Time for A long entry!

We have certainly had a busy 3 weeks or so, we celebrated Pat's birthday, Pat and I headed up to Caribou Maine for my 30th class reunion, Nathan spent a week at Dora's house after which we picked him up at Lake Compounce. Then yesterday, we launched Everlong, after a very poignant renaming ceremony, and Rob, Jake and I sailed her around a got her moored in her spot on the Kicky.

First, Pat's birthday, here's my lovely wife with her lovely gifts, a weedwacker and a Laura Bush biography called "The Perfect Wife". Hope she gets some tips out of that one!


My little domestic diva!

Next, we were fortunate enough to get a chance to head up for our reunion, where we hooked up with Guy and Flo, Fred and Peggy Bell, Randy and Joanne and Phil Denfeld. Great fun:


Fred and Peggy...and Peggy better start remembering her cheers! (Peg, practice with Beth!)











Randy and Jo....my brother that married my little sister!






My little queen and I. Good thing you can't see my high school picture...pretty goofy (put long hair on the above pumpkin and you'll get the idea!)

On Saturday, we went to see my folks and my big sister's grave site for the first time. We ran into an old family friend and it was very pleasant. I certainly miss the folks, but I'm sure they are in a better place. Love you guys!



















On Sunday, we caught up with Guy and Flo and since the Presque Isle Fair was in town, we decided to take it in. A little scaled down from what I remember, but the did have a few items that brought back memories. One being an exhibition of potato equipment.

Everyone in my family, all my friends and relatives were expected to work the harvest season...to "pick potatoes!". We would be given a section, fairly small, say 15 to 20 feet long for little kids, to the old Canadian Woman 15 to 20 yards! (Not nationalistic here, it was a widely held belief that Canadian women could out hustle anyone in picking potatoes...100 barrel days were the norm, where as I don't recall ever moving past 75 barrels a day, even when I was a teenager. The concept was that you would fill a basket and dump them in the barrels. You had a ticket identifying your barrel and a truck would hoist the barrel and dump the potatoes in the potato house. Here's a couple of pictures from the exhibit which shows the truck, the hoisting mechanism and a neat synopsis of the "Ticket".














































This activity is no longer being performed in this manner. Large harvesting machines, costing in the neighborhood of a half million dollars take up the potatoes and deposit them directly onto a potato truck. Unfortunately, you can not have a small farm, say 100 acres or so, supporting that type of capital outlay. Due to the requirement of scale, you really need to have a 1,000 acres or so.

While this may bring efficiency to the harvesting process, I know I learned many a life lesson and I see it in everyone that grew up in the county. This includes, that you pick your section. If you are too lazy to pick what you are given, part of your section will be taken away. If you do very good, you get more section and of course more money! If folks are behind, you help them, but you put your ticket on the barrels you picked. You never put your ticket on someone else's barrel. This was a serious violation and the mere suspicion of it would be dealt with immediately. Finally, no one left the fields until all the potatoes were off the ground. If you had a slow picker, you just helped.

Now I remember being picked up at 6 in the morning and working until 6 at night, at times. This lasted for approximately 3 weeks, and if your farmer finished his fields, you looked for another farmer to help out. Money? The first time I went out, I was in kinder garden and I spent about 2 hours pulling tops for my brother and sisters. I wanted to go home and for the next year, dispersions were cast on my character since I was not seen fit to carry out a full season's work in the fields....I worked in the fields from 1st grade on, and even picked a couple of weeks in1978 with Flo's family.....what a ball. I think when I was a kid, we made about 30 to 35 cents a barrel, but by 1978, it was up to 75 or 80 cents. Someone can correct me, it's been awhile.


If I ever got a tattoo, it would have to be of a ticketed barrel with hoist on it. The sound of that
metal hitting the barrel and hoisting it up is one that I'll bet everyone north of Houlton remembers well.


Finally, this is not so much a potato picture, but I thought you folks would like to see 3 manure spreaders in one picture!


I have a ton of pictures and stories to put up, but I'll try to post again tonight. We still have pictures from our visit with Chris, Dawna and Maddy, our trip to Lake Compounce, the renaming ceremony and our launching and sailing of Everlong. Enjoy the pictures and thanks to everyone we had a chance to visit with the last couple of weeks.