The Butter Sculpture at the State Fair

Here are pictures of the butter sculpture. This year's entry, called "Cow Power", is a reference to the good old days when milk was delivered. By Milkmen. It also references the generation of methane from manure, a source of fuel that many farms generate and use. So far, so good.
The thing that hit me was: There are 3 cow characters in the sculpture. They are all dressed as males. Not one of the 'male cows' (true oxymoron!!) produces milk. Could we not have had one of them dressed as a female cartoon cow?
Maybe they could have had a female cartoon cow, representing a housewife, accepting a delivery of milk? How funny would THAT be?
I know you are thinking that the sculptor was a guy. Wrong. I saw the tape. Sculptor of this 800 pounds of butter was a woman.
You are also thinking "who cares?" You are right. This doesn't matter at all. Except that the American Dairy Association, which pays for this display, has clearly made sure in the past that the display had 'gender balance': If there's a young boy in the sculpture, there's a young girl.
AND, this is the American Dairy Association, not some other organization that doesn't know a bull from a cow, or which gender of cattle produces milk. Maybe that's the touchy issue here.
Still, I recall butter sculptures in the past (I think they are real memories) that did not shy away from depicting anatomically correct udders- And to tell the truth, you can walk a few hundred feet from the Dairy building to one of the cow barns, and see them in the flesh.
No, I don't think this year's sculpture needed udders. It just needed a girl, cartoon or not.

Yarn Love

This yummy pile of yarn is the result of an impulse buy -
Let me start over-
I went to Stone Mills during the wool/sheep festival, and I bought a large bag of fleece. The shearer was shearing the vet's flock. The fleece was pretty clean, but mainly I bought it because it was nice and healthy, and it was the right length- around 3-4 inches. There were bags of lincoln cross fleeces (8-10 inches) and romney fleeces (6-8 inches)- but I wanted something that would run happily through the drum carder. So even though I had to skirt pretty hard to get just the quality part of the fleece, I was happy. It cleaned up nice. I spun 17 ounces total, and 1188 yards. So that amounts to a batch of sport weight (more or less). Then, I dyed it with Cushing acid reactive- Used the burner on the gas grill to simmer the batch. After drying, I rewound the skein. It's just lovely and soft. Glad I left it as a single. I am going to try it on the double bed knitting machine. I'll let you know how that goes.
By the way, this was spun on Big Zippy. (Check the old posts under 'spinning' and 'spinning wheel' labels.)

Golf and more Golf!

On Sunday, DH and I joined the fun at Willowbrook Golf Course for the Resolution Center golf tournament. We were in the coed division. (Wasn't it nice of them to have a coed division? I never mind that the hot golfers come to win, win, win. I just come to golf and enjoy the day, and support the Resolution Center. Still- nice to compete in a different division than the 300 yard hitters.)
On Monday, The Ladies Monday Night league at Cedars wrapped up. We had a nice fun-night, and some great lasagna. See you all next year!
On Tuesday, I met up with DC (Darling Cousin) in Cicero, and we went to Brookhaven Golf course for 9 holes of fun. First time for me at Brookhaven. Nice course. then we went for lunch at Pronto Joey's, and my ankles are still sloshing after the having the wonderful (and very bad for you) eggplant sandwich. We did some other stuff, too, but this post is all golf!
Today, it is raining, and there will be no golf.
Soon, we'll be hip deep in bowling season, and as the days shorten it will get tougher and tougher to find some daylight to golf in. Sigh!

Golf on Friday morning---

I was bumbling around at 7:17 this morning, sipping my coffee and going for the paper, when Mark said "What time are you golfing?" THEN I remembered that I was supposed to meet my foursome at 7:15. So I left immediately for the golf course. I was the last to arrive, and I only held everybody up for a few minutes.
After today's round, I think I better golf early in the morning all the time. I carded a 50 (Woo Hoo!!) and I had 3 pars (double Woo Hoo!!!) Of course, maybe it's not the time of day. Maybe it's golfing with no bra. Will find out tomorrow.

Where have I been?

Boy, there's the question. Do you mean geographically? I've been to VA, NC, and Ontario.
Do you mean I haven't been blogging, and why is that? That's a longer answer.
Do you mean you missed me?
I'll try to catch you up later, but for now, I'll just tell you about today.
Today, I went to Lake Bonaparte, and joined a picnic with hand spinners. There were children in the water, there were wet dogs under the picnic table. There was fleece, and linen, and spinning. There were kayaks and canoes. There was FOOD! I don't know when I will be able to eat again. Not today, for sure.
The breeze off the lake just blew away everyone's cares.
We noticed that there are DEC campsites up the road by the boat ramp. Hmm. We are thinking of coming back here in September, with the camper. The dog agrees that that is a great plan.

A week At Wellesley Island is like a Month...

We dragged the camper to Wellesley Island, a whole 35 miles from home. We got there, in the rain, on sunday. We slept 10 or 11 hours. The phones are turned off because we are on 'roam'- nothing but canadian towers in range. We can't get US radio, just canadian. we might as well BE in Canada. the border is actually about 100 yards in front of us- the Canadian Coast Guard boats are by several times a day. Monday, I read. And read. The rain had stopped. We drove back to Carthage to golf inour leagues. Tuesday, we went to Kingston- a little shopping, and lunch at a favorite restaurant. An hour at the casino on the way back. Wednesday, we laid around- friends came by for the afternoon- then more friends showed up for an ADK event- a kayak paddle from our campsite to the rift and back. I turned around before the rift. I didn't want to deal with paddling against the current to get back through the rift. (For those who do not know the waters around Wellesley island, the rift is a narrow granite channel in the river, over which the international bridge, and border, is located. If you paddle in the rift, you can paddle under the bridge at the border!!! (We have done this before, notable on the day after 9-11. You gotta love life in the North Country.)
Any how- we had a great covered dish picnic, with burgers and dogss, and s'mores.
Thursday- we went golfing at the little 9 hole course in Fineview (another state park- the senior greens fee is $6. )
Came home Thursday night, as it was going to rain again.
Now it is Friday, and we are doing a week's worth of laundry and then heading out for a weekend in Corning, with you-know-who, and you-know-who-else.
I hope somebody wants to go to the races.

Sally + Porcupine = Tainted Love

Oops! It happened again. Sally found the porcupine- her barking told Mark that she had the critter cornered. by the time Mark met up with her three minutes later, she was sporting a face full of quills.
Sally was a good girl, and took her medicine- all those quills had to be pulled. Her face was puffy for a couple days after.
Then, she had a few quills in her face--AGAIN! How could that be? She has been on her leash the whole time.
Well, it seems that Mark collected the quills in a bowl as he was taking them out of her face, and left the bowl on the porch. He found them dumped on the porch. Guess Sally couldn't resist a sniff.
She can NEVER resist. She is ALWAYS sorry..... but she can never, never resist.
I know how she feels.