12/16/08 Maine . . . You Can't Get There From Here

I'm out of here! I won't be back in Maine until next year. Meanwhile, I'll be celebrating Christmas as many times as I possibly can. I'm off to Texas for a week, then New Mexico for 10 days, then Oregon for a week. 4 Time Zones in 4 weeks. Check out the journey at http://texastheresa.blogspot.com/

12/15/08 a new kind of sidewalk snow removal device!

You know I love collecting photos of all the different ways you can remove snow. Just when you think you've seen them all . . . This was in front of the bank. It's narrow enough to clean the sidewalks of snow but it's powerful enough to do roads, I'm certain. Look at all the parts! Your guess is as good as mine what they all do. But before I could get my camera out, I saw it removing snow on the sidewalk.

12/14/08 Historical Walking Tour of Farmington

The Walking Tour is coming! The Walking Tour is coming! The Maine Community Heritage Project that Farmington was awarded from the Maine Historical Society was using the Walking Tour as its inspiration and at last the signs for the Walking Tour are going up. This is the frame for the one by the historic Depot. There's supposed to be 8, rumor has it they're only doing 4 for now due to budget constraints. I hope by the time I get back from vacation, they'll be up.

12/11/08 John Deere Christmas

What's in the window of your local Hallmark store? When you care enough to send the very best, do you send John Deere ornaments?

12/13/08 Happy St. Lucia Day!

This is actually a Minnesota and Swedish event, not a Maine event. But Karen, my Needham-making buddy and Games Night hostess extraordinaire is from Minnesota and she decided to bring a little bit of her home to Maine. So she held a St. Lucia party. And one of guests actually came as St. Lucia! I'll never get the names of all the yummy foods correct, so you should read Karen's husband's blog about the event. Read all the details there. But know from me that it was a) a lot of fun, b) quite delicious, and c) a great diversion in this hectic, end-of-semester time of year.

12/13/08 Weather Update

My dad has officially posted a comment on my blog! This is noteworthy. I'm so excited to know my dad reads my blog. And his comment is so dad-like: "On 11/29 you PROMISED to stop talking about the snow. You haven't done it and now my feet are cold all the time! :<("

Ooops. Sorry Dad. And sorry to anyone else who's reading this and wishing I'd quit talking about the weather. I really didn't expect to blog about weather so much but it just has me fascinated. And this week is really doing it. Here are the stats--temps are from Weather Underground:

Monday 12/8: hi-19, lo-5, no precipitation
Tuesday 12/9: hi-28, lo-3, about an inch of snow
Wednesday 12/10: hi-55, lo-30, lots of rain
Thursday 12/11: hi-28, lo-21, snow started around 4 and kept going through the night
Friday 12/12: hi-33, lo-21 precipitation-at least 6 inches of snow before sleet and rain started

From 3 degrees to 55 degrees in 24 hours. What a hoot.

12/9/08 Texas weather in Maine

In Texas we say, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." In Maine, they say the same thing! So far in 18 months here, I haven't really seen any drastic weather changes that would merit that phrase for Maine. But this week, I think we might make it. Today, it started out in single digit temps with snow. This much snow accumulated on my car in the dentist's office while I had my teeth cleaned (and they weren't that dirty so we're not talking about an extended period of time).

Weather predictions are that the snow will turn to rain by evening and tomorrow (Wednesday) the temps will be in the 40's (some predict the 50's) with more rain on the way. If that's not drastic enough. The prediction for Thursday is snow will start after sunset and keep snowing . . . with possible accumulations on Friday of 11 inches! Some are predicting as much as 15 inches!

I'll keep you posted.

12/8/08 More to come

I've been so busy "doing" I haven't had time to blog about it. This is a good thing. Besides finishing up Labor Day Weekend (and Fall 2007 if you want to go that far back), I think all I have left to blog about is Cider Pressing in October, Thanksgiving in November, and Making Needhams (both the first time when I just reference other people's blogs about it AND the second round . . . just recently I made some more Needhams).

Thanks for following the blog! It sure is fun to write, but it's even more fun knowing that you're reading it.

12/8/08 Sunrise Frost

Last night the winds were howling. It was fierce. You knew something was blowing in. This morning at 6:40 there was no new snow on the ground, but it was 3 degrees and I had frost on my windows.

12/1/08 Town Gazebo at Night

I never did find out what the purple lights were for, but here are the Christmas lights on the town gazebo.

