PICKLE FEST 2012!

Today was the day... a big day... a day I've been anticipating for a good two years: PICKLE FEST 2012!

I couldn't go to last year's Pickle Fest as I was in France last November, but I went my freshman and sophomore years at Bard, and it was a blast!  This year's festival did not disappoint!  It was just as I remembered it: a kind of awkward event in a series of tents set up behind the community center of Rosendale, NY, a rural hamlet about 30 minutes south of Bard on the other side of the Hudson River.  Oddly, the inside of the community center and two of the three tents were occupied by vendors selling largely un-pickle related merchandise, as in past years, but it's really the pickle tent that counts!  The biggest of the tents, it is lined with various pickle-sellers from across the Northeast, offering lots of free samples on little toothpicks and hawking everything from traditional cucumber pickles (dill, sweet, sour, new) to other pickled products (pickled beets, dilly beans) to the slightly unusual (pickled garlic, pickled fruits) to the truly bizarre (pickled meat, chocolate-covered pickles).  After all the samples I tried today, I feel I'm becoming something of a pickle expert!  Anyway, we all had a great time, even with the bittersweet knowledge that we will probably not be in the area for next year's Pickle Fest.

Chocolate covered pickles!  (On a stick!)

It was a sweet pickle inside.

Pickles on a stick!
(Because you couldn't get sticks and do this at home...)

LIVE MUSIC at Pickle Fest!

Because it wouldn't be a pickle fest without funnel cake...

The pickle's lackey isn't the best photographer...
But we still got a photo with the giant pickle!!!

I'm not sure where to begin with this...

The back of my sweatshirt...
the grammar is pretty atrocious, but they're pickle people, not writers...

The front of my sweatshirt!

Fabulous Fall Foliage!

Autumn has been a busy season for me; although our foliage here at Bard is long gone, I managed to sneak in a study break a few weeks ago during peak foliage and capture some of the colors!  Now that it's cold and gray and I have a moment to spare, I thought it would be nice to look back at all this brightness.  It's the next-best thing to being back on that sunny stroll!

Bard Farm

Bard Farm: glamor shot of the lettuce (which is really yummy)

Hip Hudson

One of my friends wanted to see this documentary being shown in a little art gallery in Hudson, a mid-sized town about half an hour due north of Bard, so off we trotted on Saturday night.  I've been to Hudson only briefly before, and it turns out it's a really cool town!  It's got a couple of downtown blocks lined with classy old buildings painted snazzy colors, a few really nice churches, a bunch of art galleries, and lots of places with sneaky names, like "Swallow Coffee..." (There was a picture of a bird on the sign, but still!)  The gallery itself wasn't much to look at, just a big old brick building, but we had some time to wander around the downtown in search of food before the film started.  (We finally found a cheap but delicious little falafel/pizza restaurant--an odd combo, but the falafel was yummy!)  We didn't have any time for shopping, and not much time for eating, but it was an interesting place to see.

a view up Warren Street in downtown Hudson, NY

I liked the color and shape of these buildings!

one of Hudson's several beautiful churches

Fabulous Ferncliff Forest

Todays' adventure took me about fifteen minutes south of Bard to Rhinebeck's Ferncliff Forest.  This is a place I've been meaning to check out for ages, tantalized both by the name itself and the sign I see whenever driving someone to or from the Rhinecliff train station.  It's mostly just some trails through the Hudson Valley's "second-best old growth forest," according to the sign at the trailhead.

There is also at least one cute little pond.

The forest's real attraction is its observation tower, which you can climb up.  The tower is already on the top of a hill, and while it didn't say anywhere how high it rises, I would guess at least fifty feet, possibly higher. At any rate, there's a stellar view from the top!  You can see the Berkshires to the east and the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River to the west.

view to the south-west

view to the north-west

It was also really neat to be looking almost straight down at the tops of trees; they look so different from right above.

There wasn't enough time to explore all the trails at Ferncliff, but it's definitely a place I'd be happy to revisit.

Terrific Fun at the Topsfield Fair

Last weekend I made the journey back home to see my parents and go to the Topsfield Fair!  (For those of you unfamiliar with the fair, it happens in Topsfield, MA every year in the week leading up to Columbus Day, and it is well worth checking out.)  The fair is an annual tradition: except for last year, when I was in Paris, I can't remember ever having missed a year.  I was sad that the giant ferris wheel was missing from the skyline this year, but we're not really rides people, and this year's giant pumpkin was the biggest ever, breaking the record at 2009 pounds!!!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

I'm not sure why the giant pumpkins are never very orange, but what they lack in color, they certainly make up for in mass.

Of course, there was lots of other prize-winning produce on display, and it was nice to see it all before it rotted!  (In recent years, we've gone on the last weekend of the fair, by which time the prize-winning produce, which is displayed out in the open air, without the benefit of refrigeration, is somewhat putrefied.)

