Footprints in the Snow

In between snowfalls, it's interesting to speculate about who's been around..

...on the scrounge for evergreens, perhaps.. (The mountain laurels are off the menu - they've already been eaten).

Investigating the compost heap, maybe

Or..

....just doing a spot of birdwatching

The Empty Promise of a Sausage Roll

 I feel cheated.  I was in Tops supermarket buying rolls for our beloved bison burgers (fresh from the local buffalo ranch) when I spied something that sent a wave of nostalgia gushing through me. In one of the bakery compartments a sign read "sausage rolls".  Sausage rolls! Could it really be? Since coming to America, I hadn't clapped eyes on a sausage roll, or on a proper sausage for that matter. It's not that I eat sausage rolls that much when I'm in London but they are a part of my old life, something, if spotted in the land of exile, to be grasped with both hands. Which I did. The sausage rolls (I treated myself to two) seemed rather large. But then I thought, this is America, everything is, as they say, bigger, bigger, BIGGER. They also seemed suspiciously light but in my excitement I didn't grasp the significance.
  I brought them home trembling with anticipation and pondered whether to heat them up or eat them as is. I decided on the latter and took an eager bite. Then another and another. Wait a minute. Where was the sausage? I got to the end. No sausage. If the roll was filled with anything, it was filled with air.  "Maybe that's just a duff one", I tried to cheer myself up and bit into the other.  The same thing!  I vented my frustrations on poor hubby, who tried very hard but ultimately unsuccessfully not to laugh. In fact he thought it was the most hilarious thing he'd heard in ages. Enough said. What sort of country is this where you buy a sausage roll and have to provide your own sausage?

Hitting the Slopes

 I finally got out to ski. When I was living in Britain, arranging a ski-ing trip was a big, expensive deal, planned for months in advance, then hours on the Eurostar and a week of feeling you just had to hit the slopes to get your money's worth , no matter what the weather was throwing at you. Here, on the other hand, I can be shovelling snow and observe, "Sunshine!" and "Great powder!" After which, work and laziness permitting, I can sling the skis into the car and bat off to Holiday Valley, just 20 minutes up the road.

But before British friends get too jealous, I have to say that Holiday Valley, while extremely well-run, like most American ski resorts and with high-tech snow cannon going nineteen-to-the-dozen, is no Aspen (despite the fact that it hopefully advertises itself as "The Aspen of the East".) Nor is it the Alps. But it has nice, short, gentle runs like  "Mistletoe" (above), where you can really think yourself up in the mountains  Today I virtually had the slopes to myself, save for the clank of the chairlifts and the smell of woodsmoke from the warming huts on the air. Sadly not the smell of Gluhwein though. Americans are prim about that sort of thing,
  A downside of Holiday Valley is the X-rated lift. This has underwear hanging all over the trees, which apparently has something to do with "Mardi-Gras" (sic) which HV doesn't celebrate on Shrove Tuesday but on some other date when tourist appeal can be maximised.  You get a lot of people coming down from Canada, which is very flat just across the border.
  The other problem is that having ski-ing that close has made me choosy about the weather conditions. I have got so spoilt I don't fancy turning out in the cold, wind, ice, slush, heavy snow, light snow, sleet, fog - the list gets longer as I get older.  Which means I haven't been out all season. Shame on me and why I had to rectify that today.

Picnic in the Snow

Horses grow thicker winter coats here than they do in Britain.  It's odd that you see them out in the fields but very rarely spot people riding. Perhaps they just like to collect horses - a reminder of the old pioneer days. And there's plenty of space for them.

This is Not New York City

 If anything sets Western New York apart from New York City, it would be this event yesterday in our local town park.

Angry at a new New York state law imposing heavy restrictions on gun ownership, supporters of the Second Amendment turned out in force, despite the ice and snow.

The right to bear arms did not, proclaimed one speaker, come from the Second Amendment but from God, along with the right not just to hunt deer but to self defence and to stand up to tyrants. In rural America, that's fairly typical talk. Prayers and pledges punctuated the proceedings.

They seemed like a genuine cross-section of the local community, fed up, they said, with government encroachment on their freedoms.  A lot of hunters' camouflage, the odd grizzled ponytail, old soldiers, families, kids, dogs. The media and the urban chattering classes would probably like to portray them as nutters. I may not be exactly on their wavelength but I've seen more nutters walking down Oxford Street.

The Cattaraugus County Sheriff (yes, they still wear stars) got the biggest cheer and shouts of "Go Timmy!"

Three other Sheriffs were there too. One announced that he would not ask his officers to enforce an "unconstitutional" law.  The local Congressman, Tom Reed, was a speaker.

The state senator and representative sent messages of support.The way to ease the pain of Sandy Hook and prevent more atrocities, they argued, was not through banning guns.

Though not everyone agreed. One person was spotted carrying a placard saying "Gun Control Works",  but on this occasion, he seemed to be a lone voice.
  People carried flags with slogans from the Revolutionary War. "Here at Lincoln Park is our line in the sand!" said another speaker.

 New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo is not a popular bloke here..

And it's not just about guns.

It reminded me a bit of the Countryside March that surged on London a few years back.
                                           

Everyone was polite and friendly. They seemed really to believe in something - an idea of freedom that they saw as part of America's soul. And they believed that few in the corridors of power, in Washington, in the state capital, Albany, cared about their concerns. It was all oddly moving.

A Small Turtle Interlude

 I think this blog is looking a bit too monochrome.  A short Florida Flashback is called for:

While our local Western NY town, Olean, boasts squirrels, Venice, Florida

has something a little more aquatic.

 He is not amused.

Road Trip Through the Arctic Tundra Continued

  Sometimes I think the whole of America must be on the move. Even in freezing conditions and blowing snow,  people are crossing the country on giant Interstates that go for miles and miles and days and days, stopping at rest areas, the equivalent, I suppose, of the old staging posts, though not nearly as well-equipped.

 And the rest areas are so few and far between, which, in such a safety-conscious nation, seems odd. The ones on our trip down from Western New York, through Pennsylvania and on to West Virginia, were as skimpy as they could possibly be - just a utilitarian looking building, a couple of vending machines, sometimes, if you're lucky, a rack of maps and that's just about it. Outside, some welcoming signs:

Oh yes and the picnic tables of course.

 

No Little Chef, no shops, not even a McDonalds. You have to go right off the motorway for that and in fact  motorway intersections have become a forest of fast food joints and cheap hotels - which probably explains why they don't want the rest areas to compete. But if you just want to stop for a bit it's a dreary desert. So very un-American I think, considering what a hospitable  people they are.
  To be fair, I hear they're much better elsewhere. At least, after you cross the Florida state line, you get a free thimbleful of orange juice.