Back On The Homestead: Brief Vinnie Blogging

Those of you who followed my blog back in my Thailand days will remember Vinnie Blogging. Vinnie (Vincent, or "V" as he is called by all others) is my sister's boy. I put up weekly baby pictures of him for a couple of years... but it kind of petered out after a while.

Well, as you can see, Vinnie is all grown up now, and will be starting college this fall. He is visiting his grandparents in Upstate New York this week. Here he is driving Grandpa Paul around the yard while Weekend Farmer Nancy stands in the background.

Visiting grandparents has to be the best part of being a kid. For me, I had the best grandparents a kid could ever hope to visit: My mother's parents lived out in a fishing village on the end of Long Island and had a sailboat, a private beach, the world's friendliest Doberman (hence my love of the breed), and my grandpa had a woodworking shop in the cellar where we would make (quite fantastic) toy boats. Fresh seafood all the time there... steamed clams and broiled scallops especially. What's best is that their house was right next door to the East terminal of the Long Island railroad... a young boy's biggest joy: Real trains! My father's parents lived outside of Albany on a farm with tractors, cows, a pond, the world's largest hayloft, and acres upon acres of woodland for deer hunting and exploration. The large old farmhouse was filled with antique and mysterious farm implements, and my grandfather would sit at his organ and play Scott Joplin and smoke cigars. Real homemade maple syrup on blueberry pancakes every morning there, and fresh-baked bread.

Ah... Vinnie... want to trade places?