The flower display was also excellent; as per usual, my favorites were the dahlias.

Those seeking my good graces should present me with a bouquet of these...

We also saw plenty of farm animals: bunnies and cavies (that's fancy for guinea pigs), chicken and turkeys and geese and pheasant and quail, bees, cows and sheep and horses.

It's a real sheep, with real horns, I swear!  (Unless it was an alien disguised as a sheep.)

There were even some sheep with more than two horns!  Maybe this merely demonstrates my lack of ovine knowledge, but I didn't know there was such a thing outside of the mutant-alien-sheep genre...  But there was a whole group of these many-horned fellows, although most weren't very obliging for the camera.

Speaking of moving animals, we were lucky enough to visit the fair on the day the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were performing their musical ride.  We've seen this show in the past, and it's always good, but I was pretty young the last time I saw it, so I didn't remember much of it.  It was fun to see it again!

RCMP

I couldn't fit all of them in the frame--it was a huge show!  I'm glad we got to see it.

Then, to finish off the fair... FRIED ICE CREAM!!  If you're wondering how this works, I'm really not the person to ask.  I suppose it has something to do with how cold they keep the ice cream, and the batter they dip it in, and probably how quickly it goes in and out of the deep fryer...  All I know for sure is that it is simply scrumptious, and a visit to the fair wouldn't be complete without it!

FRIED ICE CREAM--YUM!!!

Buttermilk Bonanza!

In lieu of an adventure in physical space, this week I ventured into the exciting world of baking with buttermilk.  It all started when, upon reading an article in the New York Times about how buttermilk is making a comeback both in baking and as a drink, I decided to buy some and check it out.  While the paper made it sound like drinking buttermilk would be like drinking yogurt, the buttermilk I tried was beyond tangy, and too acidic for me to swallow.  So I turned to baked goods as a way to use up this undrinkable liquid.  I decided to try out a recipe for biscuits, and one for soda bread.  Both came out astoundingly well!  I don't think I've ever made a loaf of bread from scratch before, so I feel pretty accomplished now that I have.  This is definitely a hobby I want to continue to pursue!

While I found it far too acidic to drink, Kate's Buttermilk worked well to bake with.

Buttermilk drop biscuits!  Yum!  They came out SO fluffy!

Buttermilk soda bread!  Yum!
It wasn't quite as fluffy as the biscuits, but the flavor was a bit richer and the crust was nice and crispy.

Paltry Pine Plains

So today my friend Erika (the usual suspect) and I decided to revisit the town of Pine Plains, about 20 miles east of Bard.  We'd been there once before, on a whim, and, arriving after 5 on a Saturday evening, found it to be rather deserted.  But it looked like a sort of cute town, so we were wondering if it would be more lively during regular business hours.  To investigate, we headed over there this morning.  As it turns out, this tiny town centered around a four-way stop is no livelier on Monday at mid-morning than it was that long-ago Saturday evening.  Most of the businesses were closed and dark, and there was almost no one else on the street, or anywhere in sight.  We did, however, happen upon a labyrinth that was free and open to the public in the back yard of one of the town's churches, so Pine Plains wasn't a total wash!

downtown Pine Plains

This antique shop claimed to be open, but it looked suspiciously closed and deserted...
I liked the headless statue.

The labyrinth!!

This was part of the display for the town's physical therapy office...

Magnificent, Peaceful Montgomery Place

Late this morning, my friend Erika and I ventured over to Montgomery Place, an old estate right down the road from Bard.  As with Poets' Walk, I'd never been there before, so my visit was long overdue.  I couldn't go inside the house, but I enjoyed walking around the grounds, which were very quiet.  Somehow views of the mountains across the river never get old!  Possibly my favorite part of the estate was a little man-made pond called The Ellipse, partly because of its name, and partly because I thought it was a particularly beautiful spot.  It was a nice local excursion!

view from the visitors' center of the orchards

the manor at Montgomery Place

view of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains

a beautiful flower in the gardens

The Ellipse!

a frog floating in the Ellipse

Pretty, Wonderful Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk is only a short drive from Bard, but somehow I'd never gotten around to visiting this charming property until today!  I'm very glad I finally went.  While the welcome sign's claim that Poets' Walk is "where beauty meets truth" may be a bit exaggerated, it certainly was a lovely place.  I didn't have time to walk all of the trails this park has to offer, but I liked what I did see.  Poets' Walk offers a charming mix of fields and woods with surprising views of the Hudson River and rustic wooden structures along the trails.  It's a great place to take a peaceful stroll in the company of a good friend!

I really liked this sign!

Flowers for sale at the park!

one of the cute wooden structures at Poets' Walk

Fields, trees, the river, mountains--Poets' Walk has it all!