After the Fest

How can you top a day of fun and frivolity at the Summerfest? Go to Sue's for "tea on the porch"! Lovely tuna salad sandwiches and several yummy deserts to choose from. Lots more great conversation and good times with really good friends.

Historical Tour of Farmington

The highlight of Summerfest for us was the historical tour of downtown Farmington in a horse-drawn wagon with the amazing Paul Mills.

North Woods Law

Local celebrity, Kris MacCabe, a warden on the television show North Woods Law (and a real warden in real life) was at Summeriest signing autographs. Maggi was beside herself (and beside him in the photo).

 
 

Summerfest Entertainment

Demonstrations, music, food, dancers on stilts, crafts and wares for sale… Summerfest has it all!

Summerfest Fun

Today is Summerfest in Farmington. Maggy, Stephanie, and Margaret all met at my place and we walked into town (all .5 blocks). First stop: story telling at The Octagon House. But it wasn't any ordinary story. Jane Parker read from her newest children's book "Lily of the North" about Lillian Nordica, a famous opera singer of the 1800's/1900's who is from Farmington. 20+ years ago, UMF put on an operetta about Madame Nordica. Jane played Lillian (because she can really sing), Margaret played the Aunt, and Maggy was a dresser and helped Jane with all her costumes changes (8 of them). So today, they are reunited and we have officially kicked off our version of Summerfest which turns out to be just one big reunion…how many people can we run into that we know?

L to R: Maggy, Jane, Margaret

A lazy Saturday

Ahh, it's a beautiful Saturday morning in Maine. The sun is shining, the high will only be in the lower 80's. Let's just go for a walk around town.

 
 At the County Court House parking lot, it's the Saturday Farmer's Market. It's not too big--it's Farmington-sized. This is our first food truck to come to the Farmer's Market. This one specializes in burritos with all natural and fresh ingredients...appropriate for our Farmer's Market.

Here's my friend Ashley putting on a cooking demonstration of yummy things that can be made with fresh ingredients available at today's market (including garlic scapes...I never know what to do with those garlic scapes when they show up in my farm share box...she made a pesto with them).

I bought one of those burritos and then walked over to Meetinghouse Park (directly across the street from the Court House and next to the Court House parking lot) and enjoyed some fresh summer air and beautiful greenery while eating my burrito.

A walk down Main Street delivers the good news that the empty shop left from Trask's closing (due to retirement) is going to be filled soon.

A stop to pick up my mail...love these original 1936 mailboxes.

Between the old Trask's and the Post Office is a great little grocery store. Tranten's is part of a "chain" of family-owned stores...all 2 of them.

The rider of this motorcycle felt safe enough to leave his/her backpack with the bike.

I stopped at Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers to look at some books but also to buy a ticket to the children's theater camp production of Peter Pan, Jr. They just keep a box with the tickets and the cash under the counter and sell the tickets as a service to the community because that's what you do in a small town.

And all this action is less than 2 blocks from my apartment. I love living in Farmington!

Easter Sunrise Service

I love the Ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service! It's a 30-year tradition. The gathering is always in the same spot (a driveway of a family on Voter Hill....when the first family sold the house, the new owners inherited the privilege). Today started with clear but cold (22 degree) skies and a beautiful sunrise. Traditionally, there's a trumpeter for musical accompaniment and this year, we also had a bagpiper.

Each year, the local Christian congregations choose something for the service and lead it. It may be scripture, prayer, a relevant reading, music, etc. There is no 'overall' leader of the service. Each church will begin and lead their portion. "The pieces are unique but come together and make a truly moving ecumenical service." Just follow the program and the prayer and song magically happens.

There's the sun! Let the worship begin!

The opening song was presented by the "Easter Singers--an ecumenical chorus." That was new to me this year (I didn't make the last few years).

And after the service, we're all invited for light refreshments and fellowship inside the home of the family whose driveway we gather on. The family pretty much just lets the fellowship committee come in and take over the first floor of their home. By 8:00, everyone was gone and there was no sign that we had ever been there, due to a really good cleanup committee.

I met new people and chatted with some old friends. It was a glorious way to start Easter celebration!

...and then it snowed. As we were leaving around 7:45am, tiny snow flakes were starting to fall.

Concert Band Concert

What a lineup of fun music for a Sunday afternoon. I was blown away by the trumpeter, especially on his chilling rendition of taps played from off stage at the beginning of the patriotic medley at the end. I came to see Daniel in his last performance with the community band and was delighted to see Nicole (whom I think I had seen in the band before) and Christopher (whom I had no idea played trombone).

What's wrong with this picture?

Snow makes a driver do funny things. Parking on Broadway in Farmington is usually head-in angled, not parallel. But with so much snow piled on the side of the road from the plowing (and because it hasn't been removed yet), parking has switched.

Go Mount Blue!

Mount Blue Cougars, our local high school Football team, is in the playoffs tonight. Very exciting around town all week long. This sign has been sitting at the corner of Main Street and Broadway for a couple of days now. It's all anybody can talk about. The game, that is, not the sign.

I turned on the local radio station around 8:55 tonight and caught the last four minutes of the game. Oh my goodness! I'm not sure I could have handled listening to the whole game. The score was 44 to 35 in favor of Mount Blue. Then Marshwood made a touchdown and got the extra point. Now it was 44 to 42. Too close! Mount Blue had the ball and made a drive down the field but Marshwood stopped them on their own seven. With under two minutes left to play Marshwood fumbled and Mount Blue recovered! You should have heard the announcers on the radio. They went berserk! It was a very long two minutes as Mount Blue took a knee four times in a row to win the state championship.

