Buckethead

Buckethead returned to Toad's Place last week. He put on a good show, as usual, while sporting a white bucket.

The Fonz

Last weekend Rodney and I went to stay on an alpaca farm in Bridport, Vermont (Champlain Valley Alpacas). Jenny and Les Foshay were great hosts and we had a fantastic time meeting them, their goats, horses and alpacas. They had several pregnant female alpacas and we were lucky enough to be there when two of the girls gave birth. We were able to help dry off the babies (called crias) and fit them with the cutest little jackets. : ) The second baby was a little boy born to an alpaca named "Felicity." The Foshays were trying to think of a name beginning with "F" (they like to keep all the names of a family line starting with the same letter, as a way of remembering who's related to whom). I suggested the name Fonzie. I'm not sure if they will call him that but he'll always be little Fonzie to me. Fonzie was up walking within 15 minutes of his birth, although he was a little wobbly at first.

This was the first baby born - a little girl that we would later refer to as "little red jacket" (they put a red jacket on her to keep her warm, as the nights were pretty chilly up in Vermont)

The goats hang out by (and on) the trailer
Fonzie makes his debut covered in membranes
Fonzie and mummy Felicity meet face to face for the first time
Hey, you on the left - what's so funny?
This is "little yellow jacket" and friends
It was great to be out in the country for a couple of days. We stayed in a small cabin next door to the main farm house. We woke up in the morning to see the alpacas grazing right outside our window. Best. Weekend. Ever.Fonzie is lucky he still needs to nurse from his mum or I would have had him in the back of my car on the way back to New Haven. Actually I thought of swiping him and his mum but I thought the Foshays might notice if there were too many animals missing from the pasture. ; )

The Big E

The Eastern States Exposition is a huge agricultural fair that encompasses many of the New England states. It is one of the largest fairs in the U.S. and lasts for 3 weeks. We headed up to Massachusetts on the scooter in the sunny weather. It took us about 2-1/2 hours but it was a fun ride. We met up with Andy and Erin who had driven over from Boston.
Erin seems to be quite happy as a sheep. Andy on the other hand appears to be quite a serious sheep.
We met lots of animals and specifically a lot of sheep.There were thousands of people at The Big E on Saturday and there was plenty of fried food and carnival rides for everyone. As you can see, Erin and Andy were quite excited about riding the Ferris Wheel Andy tried to break some bottles but fell short of winning a toy.The "Whac-a-mole" game was just as fruitless.A final attempt was made by Erin but the carnival got to keep their toys and our money.By the end of the night we had satisfied our appetite for carnival food and entertainment and headed home. We hadn't anticipated how chilly it would get in the evening so our nighttime ride home to New Haven was a cold one. We stopped half way to warm up in a McDonald's with some coffee. It was almost 1am by the time we got back and as Jen said "I've never been so happy to see New Haven". Next time we'll be better prepared.

Shopping Buddy

We took a trip today to do some shopping. As you can see, Jen has the parcels strapped to the back of the scoot. The weather was great for cruisin' along, although it got a little toasty while waiting at traffic lights for too long.

Citizenship

We knew Friday would be busy, so we both took the day off work. In the morning we had our motorcycle driving test. the whole process dragged out for a couple of hours, but that's the nature of the DMV. We both passed, so the day was off to a good start. The key activity for the day was Jen's naturalization ceremony. At 10.30am we heading downtown to the city courthouse. As you can see, the room was full of people. It was so full that we got to sit in the jury box. It turns out that the jury gets some very comfortable reclining leather seats. We were practicing our "We the members of the jury find the defendant...guilty" speech. There were a total of 67 people getting citizenship, from 29 countries and 5 continents.
Surprisingly there were no little flags handed out and there was no speech by George.W.Bush played on the screens. A judge entered and the formal part took maybe 15 minutes. The 67 people stood and recited the oath. The judge left the room and the citizenship certificates were handed out by a man wearing a stars and stripes tie. And here's a photo outside the courthouse.