It Begins
“This is the opposite of a merry Christmas,” my wife says to me as I eat another spoonful of green frosting in anger. I’m trying to build a gingerbread house, and it’s not going well.
“Yeah, dad. You’re like the Grinch,” Maisie, my 10-year old daughter adds from across the kitchen. Me? Anti-Christmas? Grinch-like? Wait a second - I’m the one who decided to make this gingerbread house from scratch in the first place – the guy who found the recipe, bought the ingredients, baked the gingerbread, made the icing, designed the scene and even agreed to listen to Christmas carols while I worked. I should get a congratulatory phone call from Pater Noel himself for this effort, but the two women in my life make it clear I’m no St. Nick. My whiny petulance isn’t helping.
“This whole this is stupid,” I mutter as I eat more frosting, my teeth now an unnatural shade of green.
It began so innocently. I accepted the challenge to build an elaborate gingerbread house as a way to embrace the holiday season- to breathe in the coconut dust, cream of tartar and ground ginger like they were gentle whispers from the North Pole, but instead I’ve got Canada mints in my teeth, red licorice in my hair and a structure in front of me that looks like it’s been sitting on the San Andreas Fault. To top it off, I’ll be judged on this effort by non-family members.
I may have made a mistake a week or so back, taking my wife’s suggestion to ask the Fru-Gals, those witty, talented recipe mavens from the Monitor’s Wednesday pages, to join forces with me in a gingerbread house building circle of columnists holiday celebration. But it quickly became a winner-take-all contest to see who could build the better gingerbread house. What started out as a “Laverne and Shirley drink milk and Pepsi with Fonzie” kind of thing devolved into a Battle of the Network Stars showdown, and I’m Gabe Kaplan running for my life from Robert Conrad because I made fun of the battery on his shoulder.
A nice, heartwarming tale of friendship and learning morphed into a ruthless competition of May the Best House Win, and I fear things won’t end well for me. But I refuse to quit. I can do this. I can build a winning gingerbread house.
The Design
For starters, I head online to find that one perfect design, perusing plans for everything from wee cottages to entire villages, from luxury homes with names like “The Winchester” and “Kensington Manor,” to rustic bird houses of more humble origins. I first settle on “Barn with Silo Gingerbread House” – an understated yet traditional plan. But I dig a little deeper and search for “gingerbread outhouse,” just for kicks. And there it is - detailed instruction for an outhouse, or what’s officially known as a “1939 US Forest Service One Hole Leaching Pit Privy.” And any set of instructions that includes the phrase, “Warm and soften one stick of gum by carrying it your pocket, or if you’re female, by placing it in your brassier” is a keeper. I’m making an outhouse.
Man vs. Mixer
My friend Kim loans me her industrial-sized mixer, and after the first of three trips to the market, I get to work on making the gingerbread dough. I choose a recipe for “construction-grade” building materials and refer often to a list of tips a local gingerbread guru shares with me (name to be revealed when I win). Sure, it’ll be edible once I’m done, but road kill is edible too, but I’m not sure I’d take a bite.
I’m learning that industrial mixers don’t care if your hand’s in the bowl – they will continue to rotate regardless. The dough isn’t cooperating, and the more I try to time the rotations and jab in a spatula to coax the dough into behaving, the more I wish I’d chosen poinsettia farming for this month’s column, my knuckles rapped in regular intervals and my blood pressure rising.
“Are you sweating?” my wife asks as she walks into the kitchen. She doesn’t wait for an answer as I mop my flour-covered brow. I finish the dough, two huge bricks of it, and put it in the fridge for a few days as I work out my design. By this point, the smell of gingerbread is vaguely nauseating, like the morning after an elfin frat house bender.
Measure Once, Cut Twice
I’ve decided to make matching his and hers outhouses, in homage to a simpler time when men were men and industrial mixers were something you wore your dancing shoes to. I’m reminded of what I’ve gotten myself into when I see my friend Steve at the gas station. He’s dressed in full camouflage, filling red gas cans for his four-wheeler. He’s spending the day in the woods building tree stands for deer hunting. “So what are you up to today?” Steve asks me.
“Um, uh, building a gingerbread house,” I respond. Steve doesn’t guffaw or slap me in the head with a deer hoof, but as he drives away, I’m sure he’s thinking, “That guy’s got rocks in his head.”
Maybe a few rocks, but definitely not much patience. Back at home I cut out patterns and bake them for my matching privy huts, learning that uneven dough, dull knives and hyperventilation are a recipe for misshapen results.
Decoration Day
It’s Decoration Day, and I’m up early, determined to start and finish planning, constructing and decorating my design. My daughter’s agreed to help. The two of us are two peas in an impatient pod, so this should be entertaining for anyone within earshot. “Maisie, wait – we’ll do the icing in a second.” “Stop – put that knife down – wait for me.” “If you keep eating the licorice, you’ll feel sick.” This one-way discussion lasts for a good hour before Maisie announces she needs a break. I’ve been getting everything ready all morning, and between making the royal icing to rolling out the fondant to debating whether marshmallows or coconut makes better snow, I haven’t figured out how to make the most of Maisie’s talents. We settle on Christmas trees – upside-down ice cream cones covered with green icing flowers. After fifteen minutes of wrestling with the decorating tip and a bag filled with half a pound of green frosting, I can feel the frustration rising. “Dad, are you done yet? I want to get started,” Maisie asks. I hand her the sugar-filled plastic bag, and she gets to work. My wife just shakes her head.
Meanwhile, the royal icing’s leaking all over the floor behind me as the walls of the first outhouse dry, cans of Spam and kidney beans holding them in place. But slowly, as Maisie makes her forest, the outhouses take shape, complete with white toilet seats and rolls of cottony-looking toilet paper. Maisie adds mini stars to the trees and a snowman, and our scene comes together. As the doors go up (star for the man’s outhouse and half-moon for the woman’s), I’m starting to think I’m getting the hang of this. I add a fondant pond dyed a swirling shade of blue with a “Thin Ice” sign for good measure, surrounded by shoveled coconut snow. The ventilation pipes on the outhouse roofs add a nice touch, and Maisie’s snowman wears a Smarties fez atop his fondant head.
Drafty Dreams
But there’s still so much to do. Maisie’s wandered off, the icing continues to drip and stick to everything, and my second outhouse looks like it’s one snowman stink eye away from crashing down into a barely edible heap. And if I hear George Michael sing one more verse of “Last Christmas,” I may escape by downing the remaining pint of royal icing and lapsing into a sugar coma.
As the afternoon lingers, I try an ambitious design approach. I’ve covered one of the outhouses entirely in white fondant, that smooth, elastic coating you see on fancy cakes. I wanted to glue red licorice in a candy cane pattern to the fondant, but gravity works against me. So I use red frosting, but that looks even worse. I then paint red lines with concentrated red food dye, but my lines are less than parallel. I finally just coat the entire outhouse blood red, like something out of The Shining. I cover the rest of the scene in coconut and icing, adding a sprinkle of glittery dust for that just snowed-upon look.
It’s close to 9 PM, and I’m out of supplies, time and interest. I’ve spent more than twelve hours on this project and plan on never eating gingerbread again. My back’s killing me, and my fingers are stained blue, red and green and covered in glitter. It’s time put the icing down and go to bed where visions of drafty outhouses will dance in my head. Next year, I’m going deer hunting with Steve.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
I Survived Black Friday . . .
Black Friday, America’s de facto shopping holiday, falls every year on the day after Thanksgiving. I’d thought about participating but never did, held back by pride and the lack of both patience and money. But this year I couldn’t resist the lure of great deals any longer. So I joined in a strict observance of Black Friday. This is my story.
Thursday
10 AM – The morning paper arrives with thirty-plus store flyers crammed with Black Friday deals – from Bon Ton’s ruffled handbag collection to brand-name laptops at Best Buy to $49.99 quilting sets at Jo-Ann Fabric to dirt-cheap sweaters at Old Navy’s “Gobble Palooza” event. The Burlington Coat Factory offers reasonably priced “bubble jackets” for the whole family – the photo depicts a nuclear family smiling like Chinese factory workers during a party official’s visit, except for the dog, who wears a bubble jacket and a distracted frown. His jacket may say, “Black Friday savings!” but his smile says, “Looking forward to biting the animal wrangler who stapled me into this coat.”