12/1/08 Happy December

This was on my walk to school this morning. Today is the first day of December and we've had enough snow that actually stuck that my favorite tiny riding snow blower that's the width of the sidewalk has been driving down the sidewalk to clear it just for me. These are the tire tracks (it looks like an x-ray of a spine). I'm glad to know that the riding snow blower will come all the way up my hill to my new place . . . or at least to the part where the sidewalk ends that's just across the street from my new place.

11/30/08 Snowfall #3

I promise to quit counting Snowfalls at some point. Most of the snow from Friday's snow didn't melt. We're starting to get a tiny base. The roads are fine, but the ground is cold enough now that snow is sticking to the grass and hillsides. Sunday night a storm was supposed to come in. I went into the office around 5:00 to get some work done and told myself I would leave as soon as I heard the storm coming. I never heard a thing. There was no north wind that blew in, no howling winds, just a stealth snowstorm that dropped a lot of flakes in a pretty short time.

11/28/08 The Early Evening Show

This picture doesn't do it justice, but Friday night I went to The Oddfellow Theatre in Buckfield, Maine and had a blast at "The Early Evening Show".

Here's their own ad:

They aren't kidding. It was hysterical and totally family-friendly. I love clever humor that is clean. It takes real talent 'cuz it's harder to do but it's the best -- it's sooo funny.

Yes, it's the same Buckfield of the Diet Coke and Mentos folks. In fact, in my photo, the little guy on the right is Fritz Grobe of EepyBird.com. You should check out what those two creative guys are doing now . . . forget Diet Coke and Mentos and go for sticky notes.

11/28/08 Snow fall #2

'Tis the Friday after Thanksgiving and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, because they're all enjoying the silent snowfall. Check out how many flakes are falling (you can sort of see them against the dark green backdrop of the lower part of the garage) and how big and puffy they are. :-) This is the real McCoy

11/26/08 making laptops talk nicely to each other

I have a lot of work to do, but here's what I did instead. This is my old laptop, my school laptop, and my new laptop. See the screen on the one on the left on the floor? That's the symbol for that one being in "target mode" which is allowing me to pull all the data and applications off of that one and put them on my new one. The other one is just waiting its turn. There is so much time involved in setting up a new laptop! But it's so worth it!

11/26/08 here today, gone tomorrow

It's Wednesday morning and this is the scene outside my apartment at 8:20am. That didn't last long! But still, it was a real snowfall.

This is the only trace of snow left:

11/25/08 first REAL snow

On Monday afternoon, as planned, I left Grace's at 5:00 (okay, the plan was between 4 and 4:30, but close enough) and headed to New Hampshire. I tried to stop at the mall in York to go to the Apple Store, but could not find it, so I just headed to the airport and arrived exactly on time to meet Rodney outside security. I presented him with a little balloon shaped like a snowflake and said, "Here's your first snowflake in Maine. May you have much snow for good skiing while you're here, but may you not see your next snowflake until after we get safely to Farmington."

Even though it was 20 minutes out of the way, we went back to the mall and actually found it this time. It was more fun to go to The Apple Store with a fellow MacFanatic anyway, so I'm glad it worked out the way it did. I bought a new laptop! My 4 year old (plus 3 months) laptop is still cranking, but it is slow and the hard drive is full (just of applications . . . I took all the data off and put it on an external source many ages ago) and it's just past due. I'm very excited!

After dinner at the mall food court, we headed back to Farmington. We arrived just after midnight and when we got out of the car, snowflakes were coming down. Oh yes! Mother Nature is so good to me!

This morning, this was the scene outside my apartment. It must've snowed most of the night (early morning).

9:00am, 11:00am, last 2 at 1:15pm

11/24/08 dawn at Old Orchard Beach

Yesterday, I arrived at Old Orchard Beach around 10:30am and Grace and I worked until 10:30pm. We did take a break for meals, including lobster rolls from Bailey's for dinner!! But pretty much we worked 10 hours. I went to bed, but Grace stayed up. She was on a roll and when that happens, don't get in her way. Turns out she went to bed at 1:30am! This is role reversal for the two of us. I'm usually the night owl and she turns in early.

We were both up early this morning. I'm taking my car in to the Saturn dealer for its 33,000 mile checkup and oil change (and its first Maine inspection, which I forgot to do when I got my license plate). We will brainstorm in the car on the way down there. (Up there? It's about 20 minutes north of Grace's condo but soooo much closer than coming down from Farmington just for the day to get this done.) And we'll work in the nice waiting area that has free wi-fi while they work on the car. And we'll talk some more about work on the drive home, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, if I'm up this early, at least there's going to be a nice sunrise.

