LOST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

The "Shard"

Architecture

Do we make as much fun of buildings we don’t like as the British do?  Do we have the same number of silly-looking buildings?  No and no–or rather, I don't think so.  On the other hand, we don’t have as many you can point to and say, wow, that’s wild!   It’s been a good 15 years since we were in London, pre-millennium, before many of the physical changes in the cityscape, the most obvious being the millennium wheel (14 years ago right there).  Now we have the "Shard" (tallest in all Europe!), the "Gherkin" and the "Wurlitzer", plus one in progress (droopy, like it wants to bend over, the “Accordion” I think it's being called).  I kind of like the Shard. The wheel is okay, too, although I can’t say I was eager to ride it–a whole hour in a capsule for a single revolution.  

In the center the "Gherkin" protrudes; to its right, the "Accordion" as yet incomplete
(If the "Gherkin" were in the US I think we'd call it the "Bullet," as that's where our minds are at.)

The building with the ramp in the middle is intended to evoke a sailboat.

Then there’s the National Theater where we saw a terrific “King Lear” on our final night.  The theater’s not exactly new (1977!) but we missed it completely on earlier visits.  Brutalist architecture–in more ways than one.  The numerous ramps and protrusions offer a challenge to figure where the entrance is.  Inside as well as out all is gray, massive and gloomy, like a Soviet-style mausoleum.   Amid these stark surrounds the Terrace Restaurant inside has the vibe of an old high school cafeteria.  The first thing a person says when you stop to ask directions is how hideous the architecture is.  “A clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting,” Prince Charles quipped when it opened.  One imagines big time architects in the UK to be an arrogant lot.  Maybe I just don't get it.

The National Theatre (stock photo; I couldn't have found this angle unless I was in midair.)

A river trip to Greenwich, an excursion that we hadn't made before, revealed much new construction along the Thames banks.  Each apartment house appeared to be outdoing the other in terms of architectural style or novelty.  One had penthouse apartments hanging over the rest of the building.  (How would you like to be on one of those balconies?)  Another was designed to resemble a sailboat (albeit a heavy one, engendering much mockery), while several others had braces? swords? buttresses? reaching from top to bottom to liven things up.  Some were pretty cool, warehouses turned into residences.

Apartments with hanging penthouses

Lots of steel whatevers add something or other to this building; steel whatevers seem quite popular.

The view from the Old Naval Observatory at Greenwich

At the Observatory Ken watches the red ball move to let us know it's one o'clock

Other Changes, and Not

The Rose Garden in Hyde Park

So much was the same, or better than before.  It was lovely, amazing really, being there in sunny and warm weather.  Everyone was out and about.  The streets were jammed day and night, but especially at night.  Portobello Road on a Saturday morning was crazy crowded.  The Tube was crowded at every hour.  (I love the Tube.  Funneling from one line to another–up, down, around and through–I felt like a hamster.)  

There still are eels with pie and mash

Or eat at Rules for the sake of tradition

Food was excellent. Many of the pubs are now called "gastropubs." Prices, though, are like £'s masquerading as $'s.  That is, the prices look like $, and then you gasp when you realize £ means 60% more.  Food servers, hotel workers, and other service jobs are now most often Eastern European.  And of course, ethnic restaurants at all levels of cuisine, haute and low, are everywhere.  Where else, outside of Turkey, but in a little alley in Shepherd’s Market in Mayfair, could Ken get the full Turkish barber experience extended over an hour and a half that included old-style razors, hot towels, massage (head, neck, arms) and ear hair singed with flames.

And the pubs....

...are busy around 6 o'clock on weekdays

The Strand, crowded on a lovely Saturday night

In the British Museum

An article about a major Viking exhibit at the British Museum was partly what got us to London.  The BM also has an outstanding collection of early Anglo-Saxon finds, unearthed hoards, that we looked at first.  They, like the Vikings, had cone-like helmets and huge brooches in the shape of a circle with long pin inserted through it. The Vikings as we usually think of them are such a cliché–all that raping and pillaging.  In fact they were actually wide-ranging traders, and farmers to boot.  (Forget those silly horned helmets–only a 19th century re-imagining.)   Viking women were thought to have had special powers, and some were regarded as sorceresses–iron wands were buried with them in positions that signified importance.  