11:30 AM – I reread the flyers, working out my strategy. I notice the fine print and see phrases like, “Five per store,” and “No rain checks.” Rain checks are for baseball games – what does this all mean?
5:30 PM – The week’s news stories are filled with warnings about Black Friday. “How to Survive Black Friday” is a popular headline (stop, drop and roll, I suspect) as is “Black Friday’s Dirty Secrets.” The unfortunate word choice of “Door Busters,” used to describe the best deals imaginable, isn’t lost on me. A Long Island Wal-Mart worker was killed on Black Friday 2008 when a crowd couldn’t wait any longer, burst past the doors and trampled the young man to death. I might pin my home address and blood type to my own bubble jacket in case things go awry.
6:00 PM - My 14-year old son Sam agrees to join me. He’s faster and stronger and pines openly for a new video game, assuming it’ll be his reward for joining me. “We’ll get it at Best Buy on sale,” he announces. We agree to start the night at the Tanger Outlet mall in Tilton, twenty minutes north and end our excursion at Best Buy in Concord.
11:20 PM – A lone spotlight scans the night sky over Tilton as we park and head towards the mall. There are so many people here that it’s unnerving. The mood isn’t what I’d call “festive,” despite the quartet playing Christmas carols on their flutes and horns. Scores of people walk the concourse, some standing in lines dozens deep, waiting for stores to open. I meet my sister and her friend, and we part ways immediately. There’s no time for family on Black Friday, unless a loan is necessary.
11:35 PM – Standing in the middle of the Nike outlet, we try on jackets, pullovers and shirts. Sam grabs a bag of socks with the word,”Irregular” on it. Pirates would have loved this place.
11:50 PM – Lines outside stores like J Crew, Ralph Lauren and The Gap are growing. The sidewalks teem with shoppers, none of whom seems to want to be here, especially the two toddlers in a dual stroller whose mom wedges them through the crowd. I’ve seen better parenting choices but keep it to myself and run to find Sam, who’s in Banana Republic, looking for a jacket for his mom. The store’s a whirlwind of frenzied shopping. Everything in the store is 50% off tonight, and you’d think a lifetime of free healthcare’s included with every flat-front khaki trouser sold because people are giddy, their arms filled. We learn the jacket (“with toggle buttons”) was gone weeks ago and leave empty-handed. Besides, how many cowl-neck safari picnic jackets with matching print scarves can one person buy in a night?
Friday
12:09 AM – Sale prices at Brooks Brothers are like cute girls at Sci Fi conventions – they exist only in rumor. You always end up alone with a $70 pink seersucker bathing suit on sale for $65.60, just like the last time. “Can we please leave this place?” Sam begs. We watch shoppers file into the Yankee Candle store. Every elementary school teacher from Meredith to Hollis must be getting one this year – people caress huge candle buckets as they lurch outside, no hint of a smile or a sense of relief on their faces. A teenage girl in her pajamas and slippers shuffles past holding her boyfriend’s hand, heading for the monster line outside Starbucks.
12:40 AM – The mood on the sidewalk isn’t improving. An angry woman cuts us off as she runs into Casual Male XL. I’d be grumpy too if my casually extra-large spouse sent me to Tilton in the middle of the night to find him a new formal muumuu and matching compression stockings.
12:48 AM - People look anxious, almost panicked, like when Gamera appeared in the night sky over Tokyo. I’d welcome an enormous prehistoric sea turtle rising up in the sky over J Crew, scattering the waiting crowds with a shriek and a blast from his fire-breathing snout. “This is kinda scary,” Sam says, and we head for the car.
12:53 AM – We reject the idea of sleep tonight and instead sit down for a hot meal. Over plates of eggs, corned beef hash, vanilla cokes and waffles, we sort the store flyers into three piles- YES (Best Buy, Dick’s, Bon Ton), NO (Kohl’s, JC Penney,) and MAYBE (Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Sears and Michael’s Crafts). It’s barely past 1 AM, and as the diner fills to capacity, we decide to head to Concord and whatever awaits us.
1:40 AM – After midnight, the line between Wanting and Needing gets blurry. “You want a nice TV, and the sales are so good, so you really need it,” Sam suggests. “And I need Call of Duty, definitely.” A few days earlier, when I told my wife about Target’s Doorbuster Special – a flat screen TV for less than $300, her response was similar. “I want that TV – no, I NEED that TV.” Wanting and needing have always meant the same thing to me late in the night’s wee small hours. Tonight must be no different.
2:10 AM – The line inside Toys R Us is either free market capitalism at its best or its abject worst. It ends at the registers and snakes back and forth, down every aisle along one wall to the back, across the back wall and begins somewhere along the opposite side, heading back down towards the registers. At least 600 people stand next to shopping carts filled with games, clothes, action figures, horses and books, their eyes a mixture of despondency and gloom. One man has ten board games in his cart - on the top rests game, “Would You Rather,” as in, “Would you rather feed your pancreas to angry hamsters than be in this line much longer.” I bet a few people wish they had a Strangle Me Elmo so they could end it before reaching the checkout line.
2:35 AM – We enter Wal-Mart and wonder if this is like what Woodstock was like before the bands arrived. Groups of people sit on the ground, playing cards or reading books, closed off behind yellow rope, waiting for the 5 AM clarion call to take advantage of sale prices. I wait a half-hour to buy a camera, and we watch the crowds grow and grow. The poor woman waiting on us is in a full sweat, knows very little about these cameras, fending off line cutters and people looking for ammo and candied yams.
2:50 AM – Sam tries to ask me a question but it sounds like he’s talking in his sleep. Two women pass by, and one of them says, “You looking for Wii games? They’re in the Dairy section,” as the other woman accepts this truth without hesitation. Black Friday – a day when everyone should expect $60 video games to be sold next to unsalted butter and strawberry Go-Gurt squeeze tubes.
3:05 AM – Near the Wal-Mart exit, a woman exhales cigarette smoke in my face while yelling into her cell phone, “Seriously? She needs another microwave? That’s wicked stupid.” We keep walking. In the car, we need a moment. Wal-Mart just sucked the life from us. Sam crawls into the back and fashions a bed for himself among the coupons.
3:09 AM – Corned beef hash is never a smart choice.
3:10 AM – Our plans to shop at Best Buy need to change. Doors don’t open for almost two hours, and the line is hundreds of people long. Two tents are pitched near the entrance, and police officers chat with future customers. “I’m not waiting in that,” Sam says, his hopes for a low-priced video game dimming. I ask people how long they’ve been waiting. “Since midnight,” someone yells. “Ten o’clock tonight!” a father and son shout. “I’ve been here since two yesterday afternoon,” one guy tells me as he heads to the port-o-potty. I can’t tell if he’s proud or embarrassed.
3:55 AM – “So if Best Buy won’t work and there are only five TVs at Target - what are you gonna do?” Sam asks. He knows I want a TV – the ones I saw in the flyers – and he won’t let it go. We’re parked near Bon Ton and Sears, and they both open in five minutes. I find the Sears flyer and clarify the want versus need argument, circling the $379 32” LCD TV (only six per store – no rain checks). “Then let’s get in line,” he says, and we do.
4:01 AM – I’m trying not to run, and the woman in front of me is doing me no favors, shuffling along at a non-competitive pace. Where is Sam? I’ll never get there in time – only six per store! Would you please hurry, I want to yell. I find the line but am too far back. Want and Need have converged into “I can’t imagine life without that TV.” Just then, Sam’s head pops out of the line near the front. “We’re all set,” he smiles. He’s right. We get the TV I wanted and needed and head for the door.
4:50 AM – I’m trying to do the math, calculating the savings from my Bon Ton coupons and the offers on the down comforters I’ve been instructed to find. If I did it correctly, Bon Ton owes me $37. But on second thought, I’ve been awake for almost twenty four hours, and math’s never been my strong suit. Put them down and walk away.
5:25 AM – The traffic is so thick that we have to fight to get across the road to Dick’s Sporting Goods. The sales are mediocre at best here, unless I want cold weather hunting bib overalls. Sam’s wandering aimlessly, the energy leaving his body. I’m lost in women’s sportswear, seeking a new top for my wife. I grab one and feel it with my fingers and as I look up, a woman stares at me and walks away. Even on Black Friday, pawing women’s sportswear in public is frowned upon.
5:35 AM – One last attempt at Best Buy, but the line is even longer, and they’re managing the door like bouncers at a discotheque - two come out, two go in. Before we can park, a mom and daughter pair in matching sweat suits and perms cuts us off. They look like they power-walked from the Epsom traffic circle. I don’t have the strength to even honk.
