Muddy Bloody Buddy OR Don't Bleed Me, Jive Turkey!

In honor of Thanksgiving, our fascination today takes us to a different sort of place...

...For this week we adventure inside my blood!

No, not like that!

For those who don't know, I am almost half Mexican (like 7/16 or something). And, I'm going to be honest, I'm a bad Mexican.

No, not like that, either!

Actually, in ¡Three Amigos! I'm far, far more likely to be this sort of guy:

Marking the first time I have ever compared myself to Chevy Chase.

Why is that? Because I'm a Bad Mexican as in, "Not very good at being Mexican." I don't speak Spanish, don't really know how to cook any actual Mexican food (filling pre-made taco shells doesn't count), and to me Cinco de Mayo is a day other people get drunk.

But in my defense: Just because Mexican's the most popular blood kind doesn't mean there's no competition.

Here's where I get to tie things into Thanksgiving (topical!):

On my father's side, the line goes back some ways. Which is a ridiculous phrase when I think of it. Of COURSE both lines go back some ways.

But my father's kept better records.

Because after building something this awesome,
the last thing you're gonna do is write down who your father was.

And in these records there are many fascinating familial gems. Such as my great-grandmother (or something like that) claiming we go back directly to King Ethelred the Unready, Last Saxon King of England. Which would make me some sort of deposed, poorer, less dashing, more Mexican version of Prince Harry.

I thought of trying to make a photo for this...
...but everything was so offense I pre-emptively censored it.

But the more interesting (and more readily provable) connection for the family is to various early settlers of Virginia (FFVs, for those in the know).

A lot of that family has various mixes of German, Scottish, Irish, English, etc.

But it also has a large part of Native American.

In particular, the direct descent of my family from Pocahontas.

The one on the right.
...we did not descend from a drawing.

I don't say this to brag (well, not entirely, anyway), but rather to point something out that has always fascinated me about my lineage:

It's so thoroughly muddled I get lost halfway down a census form.

Man... Why do they always ask the tough questions?

I'm not even kidding. While applying for college we had to come up with some concise way to write my race in the tiny affirmative action box without resorting to "Mutt."

But I love my mixed race background. You know why? Because it's up to me. I've got several different cultures from which to take a grab bag of goodies, and they're fun cultures:

Irish, Scottish, English, French, German, Viking, Powhatan, Mexican Indian, Spanish, a couple other random tribes...

...And they all ended up here. In the United States of America.

Cue the music!

I have ancestors who came over in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. And a healthy spattering who were here loooooong before that. (My grandmother actually came to the US in the 1900s, but I don't count that as "coming over" since she was Mexican and therefore already here...)

And I have a confession:

There has been a disturbing trend for a little while to equate the phrase "I'm proud to be American" with all sorts of political, religious, scholarly, and cooking views.

Not sure why being American
means I eat things like this three meals a day...

I don't like this trend. One bit.

Because as I look at Thanksgiving, and the traditional celebration of my people meeting, well, my people, I always think this:

I am proud to be American. And not just "A citizen of the United States" (Cool in it's own right!), but "one who is of the descent of people of the Americas."

Because sometimes, you can look at yourself and say, "Dammit, I'm fascinating enough as it is!"

...Oh, and the music I cued up there? That was totally "Born in the USA."

Old, Large Piles of Dirt OR Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Don't

First off, how many of you immediately have a 20 year old jingle stuck in your head because of that title?

If you raised your hand, then I salute you, fellow Children of the 80s. Go enjoy the appropriately-titled candy bar that's only coconut and chocolate.

For the rest of you: Iiiiiiittt's History Time!

And not the history time filled with, "In 1066 there was a battle that was very important to the British people, especially those IN the battle who suddenly found a bunch of arrows and swords headed their way..."

Nah, this is more of the history time with, "Here's an old thing. We're not sure WHY this old thing was made, but man, is it old, and man, was it ever made!"

Because today we look at the 2,000+ year old mounds of central Indiana.

Zounds! It's some Mounds!

I know it's a little hard to see from that angle, but that is a large mound a couple hundred feet in diameter and a few thousand years old.

But wait! There's more! (More mounds, that is.)

Here's the model of the mounds they've set up in the visitor center:

No, it's not a model for a golf course.
...Though now we have a new theory for their purpose!

By the way, that's a wall-sized model, showing the relationship of the main mound (called, creatively, the Great Mound) and the three mounds around it.

But what does it MEAN?!? Quick, to the informative plaque!

