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-