5:45 AM – Target is complete chaos. The line stretches from the cashiers to the absolute back of the store, and we walk the length of it just to see how bad it is. The aisles are crowded, and I bet if I shouted that plastic forks were now on sale in Aisle 16, we’d have a full-scale riot. We leave and head home. We’ve had enough.
5:50 AM – The rain starts to fall. We’ve lost the ability to converse, now communicating in a series of grunts and chirps on the ride home.
5:59 AM – I pull into the driveway. Sam walks upstairs without a word. I follow and fall into a restless sleep, my mind filled with extra microwaves, the Sears 50-yard dash, and dreams of a line at Toys R Us that stretches from here to infinity and beyond.
Thursday
10 AM – The morning paper arrives with thirty-plus store flyers crammed with Black Friday deals – from Bon Ton’s ruffled handbag collection to brand-name laptops at Best Buy to $49.99 quilting sets at Jo-Ann Fabric to dirt-cheap sweaters at Old Navy’s “Gobble Palooza” event. The Burlington Coat Factory offers reasonably priced “bubble jackets” for the whole family – the photo depicts a nuclear family smiling like Chinese factory workers during a party official’s visit, except for the dog, who wears a bubble jacket and a distracted frown. His jacket may say, “Black Friday savings!” but his smile says, “Looking forward to biting the animal wrangler who stapled me into this coat.”
11:30 AM – I reread the flyers, working out my strategy. I notice the fine print and see phrases like, “Five per store,” and “No rain checks.” Rain checks are for baseball games – what does this all mean?
5:30 PM – The week’s news stories are filled with warnings about Black Friday. “How to Survive Black Friday” is a popular headline (stop, drop and roll, I suspect) as is “Black Friday’s Dirty Secrets.” The unfortunate word choice of “Door Busters,” used to describe the best deals imaginable, isn’t lost on me. A Long Island Wal-Mart worker was killed on Black Friday 2008 when a crowd couldn’t wait any longer, burst past the doors and trampled the young man to death. I might pin my home address and blood type to my own bubble jacket in case things go awry.
6:00 PM - My 14-year old son Sam agrees to join me. He’s faster and stronger and pines openly for a new video game, assuming it’ll be his reward for joining me. “We’ll get it at Best Buy on sale,” he announces. We agree to start the night at the Tanger Outlet mall in Tilton, twenty minutes north and end our excursion at Best Buy in Concord.
11:20 PM – A lone spotlight scans the night sky over Tilton as we park and head towards the mall. There are so many people here that it’s unnerving. The mood isn’t what I’d call “festive,” despite the quartet playing Christmas carols on their flutes and horns. Scores of people walk the concourse, some standing in lines dozens deep, waiting for stores to open. I meet my sister and her friend, and we part ways immediately. There’s no time for family on Black Friday, unless a loan is necessary.
11:35 PM – Standing in the middle of the Nike outlet, we try on jackets, pullovers and shirts. Sam grabs a bag of socks with the word,”Irregular” on it. Pirates would have loved this place.
11:50 PM – Lines outside stores like J Crew, Ralph Lauren and The Gap are growing. The sidewalks teem with shoppers, none of whom seems to want to be here, especially the two toddlers in a dual stroller whose mom wedges them through the crowd. I’ve seen better parenting choices but keep it to myself and run to find Sam, who’s in Banana Republic, looking for a jacket for his mom. The store’s a whirlwind of frenzied shopping. Everything in the store is 50% off tonight, and you’d think a lifetime of free healthcare’s included with every flat-front khaki trouser sold because people are giddy, their arms filled. We learn the jacket (“with toggle buttons”) was gone weeks ago and leave empty-handed. Besides, how many cowl-neck safari picnic jackets with matching print scarves can one person buy in a night?
Friday
12:09 AM – Sale prices at Brooks Brothers are like cute girls at Sci Fi conventions – they exist only in rumor. You always end up alone with a $70 pink seersucker bathing suit on sale for $65.60, just like the last time. “Can we please leave this place?” Sam begs. We watch shoppers file into the Yankee Candle store. Every elementary school teacher from Meredith to Hollis must be getting one this year – people caress huge candle buckets as they lurch outside, no hint of a smile or a sense of relief on their faces. A teenage girl in her pajamas and slippers shuffles past holding her boyfriend’s hand, heading for the monster line outside Starbucks.
12:40 AM – The mood on the sidewalk isn’t improving. An angry woman cuts us off as she runs into Casual Male XL. I’d be grumpy too if my casually extra-large spouse sent me to Tilton in the middle of the night to find him a new formal muumuu and matching compression stockings.
12:48 AM - People look anxious, almost panicked, like when Gamera appeared in the night sky over Tokyo. I’d welcome an enormous prehistoric sea turtle rising up in the sky over J Crew, scattering the waiting crowds with a shriek and a blast from his fire-breathing snout. “This is kinda scary,” Sam says, and we head for the car.
12:53 AM – We reject the idea of sleep tonight and instead sit down for a hot meal. Over plates of eggs, corned beef hash, vanilla cokes and waffles, we sort the store flyers into three piles- YES (Best Buy, Dick’s, Bon Ton), NO (Kohl’s, JC Penney,) and MAYBE (Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Sears and Michael’s Crafts). It’s barely past 1 AM, and as the diner fills to capacity, we decide to head to Concord and whatever awaits us.
1:40 AM – After midnight, the line between Wanting and Needing gets blurry. “You want a nice TV, and the sales are so good, so you really need it,” Sam suggests. “And I need Call of Duty, definitely.” A few days earlier, when I told my wife about Target’s Doorbuster Special – a flat screen TV for less than $300, her response was similar. “I want that TV – no, I NEED that TV.” Wanting and needing have always meant the same thing to me late in the night’s wee small hours. Tonight must be no different.
2:10 AM – The line inside Toys R Us is either free market capitalism at its best or its abject worst. It ends at the registers and snakes back and forth, down every aisle along one wall to the back, across the back wall and begins somewhere along the opposite side, heading back down towards the registers. At least 600 people stand next to shopping carts filled with games, clothes, action figures, horses and books, their eyes a mixture of despondency and gloom. One man has ten board games in his cart - on the top rests game, “Would You Rather,” as in, “Would you rather feed your pancreas to angry hamsters than be in this line much longer.” I bet a few people wish they had a Strangle Me Elmo so they could end it before reaching the checkout line.
2:35 AM – We enter Wal-Mart and wonder if this is like what Woodstock was like before the bands arrived. Groups of people sit on the ground, playing cards or reading books, closed off behind yellow rope, waiting for the 5 AM clarion call to take advantage of sale prices. I wait a half-hour to buy a camera, and we watch the crowds grow and grow. The poor woman waiting on us is in a full sweat, knows very little about these cameras, fending off line cutters and people looking for ammo and candied yams.
2:50 AM – Sam tries to ask me a question but it sounds like he’s talking in his sleep. Two women pass by, and one of them says, “You looking for Wii games? They’re in the Dairy section,” as the other woman accepts this truth without hesitation. Black Friday – a day when everyone should expect $60 video games to be sold next to unsalted butter and strawberry Go-Gurt squeeze tubes.
3:05 AM – Near the Wal-Mart exit, a woman exhales cigarette smoke in my face while yelling into her cell phone, “Seriously? She needs another microwave? That’s wicked stupid.” We keep walking. In the car, we need a moment. Wal-Mart just sucked the life from us. Sam crawls into the back and fashions a bed for himself among the coupons.
3:09 AM – Corned beef hash is never a smart choice.
3:10 AM – Our plans to shop at Best Buy need to change. Doors don’t open for almost two hours, and the line is hundreds of people long. Two tents are pitched near the entrance, and police officers chat with future customers. “I’m not waiting in that,” Sam says, his hopes for a low-priced video game dimming. I ask people how long they’ve been waiting. “Since midnight,” someone yells. “Ten o’clock tonight!” a father and son shout. “I’ve been here since two yesterday afternoon,” one guy tells me as he heads to the port-o-potty. I can’t tell if he’s proud or embarrassed.
3:55 AM – “So if Best Buy won’t work and there are only five TVs at Target - what are you gonna do?” Sam asks. He knows I want a TV – the ones I saw in the flyers – and he won’t let it go. We’re parked near Bon Ton and Sears, and they both open in five minutes. I find the Sears flyer and clarify the want versus need argument, circling the $379 32” LCD TV (only six per store – no rain checks). “Then let’s get in line,” he says, and we do.
