Coop's Corner

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Little Log House Antique Power Show

Little Log House Antique Power Show

There's actually a lot in that title and there's much contained in the event. I've attended most every year for the last dozen or so and always find new things to enjoy. That's in part due to the fact that there's a lot to take in but it also has to do with the fact that the show is growing each year, evolving in new directions. The Show opened at 8 and I was there at 7:45. Traffic backed up later like I'd not seen it before.

We had 52 degrees this morning when I got up with lots of blustery wind which isn't exactly what July is normally made of, even here in the Northland. Sunny clear skies mid-morning turned to clouds and showers; skies that looked October-ish and felt that way too, let me tell you. Young stylish women in shorts and T-shirts looked even cooler than I was and I was none too comfortable. I joked on my way back to the car with the couple that I was walking next to that most years I can't wait to get into the car and turn the A/C on.....today the heater was precious.

Lots of the VJMC and Antique Cycle Club guys were down, most of them for the first time, displaying a few of their machines.

I'll refrain from much more verbiage (yes, I can when I think it proper) and let the photos do the talking this time....for the most part anyway.

I left the cats home but I wonder how involved the procedure is?

Dakota Rose's Pink Palace...lucky for me none of the Working Girls were up and outside yet.

The lovely gardens......

Something of almost everything here....

Dad's dad, upon seeing a large house, large automobile, large farm or most anything (or anyone) large, would comment, "they can't be smoking Bull Durham". According to him, this was the tobacco of choice on the lower rung.

Some things very big and very new....

We always put rocks in ours, as ballast to keep the front end down. It never entered my mind to put a growing pot up there.

Some of my distant cousins showed up again.....these are the ones that no one likes to talk about and the very ones that seldom get invited to family functions any longer.

More Cadets than you can shake a stick at.

I went back later to check up on her....she appeared to be just as chilled after the weather turned as before.

This sign was salvaged from one of the last movie theaters in the area....soon to be a very large Wshopping center.

General Purpose my foot.....

The little pup.....

She waited for someone to stop right in front of her, she'd drop and push the ball to her new partner, then catch it when rolled back to her. She was very patient here, later when the crowds arrived, she got very busy. I played 5 times and she was hoping for more.

The St. Croix Horse and Carriage Society was featured in one of the buildings....news to me that we even had one.

I managed to fight temptation at this booth and bought nothing.

Mike checking out the Nash.....

The Germans were there....

The G.I.'s too......we missed the afternoon's skirmish but after all the noise, things seemed to get peaceful quickly.

Tractors that drove themselves....

but weren't all that productive....

There were folks trying to get something done in the quarry however.

The Hastings Spiral Bridge Replica

Remember the Car Hop that wasn't real?? This is a real woman, dressed for July in Minnesota....Southern Minnesota.

This the ultimate in no fuss-no muss gardening.....

It's nice to have a plan as well as a schedule....

Soldier's lining up for the parade.

.....and the Waterloo Boy warming up for the parade.

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)