11/23/08 how cold is it?

Officially, UMF's Thanksgiving Break doesn't start until Wednesday, but in our Practicum course, we make the students come for extra sessions during the first two weeks of orientation and then we don't have classes on Monday or Tuesday. It works out much better for the students who are in the schools to not have to go in for just a day and it keeps everything "even" between the two sections of students (half are in the schools working with mentor teachers while the other half are on campus in our courses). So, unofficially, I have a week-long Thanksgiving Break.

To kick off Thanksgiving Break, I drove to Old Orchard Beach today to work with Grace on our graduate course. We're going to spend all day today (Sunday) and tomorrow working on it. Then I'll leave around 4:30 to go to Manchester to pick up Rodney at the airport. It's 3.5 hours from Farmington to Manchester. This way, I only have to drive 1.5 hours on Monday because I'll get 2 hours out of the way today. It's going to be a great Thanksgiving Break but I can tell already that it's going to be too short.

I pulled over on the turnpike when I drove past my third set of rocks covered in ice like this. I do not know what the water source is to make this happen, but a) it sure is beautiful and b) it must be really cold outside.

11/22/08 Wintery Weather

It's definitely winter here. On the 18th of November, the high temperature was 35. It hasn't been above freezing since. It's not predicted to go above freezing until Monday, the 24th, when the high is predicted to be 36; but they're predicting enough snow to have a real accumulation on Monday, too. (They're predicting snow for today, but I think it's just more flurries.) So let's recap*:

Tuesday 11/18 high 35, low 21
Wednesday 11/19 high 28, low 14
Thursday 11/20: high 28, low 14
Friday 11/21: high 29, low 17
Saturday 11/22 (prediction): high 27, low 13
Sunday 11/23 (prediction): high 29, low 18
Monday 11/24 (prediction): high 36, low 27

A full week of temperatures below freezing and we haven't had Thanksgiving yet. The official start of Winter isn't until the winter solstice at 12:04pm on December 21st, this year. I think it missed the mark this year by more than a full month.

*The predition info is from wunderground.com for West Farmington which is technically in Farmington. The historical numbers are from wunderground.com for Wilton which is the bordering town to our west. Wunderground doesn't have data for Farmington per se. If you type in Farmington, they give you information from Waterville which is 30 miles east of Farmington. West Farmington and Wilton are obviously MUCH closer and more indicative of true Farmington weather.

11/20/08 mystery root vegetable

What is this? I've never seen these objects in a grocery store before. Maybe they were in the specialty or gourmet section of a produce department but up here, they must be pretty popular to be in a bin this big at WalMart. Upon close inspection, the sticker on each one says that this is a rutabaga, which is "a hybrid root vegetable of a cabbage and white turnip; usually prepared in casseroles, stew or mashed up with other vegetables" according to TheNest.com. Tyson.com says it is a member of the cabbage family but CookAdvice.com says it's a member of the mustard family. Either way, I think it's a funky root vegetable. I did not buy one. I'm hoping that I can find someone who cooks them frequently who will let me taste it when they prepare it. I wouldn't know what to do with it.

11/18/08 Picture Perfect Seasons

I stepped outside my front door today and there laying on the ground right next to my tiny porch was this pine cone. Scattered around it are a few dried pine needles and some pieces of old autumn leaves. Does anything say "winter" more than a pine cone on your doorstep? Well, freezing temperatures and snow might say it a little more profoundly. We're having the freezing temperatures but only flurries of snow, no real snow yet.

Check out the white patches on the pine cone. I've never seen that before in real life. I've seen fake pine cones with white on them like that. I always thought they painted it on to look like the pine cone had been found on a snowy day. I've seen bags of pine cones for sale as decorator items in craft shops that had white on the seed scale (yes, I had to look that up for the proper term for the pokey-outy things on a pine cone), but figured they painted that on before putting them in the bag to make them look snowy and wintery. I never knew that pine cones got white stuff on them in nature! So what is that stuff and how does it get there? Is it only certain kinds of pine trees that have cones with the white on it? Is that why I've never seen this in nature before? I'm guessing now that all those pine cones I'd seen in the bag with the white stuff were pine cones in their natural state, just not pine cones that were in the states in which I've had the opportunity to see pine cones in their natural setting. (I think I've seen most of my pine cones fresh off the trees in the East Texas Piney Woods and in Virginia.)