4:01 AM – I’m trying not to run, and the woman in front of me is doing me no favors, shuffling along at a non-competitive pace. Where is Sam? I’ll never get there in time – only six per store! Would you please hurry, I want to yell. I find the line but am too far back. Want and Need have converged into “I can’t imagine life without that TV.” Just then, Sam’s head pops out of the line near the front. “We’re all set,” he smiles. He’s right. We get the TV I wanted and needed and head for the door.
4:50 AM – I’m trying to do the math, calculating the savings from my Bon Ton coupons and the offers on the down comforters I’ve been instructed to find. If I did it correctly, Bon Ton owes me $37. But on second thought, I’ve been awake for almost twenty four hours, and math’s never been my strong suit. Put them down and walk away.
5:25 AM – The traffic is so thick that we have to fight to get across the road to Dick’s Sporting Goods. The sales are mediocre at best here, unless I want cold weather hunting bib overalls. Sam’s wandering aimlessly, the energy leaving his body. I’m lost in women’s sportswear, seeking a new top for my wife. I grab one and feel it with my fingers and as I look up, a woman stares at me and walks away. Even on Black Friday, pawing women’s sportswear in public is frowned upon.
5:35 AM – One last attempt at Best Buy, but the line is even longer, and they’re managing the door like bouncers at a discotheque - two come out, two go in. Before we can park, a mom and daughter pair in matching sweat suits and perms cuts us off. They look like they power-walked from the Epsom traffic circle. I don’t have the strength to even honk.
5:45 AM – Target is complete chaos. The line stretches from the cashiers to the absolute back of the store, and we walk the length of it just to see how bad it is. The aisles are crowded, and I bet if I shouted that plastic forks were now on sale in Aisle 16, we’d have a full-scale riot. We leave and head home. We’ve had enough.
5:50 AM – The rain starts to fall. We’ve lost the ability to converse, now communicating in a series of grunts and chirps on the ride home.
5:59 AM – I pull into the driveway. Sam walks upstairs without a word. I follow and fall into a restless sleep, my mind filled with extra microwaves, the Sears 50-yard dash, and dreams of a line at Toys R Us that stretches from here to infinity and beyond.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Llama Time!
Of all the things I’d hoped to accomplish by the time I turned 42, placing my hands on the buttocks of a stubborn llama and trying to push it across a babbling brook wasn’t high on the list. But until today, I’d no idea what I was missing. Hamilton, the recalcitrant llama, is no fan of water, and this is the second stream he’s refused to cross. We changed direction about an hour ago at the lip of a shallow pool of marshy grass, and Deanna, my guide, isn’t happy. “This is the only way home, Hamilton,” Deanna says, gesturing me towards Hamilton’s hind quarters and taking my own llama’s lead from me. Dizzy, my llama, is too busy eating to worry about wet feet. He’s like a chubby kid in an éclair factory – the Augustus Gloop of the even-toed ungulate family – wolfing down everything he sees – oak leaves, wet grass, and pine needles. Dizzy’s also kept up a steady hum the entire hike, and it’s either nerves at my novice llama leading skills, or he’s just naturally musical. Either way, his humming gets louder as Hamilton digs his hooves into the mud.
My pushing gets us nowhere, so Deanna switches places. I’m now tugging on the halter while Deanna pushes. I’m half-expecting Rex Harrison to emerge from the brush and break into song about the Push Me Pull Me, but the only sounds are Dizzy’s humming and Deanna’s gentle chiding. For a large beast getting shoved and yanked in a direction he has no interest in heading, Hamilton’s silent, save for his heavy breathing.
Just as Deanna’s about to give up and return the way we came, Hamilton’s hoof slips in the mud, and in an instant, he’s airborne, all four legs a foot off the ground as he leaps past me onto the trail. I almost drop the lead at the shock of it but hold on as Hamilton stops. We keep moving along the trail, Dizzy humming a tune only he knows.
Deanna Morrison is my guide and host today at Cicely Farm, tucked in the northeast corner of Concord on the Canterbury line. Deanna and her husband have lived at Cicely Farm since the mid ‘90s, and Deanna’s llama habit didn’t start until a few years later. “My husband bought me two in ’99, and I’ve just kept going,” she tells me as we stand in her barn. The farm’s a sprawling expanse of pasture, hay fields, thick woods, white farm house, stables and this barn that’s more than 150 years old. What I notice most are the llamas. There are lots of them. They stopped and stared from the fields as I drove in, and now as I walk into Deanna’s barn, the llamas approach from behind the gate. At least a dozen fill the stalls - big brown ones, multi-colored ones and a spotted, light gray one with droopy, hairy ears that make him look like Cyndi Lauper, if she were a large ruminant who spits at strangers.
Since starting with two, Deanna’s grown her collection to twenty five llamas and three alpacas. The alpacas stick out, smaller with different ears and cream-colored coats that look recently shorn. Deanna talks while she works, a whirlwind of activity and enthusiasm. I learn that llamas can live to be twenty-five years old, are pregnant for almost twelve months, have sharp “fighting teeth,” and are originally from South America. “It’s time to feed these fellas,” she tells me, directing me to the bucket of pellets. Deanna herds in Hamilton, Dizzy, Spotty, Tatonka and Woody, to name a few. Notorious, aka, “Tory,” sees me, pins his ears back, wags his tail and clucks at me with his tongue. Just before I can say something stupid like, “He likes me! He really likes me!” Deanna scolds Tory to back away and warns me to keep my distance. “He’s clucking because he’s threatened, and llamas only wag their tails when they’re not happy.” So much for first impressions.
“Where’s your bucket?” Deanna holds the cup of pellets out near the feed bucket and repeats, “Where’s your bucket?” The llamas dip their noses down to the bucket, and she pours in the food. She lets them finish, shuttling them out and the others in, her and their movements a gentle, silent dance, the only noise the clanging of the gates and the steady munching of food.
After an hour or so of watching, listening and learning, I have to ask. “Why llamas?” Based on what I’ve seen, you can’t ride, hug or eat them, so why own a llama farm? Deanna explains the many reasons to own llamas but doesn’t do it for any of the ones she mentions. She doesn’t breed her llamas or enter them into performance or “beauty events.” She doesn’t train them as guards for sheep farmers, and she thinks shearing and selling the fiber is a waste of time (“I’ve got plenty of it tucked away and if you want some, you’re welcome to it.”) “My llamas are pet-quality llamas. I have my llamas for the llamas,” she explains as we spread hay out for llama lunchtime. Some llama owners grow bored or tired of the routine, and they seek Deanna out to take the creatures off their hands. “Most of my llamas are rescue llamas – I took them because their owners were done with them.” Based on the attention and care she gives them, these llamas have “llucked” out, you might say.
But Deanna’s explanation begs another question. Why would anyone breed llamas? There can’t be many llama obstacle courses in the world, and ESPN has yet to broadcast the Miss Llama Universe competition. I wonder if somewhere the Bernie Madoff of the Camelid class sits in his llama-fiber and jewel-encrusted Snuggie, counting his loot while the market collapses, exposing the llama breeding industry for the Ponzi scheme it just might be.
But I’ve got manure to shovel and hay to spread, and as Deanna leads me down towards the females’ enclosure, it’s easy to see why she loves this so much. The eight females surround me, quiet and calm as they nibble at the hay bale I’m carting. Deanna shoos them away as we make our way across the field, but as we stop, one llama stands in my way. Every step I take she takes one to block me. “That’s Fiona,” Deanna says. “She does not play well with people.”
As Deanna tells me this, Fiona approaches from behind, smelling my hair and breathing in my ears from her massive nostrils, walking around me, her hot breath covering my face. Now, my experience with the ladies has been that whispers of sweet nothings from a whiskered muzzle in my ear usually means good times ahead, but Deanna’s seen enough, and she pens off Fiona until I can finish spreading hay, filling water and shoveling manure. Fiona stands behind the gate, staring at me with her deep, dark glassy eyes. “She’s trying to assert her dominance over you,” Deanna explains. Considering she’s watching me shovel her poop into a large bucket, I’d say Fiona’s won this round.
