The Chickenloaf Papers

Chubby Beeswax Honeybee

Tuesday, January 9, 2001

This year at the Farm Show I saw some zinc spiles like we used in our maple trees.

I found that "nitty gritty" is an old term used in making maple syrup. It's a crumbly precipitate that forms like calcium crust in the evaporators. It has to be skimmed off and tossed away. It's just no good.

I photographed chubby honeybee figurines made of beeswax.

Did you know that ground black walnut shells are used as packing material in dynamite?

Or that there's a type of pine, which on account of its scent, is called a "cat piss pine"?

There was young farm couple wearing matching Carhartts and strolling around with a gray dwarf goat on a leash.

A Holstein veal calf sprouting little horn nubs hungrily sucked my sweater cuff, coating it with silvery slobber.

An Amish man sold vegetables made of butter. He was made entirely of butter. There was keystone commemorating Pennsylvania, the Keystone State carved of cheese with a little cheese cow on top.

I encountered an enormous American Indian walking through the dairy barns, his long hair streaked with gray. In one arm, he cradled a baby doll.

In one booth next door to a 1953 Farmall tractor, a woman was humming contentedly while setting up a clothing display. A dozen or so naked female mannequins with colorful painted heads were lounging all over the tractor.

An elderly farmer wearing a shovel hat shuffled by. "Best cover those ladies," he said. "They're looking mighty cold."

Photo: chubby beeswax honeybee

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