So much to learn! So much to think about!

11/16/08 Sunday afternoon at the laundromat

Now that I live at "The Verandah," I have to go to the laundromat. I still remember how excited I was 25 years ago when I bought my house that I didn't have to go to the laundromat anymore. And I smiled every time I did a load of wash in the middle of the night while wearing pajamas because I knew how great it was that I could. In my house, I never had a laundry "schedule". I had extra towels and sheets and pajamas that I could change any one of those and not feel compelled to do laundry right away since there were plenty of clean ones sitting on a shelf or in a drawer. My new minimalistic lifestyle has changed that, but so far, it hasn't been too bad. I schedule my laundromat visits for every other weekend (yes, sadly, I do have it on my calendar so I can plan ahead if something awesome comes up on a laundromat weekend). I can generally get everything done in 2 washer loads (though they do have different-sized washing machines in case I have a bigger load than usual). I hadn't realized it, but even though I schedule the weekend for doing laundry, I think I've always done laundry on the Saturday of laundry weekend. This weekend I came on Sunday and discovered something about Farmington. Sunday must be THE day to do laundry.

Look at all the people in this photo and there were probably 10 more people not in the photo. Also notice that all 16 dryers have clothes in them. I actually had to wait for a dryer. I have not had this experience on any of the Saturdays that I've done laundry. More people means a greater chance that I will run into someone I know, so of course, I ran into 2 students and a colleague on the Maine Community Heritage Project while I was there.

And that leads to a hysterical story of "What Are the Odds?"

So Wendy (the MCHP colleague) and I are both standing (probably more aptly described as "hovering") around waiting for a dryer. There's a nice waiting area at this laundromat, but for this stage of the Laundry Game with this many players, standing and waiting seemed the more appropriate tactic. Within minutes of each other, 3 dryers availed themselves. Wendy took the first one (she was waiting before I joined the queue) and I took the second one which happened to be right next to hers. Our dryers were in the corner, so we each had our dryer doors only open 45 degrees and were standing at a funny angle to try to put laundry in. Almost simultaneously, we both dropped some pieces of laundry. We both bend down to pick them up and we both reach for the fuzzy sock that looks like this:

There were 3 pieces of laundry on the floor, one was mine, one was hers, and one was this sock. It turns out, we both have a pair of these crazy-looking fuzzy socks! AND we were both washing them that day. We had no idea whose sock this one was!! Wendy said she would dry it and if she ended up with 3 socks, she would know exactly to whom she should return the extra one. As it turned out, since we both finished our dryer loads about the same time, we figured out the rightful owner before even leaving the laundromat. As we put our socks together, we discovered that mine had a tiny REI tag on it and hers had a tiny tag with an acorn figure on it. The socks are made by Acorn (I actually knew that part) but mine had been purchased at REI and I guess must have been marketed as REI socks. Wendy had 3 socks, 2 with acorns and 1 with an REI tag, and I had only 1 sock with an REI tag. A quick exchange and then we both had 2 matching socks. So ask yourself, "What are the odds?" If I had 14 days worth of laundry, I had close to 14 pairs of socks in the wash. So there was a 1 out of 28 chance that the one sock of mine that would fall was this particular fuzzy sock. I don't know how many socks Wendy was washing, but we'll pretend it was the same. But the odds get multiplicatively higher pretty fast when you start calculating the odds that we would each drop something at the same time and the one sock would be among the 3 articles dropped. Add to that the chance that we were both loading dryers at the same time and had dryers next to each other. All in all, it was a pretty comical, as well as highly improbable, moment.

11/16/08 Am I local now?

I've been here long enough that I can give directions by saying, "Where the Rite-Aid used to be" or "What used to be Howard's."

When the new Rite-Aid was built, they moved from the old one pictured below. And the new Rite-Aid is enough closer to town and enough bigger than the old one that it was pretty much the demise of Howard's drugstore. At least they hired the folks at Howard's when it closed. Progress?

11/11/08 Second Snow

It may look like dandruff or dust, but those white spots are really very tiny little snow flakes. Up close, they looked like tiny stars. It wasn't a real snowfall. These tiny white dots pretty much evaporated before they hit the ground, but this is at least the second time snow has been in the air. Winter's coming. :-)

11/4/08 Voting Day

Did you vote today? I did! In Farmington, you vote at The Community Center. We had paper ballots which we marked with black felt tip pens. We had voting booths with curtains (red white and blue curtains, no less--sorry I didn't get a picture of that). There were a LOT of volunteers making sure everything worked. You could register on the premises, I found that very interesting.