I bid goodbye to Fiona and her friends as Deanna and I prepare for our walk with Dizzy and Hamilton. Deanna runs a small business here - “Cicely Farm Llama Adventures,” where you can “Hike with the llamas on our wooded trails.” Deanna’s chosen Dizzy for me because he’s one of the original two llamas and is comfortable on the trails. Hamilton’s a wild card, as we later realize, but Deanna’s the kind of farmer who’s willing to give every llama the benefit of the doubt.
The walk in the woods is worth it – we cover acres and acres of winding trails across Cicely Farm’s property, and the llamas, except for the water hazard hesitations, were exemplary. There’s something very relaxing about taking a hike with a llama, and I’m going back for seconds. But if you get there before me, tell Fiona I said hi.
(Learn more about Cicely Farm by emailing cicely.farmer@comcast.net.)
My pushing gets us nowhere, so Deanna switches places. I’m now tugging on the halter while Deanna pushes. I’m half-expecting Rex Harrison to emerge from the brush and break into song about the Push Me Pull Me, but the only sounds are Dizzy’s humming and Deanna’s gentle chiding. For a large beast getting shoved and yanked in a direction he has no interest in heading, Hamilton’s silent, save for his heavy breathing.
Just as Deanna’s about to give up and return the way we came, Hamilton’s hoof slips in the mud, and in an instant, he’s airborne, all four legs a foot off the ground as he leaps past me onto the trail. I almost drop the lead at the shock of it but hold on as Hamilton stops. We keep moving along the trail, Dizzy humming a tune only he knows.
Deanna Morrison is my guide and host today at Cicely Farm, tucked in the northeast corner of Concord on the Canterbury line. Deanna and her husband have lived at Cicely Farm since the mid ‘90s, and Deanna’s llama habit didn’t start until a few years later. “My husband bought me two in ’99, and I’ve just kept going,” she tells me as we stand in her barn. The farm’s a sprawling expanse of pasture, hay fields, thick woods, white farm house, stables and this barn that’s more than 150 years old. What I notice most are the llamas. There are lots of them. They stopped and stared from the fields as I drove in, and now as I walk into Deanna’s barn, the llamas approach from behind the gate. At least a dozen fill the stalls - big brown ones, multi-colored ones and a spotted, light gray one with droopy, hairy ears that make him look like Cyndi Lauper, if she were a large ruminant who spits at strangers.
Since starting with two, Deanna’s grown her collection to twenty five llamas and three alpacas. The alpacas stick out, smaller with different ears and cream-colored coats that look recently shorn. Deanna talks while she works, a whirlwind of activity and enthusiasm. I learn that llamas can live to be twenty-five years old, are pregnant for almost twelve months, have sharp “fighting teeth,” and are originally from South America. “It’s time to feed these fellas,” she tells me, directing me to the bucket of pellets. Deanna herds in Hamilton, Dizzy, Spotty, Tatonka and Woody, to name a few. Notorious, aka, “Tory,” sees me, pins his ears back, wags his tail and clucks at me with his tongue. Just before I can say something stupid like, “He likes me! He really likes me!” Deanna scolds Tory to back away and warns me to keep my distance. “He’s clucking because he’s threatened, and llamas only wag their tails when they’re not happy.” So much for first impressions.
“Where’s your bucket?” Deanna holds the cup of pellets out near the feed bucket and repeats, “Where’s your bucket?” The llamas dip their noses down to the bucket, and she pours in the food. She lets them finish, shuttling them out and the others in, her and their movements a gentle, silent dance, the only noise the clanging of the gates and the steady munching of food.
After an hour or so of watching, listening and learning, I have to ask. “Why llamas?” Based on what I’ve seen, you can’t ride, hug or eat them, so why own a llama farm? Deanna explains the many reasons to own llamas but doesn’t do it for any of the ones she mentions. She doesn’t breed her llamas or enter them into performance or “beauty events.” She doesn’t train them as guards for sheep farmers, and she thinks shearing and selling the fiber is a waste of time (“I’ve got plenty of it tucked away and if you want some, you’re welcome to it.”) “My llamas are pet-quality llamas. I have my llamas for the llamas,” she explains as we spread hay out for llama lunchtime. Some llama owners grow bored or tired of the routine, and they seek Deanna out to take the creatures off their hands. “Most of my llamas are rescue llamas – I took them because their owners were done with them.” Based on the attention and care she gives them, these llamas have “llucked” out, you might say.
But Deanna’s explanation begs another question. Why would anyone breed llamas? There can’t be many llama obstacle courses in the world, and ESPN has yet to broadcast the Miss Llama Universe competition. I wonder if somewhere the Bernie Madoff of the Camelid class sits in his llama-fiber and jewel-encrusted Snuggie, counting his loot while the market collapses, exposing the llama breeding industry for the Ponzi scheme it just might be.
But I’ve got manure to shovel and hay to spread, and as Deanna leads me down towards the females’ enclosure, it’s easy to see why she loves this so much. The eight females surround me, quiet and calm as they nibble at the hay bale I’m carting. Deanna shoos them away as we make our way across the field, but as we stop, one llama stands in my way. Every step I take she takes one to block me. “That’s Fiona,” Deanna says. “She does not play well with people.”
As Deanna tells me this, Fiona approaches from behind, smelling my hair and breathing in my ears from her massive nostrils, walking around me, her hot breath covering my face. Now, my experience with the ladies has been that whispers of sweet nothings from a whiskered muzzle in my ear usually means good times ahead, but Deanna’s seen enough, and she pens off Fiona until I can finish spreading hay, filling water and shoveling manure. Fiona stands behind the gate, staring at me with her deep, dark glassy eyes. “She’s trying to assert her dominance over you,” Deanna explains. Considering she’s watching me shovel her poop into a large bucket, I’d say Fiona’s won this round.
I bid goodbye to Fiona and her friends as Deanna and I prepare for our walk with Dizzy and Hamilton. Deanna runs a small business here - “Cicely Farm Llama Adventures,” where you can “Hike with the llamas on our wooded trails.” Deanna’s chosen Dizzy for me because he’s one of the original two llamas and is comfortable on the trails. Hamilton’s a wild card, as we later realize, but Deanna’s the kind of farmer who’s willing to give every llama the benefit of the doubt.
The walk in the woods is worth it – we cover acres and acres of winding trails across Cicely Farm’s property, and the llamas, except for the water hazard hesitations, were exemplary. There’s something very relaxing about taking a hike with a llama, and I’m going back for seconds. But if you get there before me, tell Fiona I said hi.
(Learn more about Cicely Farm by emailing cicely.farmer@comcast.net.)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Cider House Fool
“You got a pair of boots?” the farmer asks me as I shake his hand. It’s early on the last day of summer, and we’re standing next to overflowing bins of apples in the brisk morning air.
“Uh, nope,” I respond.
“Go find a pair and come back. Get ready for some hard work,” he says with a hint of a smile in his eyes.
I’d always wondered if I came from a long line of stout Irish farmers, despite the milky, callus-free hands of a toddler beauty queen and the work ethic of a tree sloth with a trust fund. But getting sent home for real-man footwear pretty much ends that debate. I’m no farmer, at least not yet.
I’m spending the day with Rob Larocque, the owner and boss of Carter Hill Orchard on the outskirts of Concord. I’ve picked my fair share of apples and swilled a lot of cider in my day, so I decide it’s time to go on the other side – to live the day as worker on Rob’s farm – to see apples from the inside out.
I arrive (again), this time wearing boots; Rob’s driving a forklift, moving bins of apples in a line out front of the huge barn. He shuts the engine off and comes over. “Follow me.” We snake past a conveyor belt, a team of people grabbing, bagging, weighing and boxing apples. I follow Rob into a back room. The noise is overwhelming, and he hands me a pair of airport luggage worker headphones, muffling the sound. Rob leads me to a window in the wall where apples tumble down a steel chute, through a washer, into a hopper and up a rubber-spiked conveyor belt. Rob’s pantomiming what he needs me to do, which I’m hoping is not lose my thumbs. He wants me to keep the loose twigs, stems and leaves out of the hopper while controlling the ebb and flow of apples from behind the wall. There are men to my left, but I’m too scared I’ll miss a stick to see what they’re doing. Between the dull roar of the machines, the slippery floor and my fear these apples will never stop, I’m finding it hard to settle into a groove, and asking for a comfy bar stool seems risky. But twenty minutes later the apples stop, the twigs are clean, and I finally figure out what’s going on.
