As usual on Memorial Day weekend, I was camping at a big bluegrass party and came down the mountain to do stuff at the Coal Festival. Here are some parade & festival pictures. I hope you're amused. (See (e:heidi,48848) for last year.)

My cousin's ex-wife


Big flag




Pennsylvania Bucktails Civil War re-enactors





A's nephew Tyler... keep an eye out for him below.


My hairdresser's son Jason.


First Citizens National Bank began as Miners National Bank


Red Hat Society, driven by town historian Keith Lindie on his precious John Deere.


The tall redheaded boy is another of A's nephews. His niece Harley is 4th from left.




Gratuitous fire engine shot. Blossburg, Morris, Liberty, Wellsboro and Mansfield fire and/or ambulance companies were represented.






Uncle Dudley's bf Bernie hauled their float.


Uncle Dudley & the float



Tioga County does have a bus system although it's mostly impractical. The system does have some good specialized services, such as the one that picks up A's mom at their house and takes her to dialysis .





Here's A's nephew Tyler again - the parade/town is so small that participants are recycled. Ty was prom king. Great hat.



Girls softball... somehow they got to ride four-wheelers.


My client Lucia's husband Jim.


One of the Nickerson relations showing off the eggs that Gordie the Chicken Whisperer was selling (e:heidi,51745)



I bought a raffle ticket for this antique tractor cuz ya know I really need one.


The car show is a very popular event.


Harley was in the parade with her recorder-playing troupe and then she got her face painted at the festival. I love how her teeth were blue.

Just a cute picture of A's niece Tori Rose. She begged me to take her camping.


The Island is one of the most beautiful and special places I know. It's so hard to capture the beauty of it.


Wow, that was boring.

On Kristen Becker's suggestion, I took Nisha to the Barkyard before I had to take her home last week. If you need some cute in your life, that's the place to go.








Patent attorney Rebecca and Brandywine, a dachshund mix.








Some random cell shots...
Nisha & China hanging out


I had my truck packed to go camping Memorial Day weekend and Nisha was happily snuggled in the midst of the blankets & pillows as I took her to A's.

Thanks to (e:mike), (e:libertad), (e:metalpeter), (e:fellyconnelly), and (e:lauren) for hanging out! It was a cool mashup of my Buffalo Queer Women meetup members and (e:peeps). (Whoa! the little flying pictures on upload!)

(e:libertad) loves Nisha! What a great shot - they're both so happy!





Brigidann lives at Plankton, the other coop house. She's a cool nerdy punk type. Her shirt says "Sorry, I don't do boys."




Alisa & Kavi

April 10, 2010

Uncle Dudley and her bf Bernie bought a scooter to use when they're traveling in their RV. Here's Uncle Dudley scooting around the yard.



I tried it out, too. It was way more fun than I expected, and much easier. Would this be a good city transportation option?


Uncle Dudley & Bernie create "Headstone Halos," cemetery headstone decorations that keep the flower pots off the ground and make the veterans' flags stand up straight. This one is on my great grandmother's grave.



I love the shadows.



Bernie creates custom artwork for the Halos.


I've mentioned the industrial invasion of Tioga County by gas well drilling... From 2007 through April 2010, Pennsylvania has issued 1,559 permits in the four counties of Bradford, Tioga, Susquehanna and Wayne. Choose Tioga from the drop down menu, then zoom in on the yellow pin on Ward Township. The photos are from Ward and Union twps. The yellow pins are Fortuna, now Talisman, well permits and the purple ones are East Resources, now Shell Oil.

This well pad is behind American Legion Post 167 in Morris Run.


They're clearing paths to create roads for the well pads.


This land was strip mined for coal and reclaimed.


Another well site.


This shows the truck traffic on a Saturday at Fallbrook, Pa.


Permits displayed at another well site.


A compressor station. There are lots of cabins around here - their property values are shot.


Ward & Union townships are also the site of a large windfarm. Although windfarms do cause some noise pollution, they do not threaten water. The energy is exported to Virgina, Maryland & Delaware.





These poor folks have both a windfarm and a gas well pad. Their house shows a bunch of new improvements, so they're getting money from somewhere, but I doubt they could sell their land. This used to be just another quiet country road.


Drilling rig.


You know life is bad when Halliburton appears. :-(


We stopped for a little picnic lunch.



All of a sudden Nisha laid down and stopped moving. I thought she was just following a scent trail but she wouldn't get up. I panicked and yelled for A.


He picked her up and she had burdocks on her ear which then got attached to her eye fur and she was trying to wipe them away. He pulled them out.

And she was grateful.


I don't think this was constructed.


Hundred-year-old foundation with a tree growing in the middle of it.

I have ooodles of pix to post but here I am posting a crappy cell phone picture of Bodhi's toes. Poor baby is at the doctor getting shots now.

My meetup group is watching the Dyke March from my front stoop this afternoon - you're all welcome to join us! 5:00 p.m. Bring beer, dogs, chairs, dykes... (comment if you need my addy)

I can't wait to have some time to post the bear trap, tranq and sleepy bear pix I've got! Prolly not till Monday, and then I'll have bonfire pix, too. I'm hoping to get fireflies dancing on a moonlit pond tonight. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!

To build on (e:Libertad)'s & (e:Vincent)'s recent posts (e:Libertad,51746) and (e:Libertad,51740) and (e:Vincent,51726) ...

There are acts of nature beyond man's control.

Oil in water is one of them. The stuff is about as easy to clean up as molten lava. Here's the only number you really need to know about this subject:

14

That would be 14 as in 14 percent, as in the amount of oil recovered after the Exxon spill. Exxon spent more than $2 billion. It skimmed like crazy. It washed beaches. It steam-cleaned rock. It swabbed cliffs. It hauled off driftwood and oil-soaked boom and anything else it could get its hands on that had oil stuck to it, and it got 14 percent of the oil. America doesn't seem to understand -- and journalists who are supposed to know more than the average man in the street truly do not not seem to understand -- once the oil is in the water, we are not getting much of it out. We are screwed.

Massey Energy Co.

Shell Oil bought East Resources for $4.7Bn today. East is pretty much owns the mineral rights in Tioga County. In other words, Shell now owns Tioga County. <blink>

In 1792, coal was discovered in Bloss and became a dominant economic force until the early 1980s. There are some mining activities still occurring in the western half of the county. This weekend is the 18th Annual Blossbu*g State Coal Festival . Tioga County Concerned Citizens Committee is still working to clean up the acid mine drainage that makes the Tioga River "dead" from Fall Brook to Mansfield. (See (e:heidi,49800) - the river rocks are orange from the AMD and the falls stink of sulfur.) As if that environmental damage isn't enough, that same creek, a tributary of the Tioga, which becomes the Chemung, which turns into the Susquehanna, which drains into the Chesapeake Bay, now sports foam discs (probably Airfoam HD) from nearby gas well drilling.

It's all tied together for me.

Full moon rising last night...










Gordie the Chicken Whisperer is planning to sell eggs at the Bloss farmers' market on Saturdays. He gets 20-30 eggs a day from the chicken coops at the office. Organic, free range.




Bodhi's 7 weeks old!

Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac?