I love snow but...

A group of us were carpooling to Bangor this morning. We were just talking about how this semester has felt particularly long and grueling and were brainstorming the contributing factors. Just as we came up with the fact that "it's been such a long winter and even though it's spring on the calendar, it doesn't feel or look like spring at all," this started happening outside. Yep. That's snow coming down. April 25 and it's snowing. When we got to Bangor, we met up with some folks from Fort Kent  who told us they left home with 2" of snow on the ground. Welcome to Maine.

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.

"The End" of The Yellowstone Adventure

This blog entry is about one of my travels, so it goes in my travel blog. But it *ends* up in Maine with an adventure that could only happen in Maine and so it belongs in my Life with the Mainiacs blog, too. It's a double entry.

I had 36 hours in Denver and then it was time to pack it all back up and head out again. I acquired a lot of goodies in Albuquerque, so I borrowed a suitcase from my mom. I was able to stuff my purse into my usual carryon, so now I can check two (the black bag and the big orange bag) and take two on board... a carryon bag (the smaller orange bag) and a personal item (the orange striped bag. With enough wheels and straps and creativity and agility, I can actually make my way into the airport without any assistance. What a traveler!

On Dec. 18, when I left, I drove to Boston and Rodney and I did an amazing car swap. I picked him up at Logan's terminal C and he dropped me off at terminal E. Then he had the use of my car for the 9 days he was in town and parked my car at the Portland Transportation Center on Dec. 27. It saved me paying 9 days of parking and he got the use of a car. Pretty cush deal. This is the photo he sent me to show me where my car was parked.

This is what it looked like on Jan. 13 when I arrived in Portland. Can you tell that the holiday travel crunch is over? Can you tell that they had some snow after Rodney left and before I got back?

Check out the snow and ice on my car. Actually, if you're going to have ice on your car, this is what you hope for... a layer of soft fluffy snow first, then a layer of ice. I got the bonus of more fluffy snow on top of that. It made it sooo easy to get the ice off. It was like a reverse oreo...two layers of soft icing with a hard cookie on the inside. I was actually able to lift the ice off in sheet and just toss them on the ground. The top layer of snow went with the ice and didn't add any weight. A simple brush took off the rest. It took some time and in 7 degree weather, it was a little chilly, but all in all, it wasn't bad at all. Except for the part where my doors were frozen shut. I couldn't get into my car! It doesn't matter how clear the outside of your car is if you can't get in.

 

In desperation, I tried the trunk. Well, that opened. Uh oh. Was that really my only choice of solution? Hmmmm. I looked online using my phone to see if I could google any other ideas. There really weren't any good ones I hadn't tried except the one with the blow dryer and the one with boiling water, neither of which I had access to. I could call AAA, but I really didn't feel like waiting 30 minutes or more in the cold in the lonely parking lot. So I plucked up my courage, fought off a few thoughts of claustrophobia, and crawled in. I released the two back seat releases, pushed the seats down, and wiggled and crawled my way into the car where I was able to open the doors from the inside. I was so tempted to take a selfie, but it physically wasn't possible. So we will just have to use our imaginations. Does the picture that popped into your imagination make you laugh? I was laughing the whole time. Fortunately, my car started right up and after the very nice bus station employee let me back into the building to use the facilities and to pay the $4 rate instead of the $6 rate at the exit, I was on my way home.

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 holiday is next?

Today is February 15, the day after Valentine's Day. I stopped in at Reny's for some quick items. I'm always annoyed but not surprised to see Easter candy and decorations show up in retail aisles on this day, but patriotic decorations? We don't need those until Fourth of July. Maybe Memorial Day.

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.

What would you like to drink?

I've known this for a long time and it was definitely one of the many (though minor) cultural differences I noticed coming to Maine. But here's a picture of what we all know is true. This is more interesting than if you're a blue state or a red state. So I grew up in a turquoise state and moved to a green state.

This was shared by my goddaughter who was born in Texas (turquoise), grew up in New York (green), and is going to college in Michigan (black).

She shared the graphic from http://cdn.iwastesomuchtime.com/2142013091631.jpg I do not know the original source.

Surviving Nemo

View from my apartment door on Thursday Feb. 7, 2013 around 1:30 in the afternoon.

 View from my apartment door less than 48 hours later on Saturday Feb. 9, 2013. And this time, I could barely get the storm door open 'cuz the snow had drifted up against it. (I just opened it far enough to stick my arm out and take the pic.) We actually only received about 7" here in Farmington. The further east and south you went, the more snow they got.

"There's got to be a morning after..." And fortunately it's often sunshine and beauty for us. And all our snow was light and fluffy so shoveling was pretty easy, too.

 

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!