Two men are setting the presses to make cider. My cleaned apples have been pulverized into a foamy, tan-colored goo that one man hoses onto 3x3 slats while the other lays down giants cloths, covering them with wooden pallets. I watch them stack at least ten of these combinations on top of each other while cider drips down. They shift the entire tower underneath an enormous press, and the steel arm spirals downward as the cider flows into a white drum below.
After they finish pressing the cider, I meet Rick Duame. Rick co-owns the cider outfit with Rob, and he gives me a tour of the operation, explaining everything from apple types (“Macs, Galas and Elstars in today’s batch”), to the pasteurization process, and the length of the cider-making season (“twice a week from early September until late March – when the apples run out”). Rick pours me a pint of cider before it’s cooled and pasteurized. “It’s a little tart – you’re tasting the Elstar apples – that was the last kind we used. It’ll change once we blend it.” Now we wait for the 800 or so gallons to finish pasteurizing so we can bottle.
It’s then I learn the second important rule of farming – never stand around like you’re waiting for a bus because there’s always work to be done. Rob sees me loitering and yells, “Make boxes!” He grabs the guy from the cider press. “Paul’s from Jamaica. Paul, this is Tim. He works for you. Tell him to make boxes.”
“OK, mon,” Paul says, handing me a tape gun and a stack of cardboard. I work like a man possessed, determined to show these guys I can do something right. I make at least sixty boxes, Paul stacking them as I finish each one. Just as I near the end, Rob walks over, looks at the boxes and says to all within earshot, “He made them upside down!” Everyone pauses to have a nice laugh as Paul shakes his head. “It’s OK. Don’t worry about it, mon,” he says to me.
Rob stops Rick and points to me, “Upside-down boxes! And what kind of idiot comes to a farm without boots!” Another big laugh. I deserve it all and set my sights on earning back some credit as the cider bottles start rolling.
My job is to take the filled bottles - pints, quarts, half and whole gallon jugs – and pack them into my upside-down boxes. Rob tells me I’ll need to slam the caps onto the bottles, using his open palm to demonstrate. Five minutes into the parade of pints and my hand swells from slapping bottle tops. Fifteen minutes later I’m developing a case of cider shoulder from grabbing and packing, and if I don’t slip on the juice under my feet, I might throw my spine out of line by lifting the gallon jugs onto the pallet. But I keep up.
Rick and Rob yell a non-stop steady stream of menacing encouragement (“Keep it up and you’ll be picking golden delicious all afternoon!”) and selected phrases not suitable for sharing in a community-oriented newspaper. I’m holding my own, and after two straight hours of controlled chaos, we’ve bottled, packed and stored all the cider, and I’m still alive. Rick has me test the finished product, and I taste the blended cider, delicious and smoother than the Elstar-dominated gulp I’d had before.
We eat a quick lunch before Rob introduces me to Laura, another of his employees, for a tutorial in bucket wearing and apple picking. Laura grabs my bucket and shows me the right way to wear it. “Make an X with the straps, pull them over your head and across your shoulders – keep them wide or your back will hurt,” she tells me, showing me how to fold the cloth bottom across the front and fix the straps to the hooks along the sides. Minutes later we’re next to a tree of Mutsu apples – big yellow ones the size of small melons, and Laura tells me how to pick. “Don’t twist – it hurts the tree and the apple. Grab it and turn the apple up from the bottom towards the branch,” she explains.
Laura drops me off in a row of Macintosh trees, and I find Paul and two other men. Paul shows me what to pick and what to avoid. “Take only the red ones, mon,” he says. Desmond, an older man with weathered hands and a woolen cap, watches me pick a few, offering, “This is called spot picking – choose the right ones.” I’m desperate to show them I can do this as I reach up high for a few apples. Desmond adds, “Don’t stretch. This is hard work, mon.” As I fill my bucket, I drop an apple on the ground and lean down to retrieve it. “Leave it where it falls. Don’t pick it up. OK, mon?” Desmond tells me as he returns to his bucket.
I’m slow at the start, trying to remember I’m spot picking and not grabbing everything I see. But as I keep picking and moving in and out of the trees, I find my rhythm. The third man in the group, Winston, is talking in a language that sounds like English but isn’t. I give up trying to figure out what he’s saying. He’s not conversing with anyone and talking so fast it’s like background music as we work. Every once in a while, Desmond or Paul nods, but no one talks except Winston, so we keep picking.
These Jamaicans, I learn between buckets, come to Concord for four months every year. Winston’s been coming to Carter Hill for eight years, Paul for five. Some of them have farmed tobacco outside Hartford, vegetables north of Boston and sugar cane back home in Jamaica. These guys are the pros, and that realization makes me work faster.
The apples never stop - it’s like these trees sprout new fruit the second I turn my back to empty the bucket. We’re still in the same long row of Mac apple trees, our group grown by two more men, one picking and the other moving the bins back and forth with the tractor as we fill them with bucket after bucket.
It’s now after 3 PM, and I’ve been picking for almost four hours, filling and refilling my half-bushel bucket dozens of times. My shoulders and feet ache, and I ask about quitting time. Paul responds, “Six o’clock, mon.” He smiles as my eyes go wide in disbelief. Another three hours of this and I’ll need a super-sized Aleve smoothie with an ibuprofen flavor shot to recover.
On cue, Rob arrives to check on the guys and to take me away. “It looks like you’ve had enough,” he says, my sweat-drenched shirt and punchy gait undermining my confidence in my new-found farming abilities. The truth is I haven’t had enough, and apples will never taste the same to me again.
“Uh, nope,” I respond.
“Go find a pair and come back. Get ready for some hard work,” he says with a hint of a smile in his eyes.
I’d always wondered if I came from a long line of stout Irish farmers, despite the milky, callus-free hands of a toddler beauty queen and the work ethic of a tree sloth with a trust fund. But getting sent home for real-man footwear pretty much ends that debate. I’m no farmer, at least not yet.
I’m spending the day with Rob Larocque, the owner and boss of Carter Hill Orchard on the outskirts of Concord. I’ve picked my fair share of apples and swilled a lot of cider in my day, so I decide it’s time to go on the other side – to live the day as worker on Rob’s farm – to see apples from the inside out.
I arrive (again), this time wearing boots; Rob’s driving a forklift, moving bins of apples in a line out front of the huge barn. He shuts the engine off and comes over. “Follow me.” We snake past a conveyor belt, a team of people grabbing, bagging, weighing and boxing apples. I follow Rob into a back room. The noise is overwhelming, and he hands me a pair of airport luggage worker headphones, muffling the sound. Rob leads me to a window in the wall where apples tumble down a steel chute, through a washer, into a hopper and up a rubber-spiked conveyor belt. Rob’s pantomiming what he needs me to do, which I’m hoping is not lose my thumbs. He wants me to keep the loose twigs, stems and leaves out of the hopper while controlling the ebb and flow of apples from behind the wall. There are men to my left, but I’m too scared I’ll miss a stick to see what they’re doing. Between the dull roar of the machines, the slippery floor and my fear these apples will never stop, I’m finding it hard to settle into a groove, and asking for a comfy bar stool seems risky. But twenty minutes later the apples stop, the twigs are clean, and I finally figure out what’s going on.
Two men are setting the presses to make cider. My cleaned apples have been pulverized into a foamy, tan-colored goo that one man hoses onto 3x3 slats while the other lays down giants cloths, covering them with wooden pallets. I watch them stack at least ten of these combinations on top of each other while cider drips down. They shift the entire tower underneath an enormous press, and the steel arm spirals downward as the cider flows into a white drum below.
After they finish pressing the cider, I meet Rick Duame. Rick co-owns the cider outfit with Rob, and he gives me a tour of the operation, explaining everything from apple types (“Macs, Galas and Elstars in today’s batch”), to the pasteurization process, and the length of the cider-making season (“twice a week from early September until late March – when the apples run out”). Rick pours me a pint of cider before it’s cooled and pasteurized. “It’s a little tart – you’re tasting the Elstar apples – that was the last kind we used. It’ll change once we blend it.” Now we wait for the 800 or so gallons to finish pasteurizing so we can bottle.
It’s then I learn the second important rule of farming – never stand around like you’re waiting for a bus because there’s always work to be done. Rob sees me loitering and yells, “Make boxes!” He grabs the guy from the cider press. “Paul’s from Jamaica. Paul, this is Tim. He works for you. Tell him to make boxes.”
