599
26 October 2012
R. Linda:
Every year there is a phenomenon that happens in New Hampshire and Vermont. Tens of thousands come from foreign countries like New Jersey to descend en masse, armed with cameras and binoculars upon the tiny villages and dales of northern New England! I tell ya there be no privacy. They are like the ladybugs who invade the home at seasons end, they are everywhere and you can't get rid of them. Worse, you know every year they will be back no matter what!
Like the ladybugs, most locals try to ignore them. We know they are basically harmless but they do tend to get in the way of things. Like the ladybugs they come in great groups and mill about taking everything over.
Just last weekend I took the boyos to the farm stand to pick out gourds and pumpkins. Well, as we pulled up you'd think the people who owned the farm stand were giving everything away free! There were three tour buses full of . . . our annual pests . . . the leaf peepers! They were dressed in their loud clothing, talking loud in their 'Joisey" accents and milling about just where we wanted to be. We had to wait for them to finish handling every gourd and pumpkin before we could get our turn to pick one out. And they weren't buying, they were just looking!
They weren't there to buy gourds and pumpkins, no indeed, they were there for a rest stop and a few hundred donuts with a cup of hot cider! We had to fend for ourselves just to get to the cash register with our produce. None would stand aside, no indeed, instead they fussed over the young ones and asked ridiculous questions like, "You gonna carve those when you get home?" Uh duh.
It took us a full hour to select and buy our pumpkins and get them paid for and put in the boot of the motor. This should take us no more than 15 minutes max. Add to that the kiddos wanted to go through the corn maze. Well, we got in line. Yes, we did and the line was almost a city block long. In front of us were the "Joisey" leaf peepers ready for some fun. Yup, and none of them were under a hundred years old. There they were slopping their hot cider on the ground, munching on their donuts laughing and talking it up with each other in an accent I find hard to understand.
Meanwhile, me boyos were getting restless at the long line of "old people" who they could not understand why they'd be queueing up for a romp through a corn maze.
Finally, when it was our turn to enter the maze, we found we had to shuffle. Yes R. Linda, shuffle because we could not get by the group in front of us. They'd move forward at a snails pace, yes the person with the walker held us all up. But worse than that, they'd stop at each intersection and chat. We'd be trying to see beyond them at which way we wanted to go, but we couldn't get around them. Even an "excuse me" got ME through, but the boyos were left behind. I had to re-excuse meself to go back through the pack of donuts and cider swiggers, to try to grab the boyos through, but once I was back with the kiddos, I found me corridor had closed and I simply gave up.
"This is fun, NOT!" O'Hare piped up, but no one heard him. I think the hearing aids were off because the Joisey peepers were pretty much shouting at each other to be heard. So we continued the slow, painful shuffle through the corn maze, and when I did see an opening of going in the other direction, I found us in a closed corridor and we had to turn around and rejoin the shufflers as they carried forward in a chatty group.
I'd say it took us six hours to traverse a 45 minute trip through a corn maze. By the time we shuffled out of there we found we could not walk normally, as shuffling for six hours had become the norm. Of course, when we got home and shuffled out of the car, Tonya stood looking at us like we were weird or something.
"Just what is wrong with all of you?" She asked.
"Leaf peepers," O'Hare groaned carrying his pumpkin low against his knees like he'd been picking pumpkins all day.
"Ohhh," Tonya said and walked inside. She got it, we didn't have to explain. She knew from the weekend before when she took the two kiddos apple picking. Yup, she got to the orchard just after the fourteen tour buses of the worst kind of leaf peeper blight -- NEW YORKERS! These oldsters were all over the place, in the apple stand or out in the orchards. It took forty-five minutes to get to the register to pay for the apple bags and another ten to walk to the orchards. Both those events totalled together should have been no more than ten minutes.