Viking style helmet, only this is Anglo-Saxon

When you exit the Viking tour you are ushered into a gift shop–what else?–one created especially for this exhibit in an obscure corner of the museum, making a total of about three or four gift shops in all. Ken, in full Norse mode (it’s in his DNA), gathered up what seemed like thirty pounds of books.  We were finally done shopping when he abruptly turned, dumped the whole pile in my arms saying he needed a bathroom, and shot out the door.  For ten minutes I struggled to hold onto everything and my own stuff until I found a collapsible shopping bag they supplied to put it all in.  I was so weighed down I couldn’t move.  Every time I put the bag down it collapsed and the books fell out.  So I waited.  And waited.  I realized then he might not be coming back.  At that moment this was me:

(Painting at the Tate Modern)

First I had to get loose of the weight.  I paid for what I deemed the best of the books, dumped the rest, and took up a post just outside the gift shop door.  There were four directions Ken could have disappeared into: a staircase, two corridors and an elevator.  I didn't dare move.  Half an hour went by.  He could have gone anywhere; there were toilets in several directions.  An hour went by.  He emerged from none of the directions.  There was no cell service.  And, anyway, he had no phone.

Staying put was getting me nowhere.  I figured I'd better start looking.  I checked the museum map to find out where I was.  The BM has an immense two story round structure in an atrium by the museum entrance.  There's a gift shop there too.  It wasn’t far.  The atrium was the simplest place to look without getting lost myself.   The alternative was to go back to the hotel and assume he would do the same.  I had visions of a missing persons call to the police.  Notices in the paper.  I circled the atrium.  Everywhere–men with white hair and beards!  Where did they all come from?  Then, among the throng, there he was!  He had been walking around, and around, very, very slowly, figuring (hoping?) I would eventually come to the same place to get out.  Well, I did, didn't I. 

Next time we make a plan.  Just in case.

DAIRY TIME

You get to visit a lot of dairy farms when you hang around 4-H’ers.  Most of the barns I’ve visited (accompanying Carly and Audrey who are participating again this year) are pretty dim places despite overhead lights.   Milking is a dirty business.  Barn floors are often wood or dirt, the dirt churned into mud by the cows in season.   Hoses filled with pure clean milk wind past floors that can have varieties of mud, hay, manure and/or cow pee.   Everyone wears muck boots.  On a cold day a barn may feel colder inside than out. 

The dirt floor turns into mud in season

The first farm we went to one chilly day in March is run by Farmer Dan, the same farmer who mows our field, and his brother.  It’s his brother who mostly handles the dairy cow operation whereas Dan’s income comes mostly (or in part?) from repairing farm machinery and engines.  Dairy farming was in the family, their father before them a dairyman, and maybe it goes back further than that.  His brother is less presentable than Dan:  a few missing teeth right up front, a big belly, and much less of a conversationalist.  The cows they have are boarded from one place or another.  They don’t actually own any of them.  This is not an unusual arrangement.

Dan's brother (right) with Audra, cow expert and 4-H leader

Another farm, and another chill and dimly lit barn, wooden floor.  A newborn calf (days old) stood shivering in its stall.  This seemed to be a matter of small importance to the farmer.  After all, cows can be outdoors in all kinds of weather, while calves are almost always indoors, sheltered from wind at least.  Yet one can’t help thinking that if the world were different, this calf would have been sheltered by its mother, and would have been taking its mother’s milk.  But that is absurd on a dairy farm.  Calves are separated from their mothers almost immediately after birth.  Mothers need to keep producing milk and get pregnant all over again.  Holsteins are the preferred milk cow because they are big and produce a lot of milk.  One can’t forget this is a business.

