New farm sign

The past several weeks have been a whirlwind of activity.  In addition to the normal every day stuff of dairy farm life, I've been working away at a new sign for the side of the barn.  I had a vision of how I wanted it to look:  it had to be visible from the road; we wanted to pay homage to the original wayward goose, Oscar; and I wanted it to have the look and feel of a vintage French cheese label.  After many prototypes, I came up with a design that we all were happy with:

Not only does Oscar make an appearance,
Heather has a starring role as well!

Golden acrylic paints on an 8' x 8' treated support, finished with a custom made Golden varnish will

complete the finished piece which will be affixed to the north side of the barn, adjacent to the milk room door.  Here is a look at the beginning:

An overhead projector borrowed from Beth at the 
Pawlet library came in handy for transferring the design
onto the sign board.  

The sign is now complete and I put the last coat of varnish on yesterday afternoon.

Stay tuned for its unveiling once it's been installed in its new home!

Belated 4th of July photos

Dan and I have been married for 30 years this past March and our wonderful children offered to milk and do chores for us so we could take a day or 2 off.
 We decided to wait until this summer to take them up on it so that we could visit some areas of Vermont that we've not yet had a chance to see, during nice weather.  So, on July 2nd we set out for a mini vacation, first to Lake Willoughby in the heart of the north east kingdom a few miles from the Canadian border.

Lake Willoughby is gorgeous though it was a bit chilly for swimming.  After
spending the night at a charming Inn on the Lake we
headed south to Monpelier, the smallest state capital
in the U.S. with only 8,000 residents.

  The State House is gorgeous.

Since 4th of July festivities were in full swing, the state museum
was open so we decided to pay a visit.  We were surprised
to see this exhibit, about Consider Bardwell! (the man, not the cheese).

Fascinating!

Later in the evening we were able to partake of the
Independence Day parade with none other than our favorite
politician, senator Bernie Sanders leading the way!

The parade had a decidedly Vermont feel to it.  While there
were few marching bands or floats, there were lots
 of other groups
 from this bunch of belly dancers who
were happy to let it all hang out.....

..... to this fellow who was just passing through.

The Green Mountain Boys were there in full regalia.....

...... as was an interpretive dance troop of some sort..........

.....???......

AS I said....  the parade had a VERY Vermont feel to it!

The evening ended with a great fireworks display which we got to view from the comfort of a lovely old porch on the front of the Inn at Monpelier where we were staying.  I knew taking photos of fireworks would be fruitless so you'll just have to imagine how nice it was!

All in all we had a lovely time on our brief get away, but it's always nice to get back home where 

there was lots of hay waiting to be unloaded.