Oakham Town Block Party

I talked about Oaktoberfest last October. Someone mentioned to me then that Oaktoberfest was a biannual event but I didn't quite understand why. Now I know. On alternate years Oakham has a Town Block Party. The Oakham Town Block Party was last Saturday.

Before the Block Party, we attended Maya's dance recital in Worcester. Saturday was Briar and Gus' 11th anniversary so we took Nikos and Maya home with us after the recital. Good timing actually because they were able to join us at the Block Party.

It was definitely a small town event. The quilt show was over before we got there. The Congregational Church was selling strawberry desserts so we all had strawberry shortcake. We took in the car show and voted for our neighbor Jim's souped up Ford Falcon (not your typical choice for a muscle car).

They had some activities for the kids.

Maya enjoyed the juggler (Niko not so much).

No Oakham event is complete without an Otters concert.

Maya and Niko were more interested in playing badminton.

We had noticed in the flier for the Block Party that they had a magician scheduled in the same time slot as The Otters. We wondered how that would work out but he showed up at our seats while we were watching The Otters. All of his magic was right in front of our faces an Niko Nd Maya have been refering to him as a,real magician (not like those other ones).

Then came the strangest event of the night. It didn't start until 8pm so Maya and Niko were getting ready for bed. The flyer for the event had mentioned a "Burnout Contest". I had an idea of what that might be but that didn't seem likely. Sure enough, up between the town hall and the library,there was an event to see how badly people were willing to destroy their tires.

Apparently, the contestants disabled their rear brakes so that they could lock the front brakes while spinning the rear tires. They have 30 seconds to make as much smoke as possible. They wet the road down between vehicles to make it easier to slip. Crazy. The whole area, including our house, stank of burning rubber.

 

On other fronts, we've been moving ahead with finishing the unfinished room over the kitchen. The plumber finished today and we now have heat in that space. He added an additional zone to our boiler and baseboard radiators along the long North wall. In between the rough plumbing and the installation of the radiators, I installed drywall on that wall. There's still a ton of work to do but we're making progress.

Some of you have heard about our chipmunk issues. They're awfully cute but they are more abundant this year than ever and they are doing damage. They prefer do dig under foundations and many structures have suddenly dropped into the ground. It's war!

I've been using rat traps and a pellet gun and have managed to eliminate at least 21 of the varmints so far. Amazingly, they continue to be a presence.

-JC-

Our Massaversary!

Yes, it's been a year since we arrived in Massachusetts. On June 1, 2015, we rolled into Pine Acres Resort in Oakham, MA. We started our house search the next day. We found our new home by the end of the week and closed by the end of July (with furniture still en route).

We've never regretted our decision to move East. We'd had no experience with the changing of the seasons and have loved it. We've documented the changes in this blog and are happy to report that Summer has returned with a bang. It's just amazing how we went from no leaves to dense leaves overnight.

Here are pictures of some of the changes that we've been making:

I've mentioned our windmill before. It replaced the wishing well that was over the wellhead.

I've also mentioned our raised vegetable planters. We added the fencing when a groundhog started showing interest (groundhogs are murder on vegetable gardens).

We've always had 2 nesting boxes at the back side of the lawn. I've just added 2 more across from the kitchen windows (these actually get used).

We felt that we needed some garden ornaments. The (not so old) wheelbarrow wreckage that was on the rocks before just didn't cut it. Our first find was this old wheel (we think from a wheelbarrow). $5 at a flea market.

At that same flea market, we found this lobster trap.

We were almost there but needed a bird bath (the birds have been going nuts in it).

Here are all three (plus our feeder) from the farmers porch.

Before any of the above changes, we added the bird feeders. They were supposed to be squirrel proof but the squirrels found a way. We added the cone and have thwarted them so far (though we have seen them hanging from the edge and spinning). The bird variety here has been amazing.

Yesterday, Briar decided to run the rail trail from near  her house to near ours. Because of the many bears that we've seen lately, Kristen volunteered me to ride my bike along side her. We saw several beaver dams along the way.

One last sign of summer: The marquee at Oakham's town square has been updated to show this summer's concerts. The Otter's are Oakham's home grown Grateful Dead cover band. The other dates must still be pending. This concert venue is 3 houses up the street.

-JC-