Once out in the orchard, Tonya found all the apples at the beginning of the orchard had been picked clean. As she ventured deeper all the lower branches were cleaned of apples and it was obvious the wee ones would have to be held up over her head to pick apples. Well, the wife was having none of that back breaking kind of apple picking. She headed in deeper, and once she did, it was sidestepping bags chocked full of apples and people sitting on the grass between the trees, so you had to step carefully over and around them to get by. They had expended their energy stripping the trees and were tired! Yup they were. But not tired enough to grab a boyo and hug him saying up at Tonya, "Dahling, you have two good lookin' boys." Or, "Woodya look at how dahling these little ones arr?" Uh yeah.
Once out of the clutches of admiration by the New York blue hairs, the boyos took off like bats out of hell. It took Ton and the boyos thirty minutes of run/walking to find a few trees with apples low enough they could pick. The problem was, once done they had to drag the heavy apple bags back through the orchard, and back through the oldsters sitting with their bags, to be grabbed again and expounded on how "dahling" they were, to the old dirt road and back to the parking lot. Let's see, I think the apple picking venture this year from start to finish took them 5 hours. Yup, 5 hours for an hour and half fun time picking apples. We can leave the fun time out, they all told me it "was work!"
"We have got to find another place to pick apples!" Tonya had ranted when I got home. I heard how a pleasurable mother and sons activity had turned into WORK. As for me, the pumpkins, gourds and corn maze had turned into a zombie like nightmare and the only thing I got out of that, was I perfected me shuffle. Throw a handful of flour over me hair and with me shuffle, instant old person. Yup, I'm set for Halloween.
As to O'Hare's opinion on all this, he wanted to know why the ancient fifty year olds were out in groups taking over his pumpkin stand. We tried to explain that it wasn't just fifty somethings, it was sixty and seventy as well. The golden oldies as Tonya refers to them and then laughs about us becoming two golden oldies and travelling to "Joisey" to shuffle along the boardwalk. Turn about is fair play says she.
Just yesterday I had stopped at the local ice cream stand. Now this stand is off on a dirt road, nothing around it, but fields bordered by trees. It is about to close for the season, so I decided to have me last indulgence of Moose Tracks ice cream in a waffle cone. I was the only one there, and I was savouring me cold fav when two busloads of peepers from the country of Delaware pulled in. I moved off to a place where there were a few picnic tables to get out of their way. I was sitting looking out at the woods when behind me I hear "click, click, click, click," to which I turned around to find I was the subject of many camera's recording a LOCAL eating his last ice cream for the season, at a weathered picnic table with a lovely display of fall colours in the background. I TELL YA!
Can't a man enjoy this one last treat with some decorum and privacy? I ask you.
"Whaddya got there punkin' ice cream?" I was asked by a man who asked like it was a big joke on ME!
"Nah its apple pie flavoured," Another one offered to me blank look.
"SO whenz the foliee-age gonnah peak eh?" I was asked by yet another.
I hate to tell you how many times a peeper has pulled me aside to ask me that. I was ready this year, I took a lick of me ice cream, swallowed and looked straight in his face and said as I got up, "28th of October, at 2:14 p.m." and went back to eating me treat as I left for the parking lot. What their reaction was, was they believed me! They went scattering to tell the others. I shook me head at meself and decided to make a run for it before the bunch of them came back for verification. Fanatics, the lot of them, foliage fanatics! Don't they have autumn in the Mid-Atlantic states? Oh yes, but not on the scale we do, oh yes, I remembered now, all those houses. House upon house with a postage stamp strip of yard and maybe a tree here and there. It came back to me, the Dragon complaining that New Hampshire had too many trees. "Well, there ya go Gabe," I said to meself as I started me motor.
