A Chicknick
Yesterday Hannah, my friend Carol, and I went on a chicnic. Paul coined the term "chicnic" some years ago. A chicnic is a picnic attended by women where chic food is served. You know what I mean. Food where meat is not front and center on the menu....
Garden Ownership
Yesterday, I spied this doe in the the garden area - right about where the chicken coop is going to live. As soon as I stepped outside with my camera she went on alert. She studied me calmly as I snapped her picture before darting down the ravine...
Abundance
One of the first things I noticed when I moved to New England is that summer weather doesn't really hit until July. Paul enjoys the saying that in Maine we have two seasons – winter and the Fourth of July. While this often seems like only a slight...
The Butterfly Bush
This week I purchased a few end of season butterfly bushes from a local garden and farm store. This one is laying on its side in the driveway waiting to be planted, but that doesn't seem to bother the butterfly. Upon closer inspection the butterfly...
Grandma Jordan’s Laundry Basket
My Grandma Jordan was born in 1900 and lived in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for all the years I knew her. My grandparents had a splendid old house on Penn Street in Punxy. I have wonderful memories of summers there in my early years catching...
Pickle Update!
Today I had the time and the cucumbers to attempt another round of pickles. The first batch we made turned out good, but not awesome, so I'm told. Apparently I have a family of pickle connoisseurs. This time around we made pickles with a different...
The Sounds of Summer
This morning I was lounging on the front porch with my cup of coffee and a book, just taking pleasure in life. Hannah came out to join me and curled up in a chair with a blanket and turned on her Nintendo DS. After a few moments I asked her to turn...
Garlic Harvest
I’m not sure what this says about me, but I get really excited about growing garlic. A bit garden geeky, I know. Today was harvest day for my Russian Red. It’s like Christmas day digging up the garlic and see how Mother Nature treated the little...
It’s Blueberry Season!
August is wild blueberry season in Maine. This year, a stretch of great weather has bumped the blueberry season up a bit and the berries are in now. So Hannah and I took advantage of a quintessential summer afternoon and went in search of berries....
Happy Anniversary, Sweetie
Thirteen years ago today I married my best friend. Lucky me! Other than marrying Paul, the thing that stands out the most as I think back on our wedding is the group of people who celebrated the day with us. It’s the last time that we had our...
Hand-Me-Down Flowers
More than half of the flowers in my garden are hand-me-downs or gifts from Mom. Over the past couple of years Mom has given me a couple of dozen baby dwarf Korean lilac plants that she dug up from her garden as her lilacs began to spread. Three of...
Too many cooks in the kitchen?
I've never made pickles before, but my family loves them. So this year I planted four pickling cucumber plants. I raked in my first lot of cucumbers and took a stab at my first ever batch of dill pickles. Apparently Paul has done some reading up on...
Our Favorite Summer Salsa and Chips
Some years ago, when Paul was attending a cardio-rehab program, he sampled a healthy low carb snack of cucumber salsa served with pita chips. Over the years we played with recreating it, but our attempts always fell short of the original. This...
Paul’s Creature Comforts
Paul putts around our property in an old New Holland tractor. This tractor predates amenities like cup holders and sun shades. For years Paul has threatened to get a cup holder for the tractor so he can have a big slurp close at hand when he's...
I’d like to introduce you to my friend.
Her name is Carol and I am very lucky to be able to call her my friend. You see Carol has stage IV breast cancer. She received this diagnosis a little over two years ago and I met her a few months after that. She is a smart, funny, quirky,...
Camera Play
We spent the afternoon at a friend's home for a cookout. I love Maine cookouts. Forget the burgers and dogs. We had lobster. Yum. I took advantage of the great location on the Narraguagus River to play with my new camera. Here are the results. The...
Domino’s Doesn’t Deliver Here
Well, nobody delivers here! You see, we live in the country. To put things into perspective from our house it is: 36.2 miles to the nearest stoplight 27 miles to the nearest McDonald's 68.7 miles to the nearest mall 64 miles to the nearest Domino's...
The Honeymoon Must Be Over
This month I'll have been married to Paul for THIRTEEN years. Wow. A lot has happened in our lives since we met and married - our Hannah, the loss of loved ones, new pets, a move to Maine, life threatening illnesses, loss of jobs, new jobs,...
The Kitty That Got Away
This morning was the scheduled veterinary appointment for Cinder and Snape. Cinder and Snape are sibling cats that we adopted two years ago when they were feral kittens. A little time and TLC and they've turned into really wonderful pets. This from...
A Beautiful Day
Day two with my new camera found me scouring the shoreline for a good panorama photo for a client's Web site. I'm very pleased with the results! A picture perfect day caught on camera.
The View from My Porch
After much anticipation, my new camera arrived yesterday. A Kodak Z981. Tonight I parked myself on the porch played with it a bit. There's definitely a learning curve, but it's lots of fun. Here are a few of the pics I took from the porch. I took...
Like Father, Like Daughter
I finally got a good night sleep last night. That combined with decent weather and I was ready to tackle a few outdoor projects today. I spent some time pulling logs out of a gully near the house with the tractor. The gully runs along the space...
Hike to the Top of Pigeon Hill
This morning Hannah and I joined a group from the Downeast Coastal Conservancy for a hike to the top of Pigeon Hill in Steuben (about 15-20 minutes from our house). The entire hike was a little more than a mile. After the first five minutes, the...
A Look Back in Time: Building the Maine House
Recently I was talking with a friend about our crazy adventure of selling our home in Massachusetts, buying land in Maine and building our own home. I promised to share pictures, so here’s a look at the journey we’ve had building our home.
Tree Eating Monster Video
Here's a little video of the tree eating monster in action.
