucket in but a minute.

Tomorrow I will get out on the tractor some more, hopefully make some banana bread, and start stacking the firewood.  We may get the snow stakes in as well but that may have to wait until we get the tractor out of here.  Oh, and I was hoping to go for a run.  If only I got more done today, I would have less to do tomorrow.  But here we are.  I’ll just have another piece of candy and everything will be fine.