I had just enough time to back out and head for the exit. I saw them, yes I did, they were running towards me motor waving at me to stop, cameras were clicking as the colourful mass of Delawareans found spurts of energy that laid dormant for years to make a run at me. But me reflexes were better, I gunned me motor down that dirt road leaving clouds of dust in me wake, but I could see them still coming (all those weird sweaters with pumpkins and leaves on them that the ladies like to wear, topped off with the blue hair) and for a moment I thought they'd outrun me motor, but no, I stepped on it and was off on another back road and outta there! "Eat me dust Peepers!" I yelled as I lost sight of them. Mahahahahahaaa!
We locals know to stay away from apple orchards, farm stands, pumpkin patches, Yankee gift shops and outlet malls during Peepin' Season. We can do little about the annual trek of the invasive foreign species from countries like New Jersey, New York and Delaware. But there is an even more worrisome infestation, much like the stink bugs that lumber into your home when the first chill falls upon the pumpkins. Yes R. Linda, I am talking politicians.
This infestation starts with one political sign popping up on the highway, then before you know it, there are thousands of them! This four year cycle of political signs (the blight of the highways) is the herald that the stink bugs, I mean, the politicians are arriving.
We have a name for this particular pest, yes we do. You've heard of ticks, deer ticks, and the like? We have pol-a-ticks. Lots of em'.
When this pest arrives, it arrives in swarms. They are an invasive species of parasitic bug that sucks the life out of you for a vote in their direction. You can't get any rest because they have a buzz like a telephone ring and they are constantly buzzing. You can't go out without meeting up with a few of them as they come flying at you. It's terrible I tell ya. Soon too that will be over and done with and we will have at least three years of peace without infestation UNTIL that third year when a sign will crop up suddenly, and before we know it, many signs will join the one and the cycle starts all over again!
Gabe
Copyright © 2012 All rights reserved
26 October 2012
R. Linda:
Every year there is a phenomenon that happens in New Hampshire and Vermont. Tens of thousands come from foreign countries like New Jersey to descend en masse, armed with cameras and binoculars upon the tiny villages and dales of northern New England! I tell ya there be no privacy. They are like the ladybugs who invade the home at seasons end, they are everywhere and you can't get rid of them. Worse, you know every year they will be back no matter what!
Like the ladybugs, most locals try to ignore them. We know they are basically harmless but they do tend to get in the way of things. Like the ladybugs they come in great groups and mill about taking everything over.
Just last weekend I took the boyos to the farm stand to pick out gourds and pumpkins. Well, as we pulled up you'd think the people who owned the farm stand were giving everything away free! There were three tour buses full of . . . our annual pests . . . the leaf peepers! They were dressed in their loud clothing, talking loud in their 'Joisey" accents and milling about just where we wanted to be. We had to wait for them to finish handling every gourd and pumpkin before we could get our turn to pick one out. And they weren't buying, they were just looking!
They weren't there to buy gourds and pumpkins, no indeed, they were there for a rest stop and a few hundred donuts with a cup of hot cider! We had to fend for ourselves just to get to the cash register with our produce. None would stand aside, no indeed, instead they fussed over the young ones and asked ridiculous questions like, "You gonna carve those when you get home?" Uh duh.
It took us a full hour to select and buy our pumpkins and get them paid for and put in the boot of the motor. This should take us no more than 15 minutes max. Add to that the kiddos wanted to go through the corn maze. Well, we got in line. Yes, we did and the line was almost a city block long. In front of us were the "Joisey" leaf peepers ready for some fun. Yup, and none of them were under a hundred years old. There they were slopping their hot cider on the ground, munching on their donuts laughing and talking it up with each other in an accent I find hard to understand.
Meanwhile, me boyos were getting restless at the long line of "old people" who they could not understand why they'd be queueing up for a romp through a corn maze.
Finally, when it was our turn to enter the maze, we found we had to shuffle. Yes R. Linda, shuffle because we could not get by the group in front of us. They'd move forward at a snails pace, yes the person with the walker held us all up. But worse than that, they'd stop at each intersection and chat. We'd be trying to see beyond them at which way we wanted to go, but we couldn't get around them. Even an "excuse me" got ME through, but the boyos were left behind. I had to re-excuse meself to go back through the pack of donuts and cider swiggers, to try to grab the boyos through, but once I was back with the kiddos, I found me corridor had closed and I simply gave up.