Congratulations, Mount Blue cougars!

Spontaneity

Some people in Maine think I'm not very spontaneous. Friends in Texas would tell you otherwise. I'm glad to prove the Maine folks wrong but that comment also made me stop to analyze and determine that I think my spontaneity has declined since coming here. Partly because of fewer opportunities for spontaneity and partly because I get to engrossed in my job during the long semester that I only practice the art of spontaneity pretty much during winter vacation and summer vacation.

Time to seek out more opportunities for spontaneity!! It will help a lot that I'm hanging out now with spontaneous people. Thanks, Stephanie, for the call at 5:20 to see if I wanted to go see The King's Speech at 6:50. I did and I went and I loved it!!

I really need to go to the movies more often. The Narrow Gauge Cinema is minutes from my apartment and has great seats, great sound, and incredibly reasonable prices. $6 for a prime time viewing of a first-run feature film. You can't beat it. Oh wait, you can: If you buy a 10 pack of tickets, they're only $5.50 a ticket. And even better, you can buy a 10 pack of combination tickets for $70 which means I paid $7 for a movie ticket, a small root beer, and a small bag of buttered popcorn. And actually, I paid less than that because I bought my 10 pack during the Early Bird Sale which means I got 10% off of that.

Come any time and I'll spontaneously offer you a chance to go to the movies with me on the cheap.

Have You Seen Harvey?

I braved the cold (and the slippery sidewalk conditions) to go see Harvey. I love the story and the 1950 movie. I knew whoever played Elwood P. Dowd was taking on a thankless task as everyone would be comparing him to Jimmy Stewart, but I went anyway.

The Sandy River Players did a phenomenal job! The stage setting was fabulous as they artfully co-mingled the Dowd's home and the sanatorium and never had to do a scene change. The actor who played Elwood was fabulous. He made the role his own, not a hint of Jimmy Stewart, and yet just as lovable and convincing. The woman who played Veta Louise, the sister, however, stole the show. I read an interview where Jimmy Stewart said the woman in that role in the movie had the hardest part because she had to believe and not believe in Harvey at the same time. This woman did that convincingly. She had just enough "drama" to pull it off without getting melodramatic. The whole production was fabulous.

When I arrived, I saw some friends and I also saw some graduates. I ended up sitting with my former students, one who had come from Portland and one from New Hampshire. It was so great to see them. This was about the fourth time I had run into the NH grad at a play at UMF. The other three times he was a student on campus, but it was still unusual that we kept picking the same performances of the same shows to attend. It turned out that none of them (there was another UMF student with them that I hadn't had in a class) had ever seen the movie, so I was wrong that most people in the audience would be comparing this production to the movie. How could someone have not seen the movie?? Oh. I guess since it is 60 years old, not everyone watches the classics. ;-)

Great drama with good friends--What a great way to spend a cold winter's evening.

Happy Anniversary

January 8th--an awesome day. Four years ago today, I moved to Maine. Of course, back then, I thought I was only coming for four months. Now it's been four years. How does that happen??!!

I have a ton of amazing memories amassed in this very short time. Thank you especially to MRM (My Room Mate) for the first 18 months. I doubt seriously I would've acclimated so well or enjoyed life in Maine so much without your support (both moral and physical) and good humor. You are a very special friend.

And here's a big thank you to all the amazing and wonderful people I've met in these last four years--both in the Farmington/Wilton community and at UMF. I definitely believe in the state motto: Maine--the way life should be.

12/5/2010 Chester Greenwood Menu Items

Yesterday was Chester Greenwood Day (with parade et.al.) and today at The Homestead on the Daily Specials menu was this:

Nobody ordered any while we were there and I didn't feel like eating any of it, so I asked. Earmuff pancakes are poured to look like earmuffs--2 regular silver dollar pancakes and a connecting arch of pancake batter across the top. Pretty fun!

I used a great app, Genius Scan for iPhone, to turn my photo of the menu to this, which looks much better than the photo did.

12/2/10 Chester Greenwood Day . . . a little early

It's the first Saturday in December and it's Chester Greenwood Day. WAIT! I don't have to write about it, I can send you to my friend's blogpost about it (and about me):

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/12/04/happy-chester-greenwood-day-invention-creativity-maine/

Wes Fryer is a hero of mine. I listen to his podcasts whenever I can. He knows everything about technology integration, or at least all the stuff I wish I knew. So getting to spend all day Thursday with him was like having my own private professional development day. It was awesome! As we (his delightful daughter Sarah was here, too) toured Farmington, we found $5 Chester Greenwood Day long-sleeved t-shirts on sale at Black Bear Graphics. Very fun. See Wes's post for a photo.

3/14/09 What's on the horizon?

Today I went to the "Town Transfer Station" (can you say "The Dump"?) to drop off my recycling. If you look at the top part of this photo, you can see that even the dump has a gorgeous view. It doesn't matter where you are, there are mountains and trees and beautiful sky in your view. Now look at the bottom half of the photo and you'll see what mud season is all about. When you get a lot of snow in the winter, it melts in the spring, often before the ground is unfrozen, so the water can only soak so far down and then it just sits on top and makes mud. Lots of mud. But if it's mud season now, spring can't be far behind!

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?