Something different:  a bright cheerful-looking calf barn

A barn we visited in April had a different look.  We were led around (“we” being half a dozen 4-H’ers, me, and two other adults) this 1,000-cow operation by the chief herdsman.  (How many people have you ever known with the job title herdsman?)   He was a fairly hip looking guy, the telltales of his work the confetti of hay on his hoodie.  A single light-filled structure–more Quonset hut than barn–was filled with calves of various ages. The bright clean space conveys a sense of well cared for calves.

(In reality all cows are cared for matter-of-factly, to my eye.  They are a commodity, they have value, and they are someone’s livelihood.  Cows are big, and they are dumb, and they have to be pushed around sometimes.  I see a cow stumble when it's been shoved, and I say "Oh!"  But I'm being soft.  Me before you, cow!  Let's not get emotional.)

These calves’ metal cages were filled with fresh straw and each cage had a pair of clean white buckets with grains and water.  One larger corral held half a dozen calves that were ready to be weaned.  A row of rubber nipples were arrayed on one side attached to hoses that led to a barrel of substitute milk so the calves could suckle whenever they wanted. Younger non-weaned calves get their substitute milk via individual bottles. 

Chief herdsman, in profile

The cows in this 1,000 size herd (a “closed herd,” no cows boarded from anywhere else, all cows owned by the farm) are housed inside full-time, their milk marketed as Monument Dairy, a completely local operation.   Along with “local” we like to think “natural,” where natural in this case would suggest cows munching the grass in the scenic outdoors.  That’s the image.  And there are many cows in the fields in Addison County, plenty of them right on our street.  But pasturing or not, it’s a personal decision, depending on the kind of dairying you want to or are able to do.  Because it’s a business, these are business decisions.  Pasturing is cheaper.  However, it’s harder to keep track of or monitor cows that are out to pasture.  They have to be rounded up to be milked.  Or maybe there’s not enough pasture for all the cows.  Or the pasture isn’t right for these particular cows.  One has to weigh issues of soil quality and type, the amount, type and quality of forage (vegetation) to determine how many cows can feed on how much acreage.  Dairy cows, because they are lactating, need more forage and better quality forage than beef cattle.   An agricultural service elaborates on how soils can vary: 

Soils in "herd pastures" that serve as lounging areas for cattle often are very high in phosphorus and potassium. However, soils from an adjacent field where harvested forage is grown may be low in these nutrients.

I like thinking about lounging cattle.

Management info at the calf barn

Dairy has been a major farming business in Vermont for a very long time.  I remember hearing some years ago how Vermont’s population was described as consisting of “more cows than people.”  If this was ever true, it isn’t anymore.  On the other hand, Vermont has the largest number of cows in the country per capita, that is, the ratio of cows to people.  According to the University of Vermont, with a population of about 626,000 people, we currently have about 150,000 milk cows that produce some three billion pounds of milk (one gallon of milk = approximately 8 pounds; figure it out!)  per year.

At right, an early (primitive) milk pan and skimmer; at center (quite unrelated!) a boot dryer

Any businessman, farmer or not, wants to decrease the workload and increase efficiency.  Hence the large number of inventions related to the dairy business.  We heard a talk about Vermont inventions a while back from a former engineer who collects these objects.  Many of them have to do with the prime issue of separating the cream.  The most primitive form of this was letting the milk sit until the cream rose to the top, then skimming it off.

 

A pair of butter printers (you stamped on the name of the producer and/or a design)

The very latest thing in dairy management was recently in the news in the New York Times.  A dairy operation in upstate New York has entirely automated the milking process.  With a transponder around her neck, a cow walks into a milking cubicle (seeded with specially tempting grains) whenever it feels a need to be milked.  There a laser guides the milking nozzles to the udder.  There’s hardly a limit to the kind of data about the cow and the milk that can be collected automatically.  This farm also has a robot that functions much like a Roomba vacuum that sweeps the cows’ feed neatly along the floor for the cows to eat.   A smooth concrete floor is needed for that.