"This is fun, NOT!" O'Hare piped up, but no one heard him. I think the hearing aids were off because the Joisey peepers were pretty much shouting at each other to be heard. So we continued the slow, painful shuffle through the corn maze, and when I did see an opening of going in the other direction, I found us in a closed corridor and we had to turn around and rejoin the shufflers as they carried forward in a chatty group.
I'd say it took us six hours to traverse a 45 minute trip through a corn maze. By the time we shuffled out of there we found we could not walk normally, as shuffling for six hours had become the norm. Of course, when we got home and shuffled out of the car, Tonya stood looking at us like we were weird or something.
"Just what is wrong with all of you?" She asked.
"Leaf peepers," O'Hare groaned carrying his pumpkin low against his knees like he'd been picking pumpkins all day.
"Ohhh," Tonya said and walked inside. She got it, we didn't have to explain. She knew from the weekend before when she took the two kiddos apple picking. Yup, she got to the orchard just after the fourteen tour buses of the worst kind of leaf peeper blight -- NEW YORKERS! These oldsters were all over the place, in the apple stand or out in the orchards. It took forty-five minutes to get to the register to pay for the apple bags and another ten to walk to the orchards. Both those events totalled together should have been no more than ten minutes.
Once out in the orchard, Tonya found all the apples at the beginning of the orchard had been picked clean. As she ventured deeper all the lower branches were cleaned of apples and it was obvious the wee ones would have to be held up over her head to pick apples. Well, the wife was having none of that back breaking kind of apple picking. She headed in deeper, and once she did, it was sidestepping bags chocked full of apples and people sitting on the grass between the trees, so you had to step carefully over and around them to get by. They had expended their energy stripping the trees and were tired! Yup they were. But not tired enough to grab a boyo and hug him saying up at Tonya, "Dahling, you have two good lookin' boys." Or, "Woodya look at how dahling these little ones arr?" Uh yeah.
Once out of the clutches of admiration by the New York blue hairs, the boyos took off like bats out of hell. It took Ton and the boyos thirty minutes of run/walking to find a few trees with apples low enough they could pick. The problem was, once done they had to drag the heavy apple bags back through the orchard, and back through the oldsters sitting with their bags, to be grabbed again and expounded on how "dahling" they were, to the old dirt road and back to the parking lot. Let's see, I think the apple picking venture this year from start to finish took them 5 hours. Yup, 5 hours for an hour and half fun time picking apples. We can leave the fun time out, they all told me it "was work!"
"We have got to find another place to pick apples!" Tonya had ranted when I got home. I heard how a pleasurable mother and sons activity had turned into WORK. As for me, the pumpkins, gourds and corn maze had turned into a zombie like nightmare and the only thing I got out of that, was I perfected me shuffle. Throw a handful of flour over me hair and with me shuffle, instant old person. Yup, I'm set for Halloween.
As to O'Hare's opinion on all this, he wanted to know why the ancient fifty year olds were out in groups taking over his pumpkin stand. We tried to explain that it wasn't just fifty somethings, it was sixty and seventy as well. The golden oldies as Tonya refers to them and then laughs about us becoming two golden oldies and travelling to "Joisey" to shuffle along the boardwalk. Turn about is fair play says she.
Just yesterday I had stopped at the local ice cream stand. Now this stand is off on a dirt road, nothing around it, but fields bordered by trees. It is about to close for the season, so I decided to have me last indulgence of Moose Tracks ice cream in a waffle cone. I was the only one there, and I was savouring me cold fav when two busloads of peepers from the country of Delaware pulled in. I moved off to a place where there were a few picnic tables to get out of their way. I was sitting looking out at the woods when behind me I hear "click, click, click, click," to which I turned around to find I was the subject of many camera's recording a LOCAL eating his last ice cream for the season, at a weathered picnic table with a lovely display of fall colours in the background. I TELL YA!
