Confirming that the farmer’s market is just not quite the thing this
year. Still no corn! Trying to figure out if the farmers aren’t
growing it (but I see fields of it), it isn’t ready (but it is farther north,
for chrissake), or what. Have not
actually asked anyone so this remains in the realm of speculation. Also, no Mermaid Farm with their mango
lassis, and I think that Grumpy Potato Guy is now sending his wife (who is no
more friendly). But there are more meat
purveyors, which is always good, and at least Fancy Potato Lady was there today. And of course, egg rolls.
Izzy’s flip flops wandered off at Long Point yesterday, so we try to
find some at Alley’s but the few pairs they have are about four inches long and
simply will not do.
It’s a bit overcast, if sticky, so what better to do than go to the
Fair? This is the 157th
iteration of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair, and while I think it may
be a little shorter on food options than in the past, and the jam entries also
appear lesser, there are still piglets and baby goats and deservedly
prize-winning quilts and soft-serve with rainbow sprinkles.
And there are the events. While
we don’t make it to the Oyster Shucking Competition, we are excited for the
First Annual Strong Man Competition, envisioning giant men with leather belts
flipping cars and such. But it turns out
to be just a bunch of beefy guys standing around a weight rack in a field,
occasionally practicing some dead lifts.
The 42nd Annual Woodsmen’s Contest is much more exciting,
with high speed chopping and sawing, and some all-female competitions which thrills
the feminists in our party. Also, this
contest has a fine and knowledgeable Mistress of Ceremonies, telling us what is
going on, working the crowd, exhorting us to support the competitors, and
generally keeping the whole thing entertaining.
But we’re drawn like moths to the flame of the antique tractor pull on
the far side of the fairgrounds. The
object here is to get your antique – and we are talking old, bare bones,
battery-may-be-60-years-younger-than-the-tractor, kinda-rusty-but-not-where-it-counts
– tractor to pull a sled with concrete blocks on it. Weights are added until one tractor pulls it
the farthest. A “full pull” is 60
inches. Once they reach a weight where
no machine can pull a full load, the one that gets the farthest wins, and they
move on to another class.
Here’s how it works.
- The machines huff and puff and snort and pop and
roar and groan and sometimes putter and conk out. It’s like hanging out with Mike Mulligan and
his Steam Shovel.
- You don’t just gun it and hope for the
best. There’s a whole method, you might
even say an art to antique-tractor pulling.
You give your ride a little gas and tug gently on the hand-held string
choke, and fiddle with some anonymous-looking levers. You use the foot breaks to hold one giant
tire off and let the other spin madly – this is called “warming up the tires”
and burns a lot of rubber which then needs to be swept off the cement pad in
comically inept fashion by a nine-year-old. You might run your hands over the tires,
testing the temperature. At this point,
if you are really confident, you might look over at the competition with a
little “you wanna go?” glint in your eye.
- Then you start bouncing gently in your seat, to
kind of break the friction between the sled and the pad. As things heat up, you might bounce more energetically,
until finally you are flying several inches into the air. Some drivers will be almost sideways at this
point, and because it is hot and humid today, they are panting and
sweating. If you have anything left for
style points you might swing one arm over your head like you are the cowboy on
the Wyoming license plate. Yee-haw!
-
At this point the whole machine is jumping and
the front wheels (which are purely for direction, it’s the big black behemoths
in the back that do all the work) are bouncing up and down too. Hopefully the sled is starting to move
forward a few inches with each bounce.
- The Master of Ceremonies (whose wife took over
when he was driving, and vice versa) exhorts the crowd to cheer on the driver
and machine, all the while dropping bon mots and inside jokes with the
competitors, who all know each other because everyone in the antique tractor
universe on MV is apparently related to each other.
- On the best efforts, at some point, the sled
will free itself and pull the final inches forward quickly at which point the
MC yells “full pull!” and the crowd roars its approval. Fists are bumped, some trash talk exchanged,
the sled is re-positioned and another driver and machine come on for the next attempt.
- This was the competition to watch because the
most weight ever pulled at the Martha’s Vineyard Ag Fair was pulled this year: 14,550 lbs.
That is a lot of concrete blocks.
- Some of the best drivers are women (Jane pulled
the record weight) and none of the tractors are named Mary Anne. The future is female, indeed. Although we should note that one of the
winners, Shane, while well-known to all, does not appear to actually be related
to anyone. (Neither is past champ
Dwight, but he does not have a good day so we’re not paying much attention to
him.) Young Shane is clearly the future
of antique tractor-pulling on Martha’s Vineyard.
Dinner at the London’s, and it is the dinner we’ve been waiting for,
for about three or four years now:
Ramon’s paella! The wait was
worth it. This savory delight is filled
with seafood and chicken and sausage and incredibly tasty rice. We feel quite fortunate to be asked to
partake. Also there is pie and a rousing
game of DICK, which we’ve never played with 17 people before but the extended
London family is more than up to the task.
Banner day.
No comments:
Post a Comment