Lot of acreage, but the cows stay in the barn
(In the distance, the ubiquitous used tires covering manure that will become compost)

Probably in a few years milking robotics will come to this area.  Maybe it’s already here, somewhere.  Maybe the floors of all barns will be concrete instead of dirt or wood, and milking will be automated.  Maybe only beef cows will feed in pastures.  Maybe (hey, why not?) milk will be made chemically instead of taken from cows.  Maybe male cows will have a brighter future beyond veal, somehow.  In a more perfect world of course.

All things considered, I would rather farm plants.

*”With Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When its Milking Time,” The New York Times, April 22, 2014. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/with-farm-robotics-the-cows-decide-when-its-milking-time.html?_r=0

MELT

Ice, rocks, leaves

ONE DAY last week some neighborhood cows decided to take a stroll.  An entire herd of twenty or so decided to mosey down Hallock Road, past our house and on down the hill north of our property.  Somewhere around the bend they paused to munch some stubby grasses in a field.  Eating out, you could say.  According to my daughter and neighbor, a couple of guys had come by asking if anyone had seen a bunch of cows.  “We looked where they was supposed to be and the gate was open and all of them was like, gone.”  They found their cows.  After some hooting and hollering and a couple of toots of a car horn the herd was persuaded to stroll in the other direction, back up the hill toward the farm to our south, their home for better or worse.  They’d probably walked a half mile all in all.  It seemed like a pleasant outing, all things considered.  I like to think their adventure was brought about less by opportunity, the gate left carelessly open, and  more because spring was in the air and they got the itch to travel. 

The herd moves up Hallock Road

SPRING IS HERE, or coming, anyway.  It’s hard to be sure because there have been mixed signals.  Skiing is still viable in the mountains.  Both Sugarbush and the Middlebury Snow Bowl are open, although Rikert’s cross country trails have closed for the season.  Yet there is melt, and plenty of it.  All the rivers are high and low-lying fields have become temporary lakes, receiving visits from ducks and newly arriving geese.  Our own pond is momentarily stuck in two seasons, evidence for which is a duo of mergansers (symbolizing spring) swimming amongst small icebergs (winter, obviously).  The two main flows that feed the pond are almost streams:  one drains down the hill from the south, and the other drains more slowly from the western border along the road.  Still––magic will happen––it could be only days before stains of green appear.

March

Pond in early April

Normally a field, now a lake, complete with geese

WE HAVE HEARD red-winged blackbirds in the field.  They will be nesting there when the grasses begin to grow.  A great blue heron flew overhead as I drove on the road to Middlebury.  Skunks are on the prowl.  Salamanders are laying their eggs.  Rodents find themselves exposed as the snow melts over their pathways.  Daisy and Skyler uncovered a vole last week that became, after I tossed its body into the woods, food for some other scavenger.  Now is when baby opossums are born, babies so tiny that some twenty could fit into a teaspoon.  Hardly viable at that stage, they have to find their way to the opossum’s pouch if they are to survive.  The Virginia opossum has been emigrating north in recent years as the climate warms and is no longer uncommon here.  (I remember reading many years ago when we lived further south in Lexington, Massachusetts, when opossums were first spotted in the area––it was a novel occurrence then––with frost-bitten toes and ear tips. I hope they have evolved since then!)  Woodchuck litters are being born right about now.  A woodchuck family, we can say with confidence, has been living under our patio for some time.  As the snow melts we find piles of pebbles that were layered under the concrete and are now piled up next to large holes.  The evidence speaks for itself.  Skyler and Daisy have investigated numerous holes in the lawn behind the house that suggest an extensive network of tunnels.  A little contraception among woodchucks would be a plus.