Can't a man enjoy this one last treat with some decorum and privacy? I ask you.
"Whaddya got there punkin' ice cream?" I was asked by a man who asked like it was a big joke on ME!
"Nah its apple pie flavoured," Another one offered to me blank look.
"SO whenz the foliee-age gonnah peak eh?" I was asked by yet another.
I hate to tell you how many times a peeper has pulled me aside to ask me that. I was ready this year, I took a lick of me ice cream, swallowed and looked straight in his face and said as I got up, "28th of October, at 2:14 p.m." and went back to eating me treat as I left for the parking lot. What their reaction was, was they believed me! They went scattering to tell the others. I shook me head at meself and decided to make a run for it before the bunch of them came back for verification. Fanatics, the lot of them, foliage fanatics! Don't they have autumn in the Mid-Atlantic states? Oh yes, but not on the scale we do, oh yes, I remembered now, all those houses. House upon house with a postage stamp strip of yard and maybe a tree here and there. It came back to me, the Dragon complaining that New Hampshire had too many trees. "Well, there ya go Gabe," I said to meself as I started me motor.
I had just enough time to back out and head for the exit. I saw them, yes I did, they were running towards me motor waving at me to stop, cameras were clicking as the colourful mass of Delawareans found spurts of energy that laid dormant for years to make a run at me. But me reflexes were better, I gunned me motor down that dirt road leaving clouds of dust in me wake, but I could see them still coming (all those weird sweaters with pumpkins and leaves on them that the ladies like to wear, topped off with the blue hair) and for a moment I thought they'd outrun me motor, but no, I stepped on it and was off on another back road and outta there! "Eat me dust Peepers!" I yelled as I lost sight of them. Mahahahahahaaa!
We locals know to stay away from apple orchards, farm stands, pumpkin patches, Yankee gift shops and outlet malls during Peepin' Season. We can do little about the annual trek of the invasive foreign species from countries like New Jersey, New York and Delaware. But there is an even more worrisome infestation, much like the stink bugs that lumber into your home when the first chill falls upon the pumpkins. Yes R. Linda, I am talking politicians.
This infestation starts with one political sign popping up on the highway, then before you know it, there are thousands of them! This four year cycle of political signs (the blight of the highways) is the herald that the stink bugs, I mean, the politicians are arriving.
We have a name for this particular pest, yes we do. You've heard of ticks, deer ticks, and the like? We have pol-a-ticks. Lots of em'.
When this pest arrives, it arrives in swarms. They are an invasive species of parasitic bug that sucks the life out of you for a vote in their direction. You can't get any rest because they have a buzz like a telephone ring and they are constantly buzzing. You can't go out without meeting up with a few of them as they come flying at you. It's terrible I tell ya. Soon too that will be over and done with and we will have at least three years of peace without infestation UNTIL that third year when a sign will crop up suddenly, and before we know it, many signs will join the one and the cycle starts all over again!
Gabe
Copyright © 2012 All rights reserved
6 comments:
Well now I feel old. ANCIENT ? Lololol. Mousse tracks icecream IS my favorite though. Does that qualify for taking ten years off in the eyes of ankle biters? At least it's cool!!! ;-)
Well, you can well imagine if mam and da are considered old, just what granny is considered, so there you have it.
I'm pretty sure it's MOOse tracks. I'm old, I know it, but guess what?
I give the myself the right to get snarky with those under 40!LMAO
I don't live near a pumpkin patch so I don't feel your pain.LOL
No, you live near a cactus patch which is a whole other kind of pain.
getting quiet in here! what's happening with Frankenstorm?
60 mph winds with 5 to 6" of rain expected here. We are as ready as we can be. So we'll see.
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