Informative!
...Well, sort of.

Basically, these mounds were built thousands of years ago by the tribes and people of these parts. There are several more scattered around the park...

Well, as much as one can "scatter" things like this.

...And they once covered huge chunks of Indiana. Why?

Well, archeologists have found that they aligned certain ways with astrologic things like changing sunsets, stars, etc. And in one mound they found a grave from hundreds of years later than when it was first built, and... um...

...They think they were "religious in nature."

Which I've come to recognize as the archeological equivalent of shrugging their shoulders noncommittally and going, "I dunno..."

So if better minds than mine (well, minds with more letters behind their name) can't solve it, then I won't try in a single blog post. So here's a bunch of pictures!

Pointy artifacts! Used for aggressively pointing out things!
(Like fish!)

The house of the farmers who got this land back before Indiana was a state.
...And awesomely decide to preserve the mounds.

That's the mound in the distance.

Inside the mound on the center "island."
Then there's a moat, then the mound.

The "moat" and mound.

Whatever they mean, they're certainly in a beautiful area. I was expecting a bunch of mounds and boring informative archeological plaques and displays...

...But found wonderful trails!

Rolling hills that probably
looked much better two weeks ago.

"I want a bridge and walkway!"
"Sir, it's only a small gully. People can-"
"Bridge and walkway!"

I'll end this post with the enjoyable little things I found at the visitor center itself.

There are turtles and snakes inside,
so it's not really a random turtle butt.

And lest we forget the charming "country-style" porch:

"Reckin' there's sum mounds out thar."
"Yerp."

And the neatest chess board I've ever seen.

Which occurs to me just now is probably mostly used for checkers.

Anyway, I had a fun time looking at old earthworks and pondering their purpose.

Because honestly, who the heck really knows what they were for?

I'm thinking: Skatepark.

Sheepishly Telling the Rest OR No Sheep, Sherlock!

DAY 2:

As promised, in Day 2, we explore the rest of the Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival.

This day, we headed to the other part of the faire, affectionately known as "The Barns."

Early morning between a few of the barns.
Early CHILLY morning... Thankfully, we had wool.

The barns are a series of...well, barns, filled with even MORE vendors and wooly-type sellers.

And wooly-type people.

You'll only get this once this post, so I'll get it out of the way:

Man. There were TONS of people and vendors.

Another barn!

And another!

There were a several more barns filled with more wooly vendors. But these were much more natural type yarns, wools, and colors in general. The placement of which will make sense shortly.

One barn had a demonstration of dying with natural plants, and herbs.

Those of you following this blog (hi, Mom!) will remember my fondness for informative plaques. Sadly, since this was a temporary faire, so there were no permanent plaques...

...But the natural plant demonstration had an informative natural dye chart!

Informative!

And next to that, we learned even more why they're called the Barns.

We were also reminded why it's called the Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival.

I'm thinkin' it's because of the sheep.

And not just sheep! If it can produce yarn, it was there:

Goats!

Fluffy sheep!

Shorn sheep!

Llamas! (On parade!)

This sheep!
(Bringing back the frosted tips!)

There was a 4H component of the show, so the crazy variety of sheep made a fair degree of sense.

Now here's what entertained me: So many phrases talk about sheep as docile, quiet creatures, easily following whatever they're told to.

Not. True.

Observe how the professionals handle the prize-winning sheep:

Yup. By holding the sheep's head in a death grip.

I sadly cannot adequately portray this next point without sound. But I will try.

See, our childhood books tell us sheep say, "baa." Or possibly, "Baaah." The use phrases like "softly bleating."

I saw many, many sheep. Some were silent. The ones that weren't did NOT "softly bleat." No, their noises reminded one that "bleat" is only one letter away from "beat."

It's more properly written as "BLLLLAWWWWAAGGH!!!"

Even the lambs! We watched a tiny boy of maybe 4 cautiously approach a tiny, tiny "adowrable wamb..."

...which promptly replied, "BLLIIIIIIIAAAGGGHH!!" and scared the heck out the boy. That poor kid isn't gonna have nightmares... He'll have "nightsheep."

...But moving on: Ever hear of Angora fur? This guy has!

SO FLUFFY!!

Yes, there were even Angora rabbits. And in case you're wondering, these guys are shorn like sheep, so no, they are not hurt for the fluffy, fluffy fur. It's cut off, then spun into yarn.

This is getting a little long, so I'll do a quick run by sum up:

Team competitive weaving!