Pebbles dug up from under the patio in the dried oregano bed

BUCK MOUNTAIN forest area behind us is extensive, not one of those small interrupted woodland plots that have become so common with development and tend to lack animal corridors.  This particular woodland, like many parts of the Champlain Valley consists, at least in part, of what is called a “clayplain forest.”  Trees there consist mostly of white and red oak, red maple, white pine, shagbark hickory (a tree favored by bats, where they exist), white ash, hemlock, sugar maple (syrup!) and beech, among others.  

This is the forest that dominated the clay and silt soils of the Champlain Valley prior to European settlement and the subsequent conversion of forest to agricultural land. Today this forest community is extremely rare. The clay soils were deposited in the Champlain Valley during and following the Pleistocene glaciation, both when the valley was flooded by a large freshwater lake, and later when salt water invaded the basin from the north. The soils are deep and fertile, and make ideal agricultural soils, especially when drained. Moisture in these soils varies with soil texture and topographic position, and the most well drained areas were the ones preferentially cleared for agriculture. The Valley Clayplain Forest remnants that are left are generally on the moister sites, though they typically contain a mosaic of wet and less-wet areas. In some areas, thin lenses of sand lie over the clay.*

THE FOREST DEER migrate slightly eastward during the winter, toward the higher elevations and larger forest areas.  A large nearby field abutting forest alongside route 17A is an area considered a “deer yard,” the name for a site where deer tend to hang out.  Higher elevations and to our east is where the moose are more likely to hang out.  Ken’s grandson Spencer has found numerous discarded moose antlers in the forest around Bristol.  There must be no shortage of moose.  A few weeks ago Spencer’s dad spotted a bobcat.  We haven’t seen one ourselves, but at least three bobcat dens have been noted by wildlife researchers in the Buck Mountain area, not far from where we are.  I talked to someone last week who said she had seen a catamount (Vermont’s word for mountain lion), the presence of which remains officially unacknowledged. 

Bill Norland captured this shot of a bobcat

MAKING SYRUP is the best sign of the season change, with hope for the warmish days and cold nights that make the sap flow.  Those kinds of days haven't been abundant.  The cold weather lasted far too long and it may be too late for a good maple syrup season.  A few weeks of the right weather is optimal.  Lovely spring weather is not particularly optimal.   Chris tended the boil this past weekend with a record low amount of sap but with a new and better evaporator pan and some professional quality filters.  We may yet have at least a small amount of excellent syrup.

The sugar house, wood stacked and ready

Tending the boil inside the sugar house. A trough of sap (foreground) awaits

 ***

LOCAL ISSUE UPDATE (For readers of the previous post)

It was inevitable.  As I suggested in the posting called “Local Issue,” a petition for a re-vote of the decision to build a new Town Office building has been submitted to the Middlebury Selectboard.  Some 250 required signatures were gathered and are now in the process of being verified.  Still, it will be an uphill battle for the diehard opposition.  The side that voted “NO” will not only have to win the re-vote (the original vote at March’s town meeting was 915 to 798 opposed), but must win with a majority plus two-thirds of the “Yes” vote.  Since the “Yes” vote numbered 915 they will need 603 (66% of 915) additional votes on their side. 

An ironic sidelight of this petition drive is that the person who initiated it (not, by the way, the chief voice of the opposition at the March town meeting) has an interesting set of reasons for his desire to undo the vote.  He would like a new Town Office to be built on the outskirts of town, the recreation center to be in an entirely different location than the one overwhelmingly voted way earlier, and, what’s more, claims to have a plan (no drawings, no consulting engineers or architects involved) that would, according to his own calculations, cost less than the present plan.  Well, lots more, actually, since Middlebury College’s huge contribution would be out of the picture.  These notions blithely ignore the opposition’s (supposedly) passionate concern, expressed with great vigor in March, about moving the town offices as much as 300 feet from its present location.  I guess the idea is to overturn the vote any old way–­–who cares what the reasons are!

Once more, stay tuned!

*Excerpted from "Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the Natural Communities of Vermont," E.H. Thompson and E.R. Sorenson. 2000 and 2005. Published by The Nature Conservancy and Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, distributed by University Press of New England.