“OK, mon,” Paul says, handing me a tape gun and a stack of cardboard. I work like a man possessed, determined to show these guys I can do something right. I make at least sixty boxes, Paul stacking them as I finish each one. Just as I near the end, Rob walks over, looks at the boxes and says to all within earshot, “He made them upside down!” Everyone pauses to have a nice laugh as Paul shakes his head. “It’s OK. Don’t worry about it, mon,” he says to me.
Rob stops Rick and points to me, “Upside-down boxes! And what kind of idiot comes to a farm without boots!” Another big laugh. I deserve it all and set my sights on earning back some credit as the cider bottles start rolling.
My job is to take the filled bottles - pints, quarts, half and whole gallon jugs – and pack them into my upside-down boxes. Rob tells me I’ll need to slam the caps onto the bottles, using his open palm to demonstrate. Five minutes into the parade of pints and my hand swells from slapping bottle tops. Fifteen minutes later I’m developing a case of cider shoulder from grabbing and packing, and if I don’t slip on the juice under my feet, I might throw my spine out of line by lifting the gallon jugs onto the pallet. But I keep up.
Rick and Rob yell a non-stop steady stream of menacing encouragement (“Keep it up and you’ll be picking golden delicious all afternoon!”) and selected phrases not suitable for sharing in a community-oriented newspaper. I’m holding my own, and after two straight hours of controlled chaos, we’ve bottled, packed and stored all the cider, and I’m still alive. Rick has me test the finished product, and I taste the blended cider, delicious and smoother than the Elstar-dominated gulp I’d had before.
We eat a quick lunch before Rob introduces me to Laura, another of his employees, for a tutorial in bucket wearing and apple picking. Laura grabs my bucket and shows me the right way to wear it. “Make an X with the straps, pull them over your head and across your shoulders – keep them wide or your back will hurt,” she tells me, showing me how to fold the cloth bottom across the front and fix the straps to the hooks along the sides. Minutes later we’re next to a tree of Mutsu apples – big yellow ones the size of small melons, and Laura tells me how to pick. “Don’t twist – it hurts the tree and the apple. Grab it and turn the apple up from the bottom towards the branch,” she explains.
Laura drops me off in a row of Macintosh trees, and I find Paul and two other men. Paul shows me what to pick and what to avoid. “Take only the red ones, mon,” he says. Desmond, an older man with weathered hands and a woolen cap, watches me pick a few, offering, “This is called spot picking – choose the right ones.” I’m desperate to show them I can do this as I reach up high for a few apples. Desmond adds, “Don’t stretch. This is hard work, mon.” As I fill my bucket, I drop an apple on the ground and lean down to retrieve it. “Leave it where it falls. Don’t pick it up. OK, mon?” Desmond tells me as he returns to his bucket.
I’m slow at the start, trying to remember I’m spot picking and not grabbing everything I see. But as I keep picking and moving in and out of the trees, I find my rhythm. The third man in the group, Winston, is talking in a language that sounds like English but isn’t. I give up trying to figure out what he’s saying. He’s not conversing with anyone and talking so fast it’s like background music as we work. Every once in a while, Desmond or Paul nods, but no one talks except Winston, so we keep picking.
These Jamaicans, I learn between buckets, come to Concord for four months every year. Winston’s been coming to Carter Hill for eight years, Paul for five. Some of them have farmed tobacco outside Hartford, vegetables north of Boston and sugar cane back home in Jamaica. These guys are the pros, and that realization makes me work faster.
The apples never stop - it’s like these trees sprout new fruit the second I turn my back to empty the bucket. We’re still in the same long row of Mac apple trees, our group grown by two more men, one picking and the other moving the bins back and forth with the tractor as we fill them with bucket after bucket.
It’s now after 3 PM, and I’ve been picking for almost four hours, filling and refilling my half-bushel bucket dozens of times. My shoulders and feet ache, and I ask about quitting time. Paul responds, “Six o’clock, mon.” He smiles as my eyes go wide in disbelief. Another three hours of this and I’ll need a super-sized Aleve smoothie with an ibuprofen flavor shot to recover.
On cue, Rob arrives to check on the guys and to take me away. “It looks like you’ve had enough,” he says, my sweat-drenched shirt and punchy gait undermining my confidence in my new-found farming abilities. The truth is I haven’t had enough, and apples will never taste the same to me again.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Zen and the Art of the Mini Golf Marathon
It’s time to say goodbye to summer, and I’m tired of the traditional send-offs. Enough with the melancholy moments on the beach as the late August sun sets, or wistful memories of the “last barbeque” at the neighbor’s house, wondering where all the time went, or even the persistent crawl of my kids’ summer reading tasks meandering towards a Labor Day deadline like a slow-burning fuse. I want to end it with a bang, something I’ll never forget, so I’ll say all my summer goodbyes in a single day.
To do this I devise an ambitious plan – an entire day devoted to miniature golf. My nine year-old daughter joins me on this farewell tour – a 200-mile odyssey taking us from the Lakes Regions to the White Mountains, from Funspot to Chichester, home of “the world’s longest mini golf hole,” to points in between.
Our day starts in Moultonborough, an hour’s drive north from Concord, at the Paradise Falls course. We’re greeted by a warm breeze, tropical music and an empty parking lot. Other than the young woman painting her nails at the counter, we’re the only signs of life here. We pay our $12 and begin.
The holes, with names like Cozumel, Aruba and Antigua, are challenging, and we weave through the course, over blue-dyed streams and gentle waterfalls. My daughter, Maisie, plays the course with concentrated fury. I fall apart at Bermuda, landing twice in the water. Maisie snags a two for par while I struggle for an eight. “Dad, that was like the Bermuda Triangle for you,” she says with a grin. We keep going. Maisie struggles a bit on the 17th, and after watching her fish her ball from the water and retaking a few putts, I ask, “So what’d you shoot?”
“How about you give me a five?” I counted at least twelve, but we’ll never make it if we let a few mulligans come between us. We compromise on a seven, finish the round and leave.
Next is the White Mountain Speedway in Tamworth. No steel drums or soft breeze here - just the relentless whine of go-carts and whirr of traffic speeding by the chain link fence. The course has real sand, real pin flags and a real attitude on a pre-teen in a muscle tee shirt with the word “Saugus” across the front. “Come ON!” he screams to his family, nudging his little brother as he yells. He’s part of a big group – I count eleven total, and we sneak in front of them on the first tee.
“I don’t like this course so far,” Maisie says under her breath, but you’d never tell by the way she’s playing. She avoids the sand, plays the curves just right, and nails birdie after birdie. The Saugus Eleven is right behind us, a mixture of boredom, competition and mediocre parenting. “Slow Down NOW!” the dad yells as the two brothers finish just behind us. Between my lousy scores, the go-carts and the threat of the Saugus Eleven inviting us home for Thanksgiving, my anxiety level’s rising. But Maisie could care less, and we zip along, finishing in a tie. Then everything falls apart. The two brothers swing golf clubs at each other’s heads while a wounded dog in a cast deposits his business in the picnic area. “This place is kind of sketchy,” my partner comments, and we run to the car as it starts raining.
Pirate’s Cove in North Conway beckons. Nestled in the parking lot of a Comfort Inn on Route 16, Pirate’s Cove boasts two eighteen-hole courses, both of them creative and impressive. We opt for the 36 Hole Challenge (a $23 bargain) and start at the Captain Kidd course. Maisie’s on fire – three holes-in-one in the first nine, and at the turn, she exclaims, “This is the best day of my summer,” ignoring the rain coming down. We finish (Maisie wins by a stroke) and move on to Blackbeard’s Challenge. The course is really something – knife-wielding life-sized pirates lurk in the lagoon as we snake through a cave hidden under the waterfall. “This is real sea water, Dad!” Maisie explains.
We spot a family ahead of us, four daughters and their parents. The dad tries to calm the youngest, who has as much interest in mini golf as she does in molecular biology. The mom has quite a tan, in stark contrast to her husband’s cubicle-white glow. She’s a walking convection oven, her salmon skin exuding a Mars-like hue, and I’m waiting for her to burst into flames. Her children are miserable, but she continues on, her carrot complexion a shining beacon for the cranky mini golf pirate in all of us. The dad works his ghostly magic, and the youngest finishes smiling, waving to her golf ball as it disappears down the 18th hole.
