friday on my mind

[kirkcudbright]

So you know that Friday mornings, I volunteer at Nevins Farm. I'm now an official Volunteer Mentor. The program didn't exist when I started, but the idea is that a seasoned volunteer will show the fresh meat where everything is, who everyone is, how to pick stalls, why we cuddle chickens, and the like. (The chicken-cuddling isn't on the official agenda, but I'm getting ahead of myself slightly.)

lyonesse and pywaket showed up this morning, so I practised my mad mentoring...um, checklist...on them. They missed most of the stall cleaning (including the great horse shuffle, because it was like, you know, raining, and we all know that horses are made of sugar, until I said why don't we just put them all outside, and then we did). But I showed them the poultry quarantine area in the loft, and we cleaned the chicken coop, and they each caught themselves a duck (very advanced bird-fu, I might add). And we located the fire extinguishers and the Wintec Gullet Fitter, and had a great time filling out forms on the Group W bench and all of that...

............

I like libraries. This is one area where a town really gets to show off what it thinks of itself. I spent much of my youth in the Forbes Library in Northampton (home to the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum). Mind, this was back in the days of card catalogs, the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, due dates stamped in the back of the book, etc. More recently, lillibet had a fabulous birthday party in the fabulous Arlington library - something I wouldn't have even thought possible until I saw it done. With Kylie in school in Salisbury, and me volunteering in Methuen, I tend to seek out a library for an hour or two of work (read: free WiFi) in between the end of my shift and the end of school.

Methuen has a fabulous library, recently renovated, but maintaining the character of the old building. Ditto Newburyport (which has an IT room dedicated to one of the Van Bokkelens). Woburn wants to be like that, but it takes more than "want" (to start with, money is necessary but not sufficient). OTOH, they still have (at least as of a couple years ago) a card catalog of hand-lettered index cards of the town newspaper, dating from something like the 1850's to the 1950's. Andover has old town maps, which I've spent cumulatively hours overlaying with the current town roads and landmarks. Tewksbury has a great selection of books on tape, which I used to tap when I was commuting to Nashua. Salem NH has a modern (soulless) box with an unimpressive collection. Amesbury feels a bit shoe-horned into their old building, and requires reservations for their public PCs. Merrimac closes at 2pm on Friday, so I haven't been in there. Salisbury has a tiny building, closed Friday-Sunday. To be honest, North Reading (no, it doesn't actually say "No Reading Library") is in the middle of the pack. So is Reading, though a little bigger/more comfortable.

............

Okay, you'll read words without pictures, but I like sharing the pics. This one is from March in San Francisco (ask me about the IETF that I didn't quite attend):

Comments

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

You must live in your car, wow.

We tracked down the SF hearts while there this summer.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

That's a gorgeous photo!

Thanks for the party shout-out. I was really amused by the number of people who said to me variations of "You can rent the library? That's my childhood fantasy!"

[chocorua.livejournal.com]

D'Arcy was my father. He wasn't born in Newburyport, but he went through public school there, and lived there from 1961 till he died.