May Day

One of the big holidays at the Ranch is May Day.  It's not usually celebrated on May 1st here, it's mostly forgotten until the middle of May when someone says, "Oh yeah, what are we doing for May Day?"  For the past few years it's been celebrated on Memorial Day.

It's a cute celebration here, and I'm not sure of the history of why it's celebrated.  But yesterday was beautiful, and after 5 days of clouds and 3 days straight of rain it was a little more appreciated.  The landscape in Vermont can really be breath taking.

It started with the crowning of the May Queen and King (names being pulled out of a hat), a parade up to Chapel Field where a May pole is waiting.  Then we "dance around the May Pole," though that's usually just people walking around it.  Some people do dance if the feeling is right.  There are two colored ribbons - green and yellow, and the people holding the yellow go one way and the green ribbons go the other.  The ribbons go under and over each other, and ideally the whole pole gets wrapped.  But no one really wants to be there forever, so it only went about a third of the way down, and then reversed so it was unwrapped.  I thought it would be fun to have a different pole with different colors every year, and the poles get left out standing in a field so we could see all the years and colors that the Ranch has celebrated May Day.  Maybe I can start that next year.

The rest of the day was a BBQ and games.  I had to put up cow fencing, which I didn't mind.  It was a gorgeous day to be out working.