Frankenstorm Update

So far so good here in Farmington. It's been raining, but just a misty kind of rain. High winds, but no fallen trees that I'm aware of. Don't know if the powerful part of the storm skirted us, hasn't arrived yet, or just petered out. Or maybe I'm just oblivious. But so far so good. This picture is sunrise Sunday. The color of the sky was incredible and, in fact, is what woke me up. This photo really doesn't capture the intensity of the red and orange. It was a beautiful glow inside my apartment. I think it was the "red sky at morning" part of that saying "red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning." To all my friends and family who are in the path of the storm, take care!

Crazy weather . . . record-breaking crazy

In October, Maine broke its record for most snow in the month of October, according to the New England Post. It just took one storm to do it. I had about 7" of snow in my front yard. It was great! The Wednesday before Thanksgiving. There wasn't any school anyway--Thanksgiving vacation had already started. I was planning on staying home and getting work done, which I did. But it was a lot of fun to keep looking out the window and seeing snow falling. On Friday after Thanksgiving, it was still a perfect picturesque view out the window while I decorated the apartment for Christmas.

All my snow pictures start to look alike, don't they. There is one thing that's different in this photo. My car is not in the driveway . . . it's in the garage! The Landlords are spending a lot of time at their Florida home this winter and in exchange for taking care of my own trash, I get to park in the garage. It didn't take me long to decide to take them up on that offer!!

So after this "record-breaking" snowfall in October, guess what happened in November? Maine was the warmest state in the country. In November! Check out this map from The Weather Channel as seen in the Bangor Daily News. The warmest states in the country were Maine and Florida and Maine won. The 62 was in Bangor, Maine.

And according to the Portland Press Herald, it looks like November could break the record for warmest November. Crazy!

8/26/2011 Preparing for Hurricane Irene

They say she's going to make it all the way up to Maine. She started in the Bahamas and is making quite the L O N G trip up the east coast. She's not predicted to hit Maine until Sunday evening, but here on a Friday afternoon, I received an email from BJ's, a local warehouse-type store. The subject line was "In-Club -- Your Hurricane Stock-up HQ" and this was the bulk of the email:

I guess it doesn't matter where you live in the United States, people will always find a way to capitalize on opportunity. Or in this case, to turn a negative into a positive potential.

7/7/2011 Castine Update

Check out this article in the Castine Patriot about the 4th of July. And pay particular attention to the photos and the photo credits.

Mrs. C's daughter-in-law got a phone call at 7am on the 5th of July from a local reporter who told her that the camera of the paper's photographer wasn't working right and they didn't have any photos of the parade. The photographer knew Mrs. C's d-i-l and had seen her taking photos, so she called to ask her if she had any that she could use. Mrs. C's d-i-l said Karen had a better camera and had been taking tons of photos so she should ask her. So the reporter called Mrs. C. who came and got Karen (who was just getting out of the shower), apprised her of the situation, and put her on the phone with the reporter. Karen actually had over 1,000 photos from the day but was able to pick out 30 or so to send to the reporter and the rest is history. :-)

7/6/2011 Jackman, ME

Not sure if this belongs in my Maine blog or my travel blog because though it happened in Maine, it's really just the start of my trip to Quebec City and Toudassac in Quebec, Maine. So I'm posting it in both blogs. :)

Quebec City is only 4 hours from Farmington. That's such a weird thought that a major foreign city is as close as south Boston. So my sister KMO and I are going there for 3-day whirlwind tour of Quebec City, then heading to Toudassac (which I never heard of but KMO discovered in her research), and then back to Maine for the Potato Blossom Festival in Fort Fairfield, ME. Can't wait.

Halfway to Quebec City is Jackman, ME. I've had the privilege of being here several times when visiting Marcus and Heidi and their kids. One of the things I learned is that the rest stop outside of town at the top of the hill is the only place in the area to get cell phone reception. When you pull in, you never know if the other people around you are tourists like you or locals who've come out to place a phone call!

What I didn't expect at the rest stop were lupines in full bloom and black flies. The lupines were gorgeous. The black flies were horrid. I've never seen this many in one place at one time. I've heard about the swarms of 'em, but never experienced it. Ugh. Hope I never experience it again! I tried to take pics of the lupines and the scenery but could only get this one. The original version has my finger in the top left corner, this is the cropped one. hahahaha. It took us a while to kill off all the black flies that got into the car. It really was bad.

We stopped at Bishop's convenience store and gas station for lunch and a fill up. Saw this wagon that has a cooler on the back and the whole thing collapses for easy storage. This is what we need for Kingfield Pops!!

Now go read the other blog and follow this trip into Canada!

7/5/2011 John's Ice Cream in Liberty

I need to do more traveling with Stephanie. She knows so many great places! John makes ice cream using real cream and has this cute little place right on the highway that we were traveling to get back to Farmington. But we probably would've missed it and that would've been too bad 'cuz the ambiance was fun and the ice cream delicious.

That's John himself serving a customer. He hand-dipped our ice cream for us: