Tag Archives: Vermont

Voting Day

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

Coffee and Tea

Posted on by

I was once a fanatical coffee drinker.  I worked in a cafe in Portland, Oregon, and we were allowed whatever coffee drinks we wanted.  I was a barista, so this was in part to get me to practice making and to taste a variety of choices.  That I did.  I would walk down from Northeast Salmon Street a couple of blocks to the Cup and Saucer, hang my jacket, wash my hands, and make something funky.

Maybe I would make something like a double tall hazelnut orange skim latte.  Or a single cappuccino with a blast of almond syrup.  Sometimes I would just have an espresso shot but I preferred the foamed milk.  Perfecting that was my raison d’etre while I worked the coffee bar.  I would often allow myself multiple drinks during my eight-hour shift.

I would get out in the afternoon and would meet some of the friends with whom I lived.  We would walk across the street and sit down to talk and drink coffee.  I had to pay for this so I usually just drank the regular stuff.  It was good coffee.  We would debate or talk philosophy and listen to KMHD (“all jazz, all the time”) for a couple of hours, all the while sipping the bean.

By the time I got married I still drank coffee on occasion but had overcome my seven cups a day phase.  We drank tea.  We drank tea when we went backpacking.  We drank tea when we went for a long ski.  We drank tea after dinner.  We had a whole kitchen drawer devoted to tea–Earl Gray, Lemon Zinger, even Salada for guests who preferred the mainstream stuff.

At one point I bought a coffee maker, one of those cheap ones with the glass carafe on a burner.  I would make coffee once in a while for myself.  My wife found it nasty so I tried to clean it up right away and most of the time only drank it when she wasn’t around.  Things have changed.

When it came time to replace the glass carafe the second time I spent the big bucks and got a maker with an insulated carafe.  It makes far better coffee.  Somewhere along the way my spouse started drinking Starbucks frozen coffee drinks.  Those were the gateway drugs.  Now she comes downstairs before I do to make the coffee.   She does not find it to be nasty anymore.

Lately, however, I have turned to tea again.  It feels like revisiting a friend I haven’t spent time with in a while.  After the children are asleep and the house is finally quiet, I can sit and read or write or watch some weird film and sip tea.  With just a dash of cream and solid dose of honey, it offers the perfect evening companion.

i still drink coffee in the morning.  Tomorrow is Saturday and I look forward to taking the time to steam up some espresso and to foam some milk and to make something fancy right in my kitchen.  But it will be a chilly day tomorrow.  At some point in the afternoon I will probably brew up some tea.  It will warm me, and I will look out at the fading colors of fall and I will feel just about right.

Foliage Blast

Posted on by

This year the foliage is brighter than it has been in while. Falls seems to just slowly seep in and then suddenly, Bam! The leaves are orange and red and yellow. This year that happened and I was hit in the eyeballs. Just behind our house the leaves are on fire. Every time I drive toward the house I say wow. I come home that way on purpose.

Here is a view coming from the other direction, after the tractor parade yesterday:

Camel's Hump from Charlotte

Camel's Hump from Charlotte

Tractor Parade

Posted on by

Today was the annual tractor parade in Charlotte.  We went last year and it was a festive and fun event, despite a cold wind and steady drizzle.  This year the weather was perfect and we had even more fun.  My parents were visiting so we had quite the crew there.

We had fresh cupcakes and french fries but passed over the hamburgers and cider doughnuts.  We did check out the miniature horses, the sheep, the rabbits and the two-month old calves.  We didn’t stick around the play any games but we did see quite a few neighbors and friends.  It was a good time.

Whatever the weather, we won’t miss it on purpose next year.

Small Tractors

Big Tractors

Big Tractor

Red Tractors

Red Tractor

Blue Tractors

Blue Tractor

Old Tractors (Rode the ferry from New York no less)

Old Tractor (Rode the ferry from New York no less)

New (kid on a) Tractor

New (kid on a) Tractor

No Geese

Posted on by

My wife and I took a trip down to Addison today to see the geese.  We have gone down there for the past 14 years to see them.  Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area is a stop for thousands of migrating waterfoul and often this time of year the fields and the sky are filled with birds.  But no dice today.

Sometimes when we drive near the parking/viewing area we can see the birds from miles away.  Sometimes we can hear them long before we get there.  Today it looked like we would get little viewing for our efforts.  There have been years when the snow geese are lined up against the fence, rising and landing in groups among the larger flock.  Today there seemed to be just a few small groups in the far distance.  A few would rise and settle again, but we could see only a couple dozen against the tall grass.

If we were quiet enough we could hear them honking.  A couple flocks of ducks fluttered in.  We sat and listened and watched and talked quietly about the beauty of the place and the times we had visited in the past.  We talked about why the birds might gather some times and not others when we have visited on the same weekend every year.  Does it have to do with high or low pressure in the atmosphere?  Does air temperature affect when they fly?  Is climate change a factor?  We had no answers.

We may visit again in the next week or two, take the kids down to see if we have better luck.  Perhaps, however, we will wait until next year.  We like to see them, but we are in no rush.  I know they will come back.  So we will too.

Pumpkins and Sunrise

Posted on by

Right around the equinox the sun rises over Camel’s Hump.  That is about the same time we harvest the pumpkins.  By the end of September we are getting frost so by early October we want to have the pumpkins off the vine.  We have a handful of pumpkins on the table, a few on the kitchen counter, and some on the deck railing.

The orange fits in nicely with the orange spreading over the hills.  In the next couple of days I will pull the last of our carrots from the ground.  More orange.  I planted lots of carrots this summer but much of the early planting turned to mush with all the rain.  The second planting did great but we ate it rather than saved it for the short days.  We’ll have to eat pumpkin.

Tomorrow morning I will make pumpkin muffins. At the moment I wait up for my parents, visiting for the weekend and arriving late.  I will probably start the muffins after the sun has risen.  By now, it rises south of Camel’s Hump.  It rose about 7:15 this morning.  Once the sun does make it over the mountains, it floods the house with light.  And warmth.  If there are no clouds, the house warms quickly.

While I grow wearier and wearier, hours into the dark part of the day, an IPA under my belt and a long day behind me, I question whether I should just hit the hay.  They advised I not wait up, and the rest of the household has left for dreamland already.  I wouldn’t mind making muffins and watching the sun rise at the same time, so maybe I will dive into the snooze box after all.

I will leave a note, perhaps, to be at least minimally polite, and suggest they wait to eat any of the pumpkins.  At least until I can cook them into muffins.

Walking to the Mailbox

Posted on by

It was a good moment to share.  The clouds were steel gray, surrounded by a pink sky.  They stood out, high contrast, as the sun slowly dropped.  The leaves are close to their peak fall foliage and the low light perked them up further.

I walked with my daughter.  We watched a jet, silent from our driveway so far below, head toward the moon.  The plane was glowing as the sun hit it directly.  It seemed to be on a collision course with the bright half of the earth’s satellite.  Luckily, the jet passed just beneath it.

We gloried in the beauty of it all.  We laughed as we spun around.  My daughter jumped the puddles from the day’s showers.  The wind blew the smell of fermenting leaves and the sound of crickets over the field.  We spun and laughed until I was dizzy and fell on the damp grass.

The world was right.  I was content.  It was a fine way to end a fall day.