And look at the cool sticker you get after you vote!

11/2/08 fresh apples

This is easier than picking your own. This apple orchard owner sets up a booth in the back of his truck in the Gifford's parking lot. Since Gifford's Ice Cream is closed until March, this works out well. I paid $4 for a bag of apples that had at least 14 apples in it. I can't eat that many apples. I made Waldorf Salad and gave some away and I'm eating a lot of fresh apples. I bought Cortlands. Yummy.

11/1/08 Don't waste time the day after Halloween

It's the day after Halloween and WalMart is just bypassing Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas. They were playing Christmas music over the intercom system, too.

11/1/08 Early Bird Sale

Last year was my first Early Bird Special event. I had so much fun, I had to go again. It is a fascinating tradition. I arrived at Reny's at 6:03am so I didn't get any photos of people standing in line like last year. But I did get some good shopping done. I ended up spending nearly an hour in Reny's, then hit the Hallmark store and the book store. I got my movie passes, too. The local movie theatre, The Narrow Gauge Cinema, only charges $5.00 for its movies. And they have comfy stadium seating and a decent sound system in all of their theatres. They show first run movies. If $5 isn't bargain enough, you can buy a 10-pack of coupons for $55 which is $5.50 a coupon. Each coupon includes a movie ticket, a small popcorn, and a small drink. $5.50 for the ticket, popcorn AND a drink? How can you beat that?! Oh wait, you can beat that. During the Early Bird Special, you can buy a $55 10-pack for only $45. That's $4.50 for a movie ticket, a popocorn, and a drink. If you come visit me, we'll go to the movies and it will be my treat. I bought 2 coupon books today (there's no expiration date).

As you can see, Reny's is not the only store to celebrate the Early Bird Sale. It's now a whole town celebration. But I love the creativity in the celebration. :-)

10/31/08 Typical Autumn Sale Items

It's Halloween morning and here's what Reny's is featuring on sale today:

Take your pick--rake or snow shovel. And this is called a snow scoop, I think. Anyway, it will move a LOT of snow at a time. We don't have that much snow yet. We don't have any snow yet except for that one day of tiny flakes. But I guess we better get prepared.

10/30/08 morning sunshine

This looks like a bunch of golden trees, but in fact, there are no leaves on those trees, that's just the golden morning sunshine. I love the view from my verandah. :-)

10/30/08 Editor's Note

Hi! If you are better at keeping up with this blog than I am, then you need to know that I just got caught up with blog entries from Oct. 17-19. If you're going backwards, you might stop at the one for the Pumpkin Carving party on Oct. 18 and think, "Oh, I've read this. I'm caught up." But you'd be incorrect. I've added photos to that entry and there are new posts for both the 17th and the 19th that weren't there before. So just read (or for one entry, re-read) all the posts from Oct. 17 through 19 (9 entries total), plus the posting for Oct. 29 and THEN you'll be caught up.

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for being a faithful follower!

10/29/08 First Snow!

It wasn't very big and it wasn't the first time snow was predicted, but it doesn't matter. Today was our first snow! Tiny pieces of snow (I'm not even sure they were big enough to call flakes) were falling from the sky. One of my students got a text message during class (around 2:00) that it was snowing. We couldn't see it out the window and when class was over (2:20), we couldn't see it outside. But later (4:00) someone came in the building and said it was snowing. Then at 4:45, Grace, who had gone power-walking, came in with the same report. She also said it was really cold and windy. I had walked to school this morning but was not dressed for that kind of walk home. So Grace gave me a ride home which meant I actually left the office before sunset. In the parking lot and on the drive home, I could definitely see the snow for myself.

It was a VERY short autumn. But I think that officially closes the autumn season here. :-)

10/26/08 "more leaves on the ground than on the trees"

It's still gorgeous but to quote my friend Michael in his Facebook status . . . "there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees." Autumn is definitely coming to an end. This is at the bottom of my hill looking up towards my house.

10/19/08 Olympia No Snow

On the road to Dartmouth, I had to go through Bethel, so I took a very short detour and returned to the field where the Olympia Snow snow-woman had been. Alas, she had completely melted (no surprise, but I felt compelled to check).

They even removed the sign that told about her (but just the information on the sign, not the framework):