We’ve played four rounds, so we take a quick lunch break followed by a stop at Banana Village, North Conway’s hidden mini golf gem. We’re alone on the jungle tree house course as the rain falls in sheets. It’s fitting we’ve chosen to say goodbye to the wettest summer in recent memory during a total downpour. There’s nowhere to hide, and we keep playing, finishing all eighteen holes in minutes.
We have three courses remaining. I had five more on the list but miscalculated the drive to North Conway, and we’ll be lucky to get these in before the day’s over. Funspot’s next, the Granddaddy of them all. And by “Granddaddy,” I mean chipped paint, weathered obstacles and tattered greens. I remember this course from my childhood, and it’s sad to see it’s been frozen in time, not a drop of fresh paint or a stitch of new Astroturf since Bruce Jenner won gold in short shorts. Funspot’s scorecard still warns, “Please do not slow up game for succeeding players by foolery,” but we’re the only foolery out here in the rain. We ignore the deferred maintenance, hit holes-in-one at Waldo the Whale and both finish with a water-aided six under par!
We dry off by playing a round on Funspot’s indoor nine-hole course. Maisie, like one of Fagin’s minions, finds a free game token at the self-service kiosk, and she wins another free game at the 9th hole. I suggest maybe she leave the token for someone else, in an arcade “pay it forward” kind of way. She stares at me and just shakes her head, pocketing the token.
We drive to another Pirate’s Cove down the road by the Meredith town line, tackling the ups and downs of the course with vigor, finishing the round in record time. “I’m having so much fun today,” she says, bounding down the pirate ship planks from hole to hole.
Now south to Chichester and Chuckster’s, our last stop of the day. It’s dark outside when we arrive, and the course is soaked. A worker pushes a broom while his sidekick lugs a leaf blower, the pair doing its best to clear the standing water off the course. Nothing says “Relaxing Mini Golf Family Fun” like the eardrum-splitting sounds of a teenager cramming a leaf blower nozzle into the cup on the 11th hole as water flies skyward.
Maisie misses an ace on the mega-long hole by a quarter inch, and she grabs her ball and runs back up the hill to try it again, smiling and out of breath. Chuckster’s is crowded for a Sunday night, but we zoom along, nailing par after par.
It’s late, and we’ve been at it for almost twelve hours. Nine rounds of golf – over 300 holes at seven different locations. We can almost feel a chill in the late summer air as we turn in our putters and say goodbye. Summer’s over, and it’s time to hustle home. Besides, Maisie’s got some reading to do.
To do this I devise an ambitious plan – an entire day devoted to miniature golf. My nine year-old daughter joins me on this farewell tour – a 200-mile odyssey taking us from the Lakes Regions to the White Mountains, from Funspot to Chichester, home of “the world’s longest mini golf hole,” to points in between.
Our day starts in Moultonborough, an hour’s drive north from Concord, at the Paradise Falls course. We’re greeted by a warm breeze, tropical music and an empty parking lot. Other than the young woman painting her nails at the counter, we’re the only signs of life here. We pay our $12 and begin.
The holes, with names like Cozumel, Aruba and Antigua, are challenging, and we weave through the course, over blue-dyed streams and gentle waterfalls. My daughter, Maisie, plays the course with concentrated fury. I fall apart at Bermuda, landing twice in the water. Maisie snags a two for par while I struggle for an eight. “Dad, that was like the Bermuda Triangle for you,” she says with a grin. We keep going. Maisie struggles a bit on the 17th, and after watching her fish her ball from the water and retaking a few putts, I ask, “So what’d you shoot?”
“How about you give me a five?” I counted at least twelve, but we’ll never make it if we let a few mulligans come between us. We compromise on a seven, finish the round and leave.
Next is the White Mountain Speedway in Tamworth. No steel drums or soft breeze here - just the relentless whine of go-carts and whirr of traffic speeding by the chain link fence. The course has real sand, real pin flags and a real attitude on a pre-teen in a muscle tee shirt with the word “Saugus” across the front. “Come ON!” he screams to his family, nudging his little brother as he yells. He’s part of a big group – I count eleven total, and we sneak in front of them on the first tee.
“I don’t like this course so far,” Maisie says under her breath, but you’d never tell by the way she’s playing. She avoids the sand, plays the curves just right, and nails birdie after birdie. The Saugus Eleven is right behind us, a mixture of boredom, competition and mediocre parenting. “Slow Down NOW!” the dad yells as the two brothers finish just behind us. Between my lousy scores, the go-carts and the threat of the Saugus Eleven inviting us home for Thanksgiving, my anxiety level’s rising. But Maisie could care less, and we zip along, finishing in a tie. Then everything falls apart. The two brothers swing golf clubs at each other’s heads while a wounded dog in a cast deposits his business in the picnic area. “This place is kind of sketchy,” my partner comments, and we run to the car as it starts raining.
Pirate’s Cove in North Conway beckons. Nestled in the parking lot of a Comfort Inn on Route 16, Pirate’s Cove boasts two eighteen-hole courses, both of them creative and impressive. We opt for the 36 Hole Challenge (a $23 bargain) and start at the Captain Kidd course. Maisie’s on fire – three holes-in-one in the first nine, and at the turn, she exclaims, “This is the best day of my summer,” ignoring the rain coming down. We finish (Maisie wins by a stroke) and move on to Blackbeard’s Challenge. The course is really something – knife-wielding life-sized pirates lurk in the lagoon as we snake through a cave hidden under the waterfall. “This is real sea water, Dad!” Maisie explains.
We spot a family ahead of us, four daughters and their parents. The dad tries to calm the youngest, who has as much interest in mini golf as she does in molecular biology. The mom has quite a tan, in stark contrast to her husband’s cubicle-white glow. She’s a walking convection oven, her salmon skin exuding a Mars-like hue, and I’m waiting for her to burst into flames. Her children are miserable, but she continues on, her carrot complexion a shining beacon for the cranky mini golf pirate in all of us. The dad works his ghostly magic, and the youngest finishes smiling, waving to her golf ball as it disappears down the 18th hole.
We’ve played four rounds, so we take a quick lunch break followed by a stop at Banana Village, North Conway’s hidden mini golf gem. We’re alone on the jungle tree house course as the rain falls in sheets. It’s fitting we’ve chosen to say goodbye to the wettest summer in recent memory during a total downpour. There’s nowhere to hide, and we keep playing, finishing all eighteen holes in minutes.
We have three courses remaining. I had five more on the list but miscalculated the drive to North Conway, and we’ll be lucky to get these in before the day’s over. Funspot’s next, the Granddaddy of them all. And by “Granddaddy,” I mean chipped paint, weathered obstacles and tattered greens. I remember this course from my childhood, and it’s sad to see it’s been frozen in time, not a drop of fresh paint or a stitch of new Astroturf since Bruce Jenner won gold in short shorts. Funspot’s scorecard still warns, “Please do not slow up game for succeeding players by foolery,” but we’re the only foolery out here in the rain. We ignore the deferred maintenance, hit holes-in-one at Waldo the Whale and both finish with a water-aided six under par!
We dry off by playing a round on Funspot’s indoor nine-hole course. Maisie, like one of Fagin’s minions, finds a free game token at the self-service kiosk, and she wins another free game at the 9th hole. I suggest maybe she leave the token for someone else, in an arcade “pay it forward” kind of way. She stares at me and just shakes her head, pocketing the token.
We drive to another Pirate’s Cove down the road by the Meredith town line, tackling the ups and downs of the course with vigor, finishing the round in record time. “I’m having so much fun today,” she says, bounding down the pirate ship planks from hole to hole.
Now south to Chichester and Chuckster’s, our last stop of the day. It’s dark outside when we arrive, and the course is soaked. A worker pushes a broom while his sidekick lugs a leaf blower, the pair doing its best to clear the standing water off the course. Nothing says “Relaxing Mini Golf Family Fun” like the eardrum-splitting sounds of a teenager cramming a leaf blower nozzle into the cup on the 11th hole as water flies skyward.
Maisie misses an ace on the mega-long hole by a quarter inch, and she grabs her ball and runs back up the hill to try it again, smiling and out of breath. Chuckster’s is crowded for a Sunday night, but we zoom along, nailing par after par.
It’s late, and we’ve been at it for almost twelve hours. Nine rounds of golf – over 300 holes at seven different locations. We can almost feel a chill in the late summer air as we turn in our putters and say goodbye. Summer’s over, and it’s time to hustle home. Besides, Maisie’s got some reading to do.
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