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!