Garden feast

From 2010 August NECC garden feast  The teens in NECC's summer job program maintained the new school garden at Webutuck beautifully - this is just a fraction of the tomatoes and beets, and leeks, and chard, and turnips, and gorgeous gorgeous flowers, that were harvested this summer. I have posted, retroactively, some other moments from this past month, so scroll down - I make no claim to posting daily anymore, but I shoudl be able to do better than twice a month.

Won't be long now...

sharon farm market, originally uploaded by jahansell.

I know a lot has been going on inside, but this is the first major change outside the new grocery store. I can't tell you how excited I'll be when the day comes that I"m making dinner, it's 6:00, everything's moving along, and I realize I don't have an onion. Or a lemon. Or i'm out of sugar. Or whatever..and I can just run out and grab it and be back before the water boils.

But I have been troubled by some comments I'm hearing around town. The new owners are Korean, and for some reason people are fixating on this and making a lot of assumptions about what kind of market it will be. "It's a Korean Deli." "..competition from that new Korean grocery..." - I'm genuinely (perhaps naively) surprised by the focus on ethnicity. We don't live in the most diverse spot on earth, heaven knows - the first time my daughter noticed a man with dark skin and made a comment about it, she was all of three, and we were nowhere near here. But still, I'd hope people would pay attention to what he's doing, not where he was born.

I suppose in NYC "Korean deli" isn't pejorative - it's just a fact that there is a network of small corner groceries, owned by Koreans, that carry a certain fairly predictable line of items (or at least that was true when I lived there, over a decade ago.) The produce was always fresh, the tofu was great, and I loved the fig bars! But in the comments I've heard, I'm not so sure that appellation was used in such a neutral way - I felt I was hearing a tinge of anxiety from people about a stranger, an outsider coming in. Maybe that would be the case no matter who it was - he's from Long Island and it could just as well have been a Jewish grocer, or an Italian one - would the same people say "Jewish deli" (I know I would - bring on the pastrami!) or "Italian market?" Why, to my ears, do either of those feel less pejorative than what I have been hearing?

It's a puzzlement. Any thoughts?

High Line

high line bricks, originally uploaded by jahansell.
I took a trip to New York City, and visited, at last, the High Line. It lives up to the hype (old rail bed, converted to funky urban park) though it's only about 8 blocks long - it takes 15 minutes to walk through. There were lots of people there, enjoying the summer day - sitting on benches, eating, walking dogs, taking pictures, just basking. Click the photo to go to my Flickr site to see a few more shots.

Craft fair dog

craft fair dog, originally uploaded by jahansell.
Do you sense a theme here?  I have been taking pictures of dogs at the Millerton Farmers Market for years - they just add so much to the ambiance.   (As long as they are on leashes.) This one was helping to sell his mistress' wares at the Sharon Arts and Crafts Fair.

LIbrary ook signing

book signing, originally uploaded by jahansell.
Early August was a busy time in Sharon.  The Hotchkiss Library book signing and sale brouht out a couple dozen authors and hundreds of book lovers - I went home with a huge stack to read!

Misty evening

misty evening, originally uploaded by jahansell.

Last night after a long day at work, coming home, making dinner, cleaning up, I dashed out to the beach with my daughter. It was after 8 already and getting dark, but I needed to see sky! We jumped in for a few minutes, and on the way home pulled over to look at this - a light blanket of fog over the field. It looked so thin I thought I could walk in it and have my head stick out the top - that would have been so cool!

Storm damage

tree down, originally uploaded by jahansell.

The damage from last week's tornado is getting cleaned up, bit by bit - but it will take many years to replace this grand old tree in front of the school.

August 1 Theme Day: Bright Colors

Vintage cars are a common sight around here in the summer - they gather at parades, at Lime Rock Race Track events, and just drive around for fun. When I was visiting Detroit a few weeks ago I saw even more - great old Bel Aires and the like everywhere I went. This fine specimen drove through Sharon during the Memorial Day parade.

It's Theme Day in the City Daily Photo Blog community -- to see Bright Colors around the globe, click here to view thumbnails for all participants and to vote for the next theme, visit CityDailyPhoto.com.