Trebuchets!

...For pumpkin chuckin!

Sheep herding demonstrations!

And now, fair readers, we shall leave Rhinebeck.

We shall end on eating wool.

Wait, what? Allow me to demonstrate:

Roving. (Unspun wool)

This looks just like it...
...What could it be?

Why,  only the finest cuisine, of course!
(Eaten in the classiest of ways!)

I thought about keeping you guessing, but that amazing stuff was, in fact, 100% maple syrup cotton candy.

And it was amazing. Just like Rhinebeck.

UnRavel(ry)ing at Rhinebeck OR The Grand Duchess' Grand Faire

Last week, I promised an update with pictures and witticisms about the Rhinebeck, NY Duchess County Sheep and Wool Festival.

Well, I'm coming through with the goods.

DAY 1:

The Duchess County Sheep and Wool Festival (known by most simply as "Rhinebeck") takes place every fall in the town (sorry, "Village") of Rhinebeck, NY, located in South-eastern New York.

The state, not the city.
There IS a whole state, you know.

We'd had a lovely, but long drive out on Friday to get into New York (again, the state). So we'd stopped, and drove the last couple hours the first morning of the show, arriving a few hours after gates opened.

Which is good because people starting lining up an hour early. Fortunately the lines were gone by the time we got there, but that just shows you how many people were there and how much they really wanted to experience the whole show.

Speaking of which, let me show you what the show consisted of:

Le Map Offiçialle!
(Not even close to actual French.)

"Oh," I hear you softly, disappointedly exclaim, "That doesn't look so big."

And you're right! That map doesn't look so big out of context. But start to consider how many little arrows there are.

Also, see those little A, B, C, D buildings?

Each one of those was one of these:

This is A.
About 200 hundred feet of wooly vendors.

The shear (Hah! Get it?) number of vendors and amount of wool blew my mind. Just walking through one building with 4 rows of about 20 vendors each was more yarn, spinning and wool suppliers than I'd ever seen in my life.

And there were four of these buildings. Do the math, yo. It says there's a whole lotta vendors. Also, it evidently says (A whole lotta) ≈ 320.

Some with much more dramatic ceilings,
but just as many vendors!

And that was just those four buildings. Outside there was a whole bunch of food vendors, including local apple merchants and everything that can possibly be wonderfully autumnal (love that word).

Git yer wooly things and apples here!

And while there were a lot of people there, it wasn't so crowded you couldn't enjoy the space of being in rural New York on a gorgeous fall day.

Picturesque!
Also: More apples for sale.

But aside from the number of yarny, wooly vendors, there was another great reason to go: Yarny, wooly people.

My wife got me knitting recently, and while it's really quite enjoyable, it is not the most popular thing to do. Tell random people you knit, and they often tackily point out that it's, well, strange. (Because you don't need manners for people who knit!)

...Though it is nice when you can immediately point to the hat on your head and go, "Yeah, but I made this."

Anyway, a surprisingly large (surprisingly for non-knitters) online society has sprung up on a site called Ravelry, where over two million (yes, that's 2,000,000) people gather to do all sorts of things knitting, crocheting, and generally wool/yarn related.

Rhinebeck is a wonderful retreat and opportunity for these incredibly wonderful (and yes, slightly strange) people who knit to get together.

The Green before...

A meet up was scheduled at the above green on the first day. I thought there'd be a good amount of people, but was not expecting this:

...And after.
Release the Ravelrers!

There were hundreds of people there, most wearing buttons with their online name on them so you knew who everyone was. (I still have mine!)

It was awesome. And for the rest of the weekend, we would see people wearing buttons, or people would stop to read our buttons to see if they knew us...

...But even those hundreds of people were only 10-25% of the people there.

There were so many people they filled several fields outside.
And these cars are of the visitors still inside AFTER the fair had "closed!"

All right, all right, you probably get it by now: Big wool fest had a lot more people and was a lot bigger  than you thought it was going to be. Which made it awesome.

But to sum up, here was my one of my favorite pictures of the day, that I thought really embodied Rhinebeck:

A fashionable woman, eating a candy apple...
...and carrying a whole sheep fleece. That's right: Whole.

And just because they were there, and really cool...

...Random animals.

"Whhaaaattt....???"

"Oh sooolo miiiooo......."

The tortoise wins again because the hare is sleeping.
...or licking its crotch. Not sure which.

Hope you enjoyed this! I'll be back next week with Part 2: The Sheepening.