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:

7/5/2011 Belfast

On the drive home, Stephanie asked if we would mind stopping in Belfast for a quick errand. What?? See a town in Maine I haven't been to yet? Twist my arm! Belfast is awesome! There's a bustline downtown with great shops and a gorgeous port. There was even a newspaper article about the booming businesses in Belfast in a local paper recently.

Fun way to cover up a door that's no longer in use:

Lots of galleries with beautiful as well as eclectic art:

One of many unique benches in the downtown area:

Wow. Picture postcard perfect:

Hahahaha Thank you Stephanie for helping us find this awesome photo opp!:

7/5/2011 Farewell Castine

I do love a good Dutch door. And in Castine, the weather is so nice (and in this case, the view of the elm and the yard) that you can actually use your Dutch door. Of course, Mrs. C. has one.

KMO, Mrs. C. and me in Mrs. C's backyard.

Stephanie and me.

We had breakfast at Bah's Bakery. KMO and Stephanie had quiche, I got the famous crab cake (for breakfast?? why not!). It was delicious and the view of the harbor while eating was nice, too.

Because you can see a lot of people on this schooner, Mrs. C. said it must be the Bowdoin. A Facebook friend suspected it was the Bowdoin as well. I'm doing well to know it's a schooner. What nobody said was that the Bowdoin is owned by the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. It's a teaching ship!

7/4/2011 Town Band concert program

7/4/2011 4th of July Concert, Castine, ME

Not sure what this was about. This car was parked at the Town Commons for the Town Band Concert. I'm thankful for the 4th of July, does that count?

Instrumentalists getting ready for the big concert. Look right between the T and the I in the word Castine on the big drum, now go up to the rim of the drum, . . . there's my sister!

The Tarratine Fifes and Drums made a guest performance at the concert. Oh look! There's my sister--second fife from the right.

The Dice's Head (or Dice Head or Dyce Head . . . depends what you read) Lighthouse right on the edge of town.

We had a big barbecue tonight. Mrs. C. and her son and daughter-in-law and 3 grandkids plus 4 family friends plus my sister, me, and my friend Stephanie. We ate barbecued brisket, sausage, and ribs sent from The New Braunfels Smokehouse by Mrs. C's daughter Katy who is my sister's best friend which is how we got here in the first place. Gorgeous evening. We all sat underneath Mrs. C's really big elm tree. Yes, elm tree. Castine's elms didn't get hit by the Dutch Elm Disease blight and in fact, all the trees are carefully cared for and tagged and baby elms are now being planted across the country from cuttings from Castine's elms. Anyway, it was a gorgeous tree to sit under and enjoy our wonderful meal. Then we went inside for dessert of brownies and strawberry-rhubarb pie. What a great 4th of July!!

Next on the agenda was the fireworks display at 9:15. At 9:00, two fireworks went off into the fog and just kinda, sorta set the fog aglow. Not much to look at. At 9:15, the harbor lights went out and one more firework went off and glowed. Even the bang didn't sound right in the fog. Next thing we know, they're announcing that the fireworks are postponed to Friday night. :-( A smart decision, just not the evening we were expecting. (This photo is of the Maine Maritime Academy's big ship at the harbor . . . you can kinda tell that there was a lot of fog.)

We came home to Mrs. C's house with a welcome flag. The US flag flies high and proud on a lighted pole on her rooftop, but this flag hangs proud and welcoming in the front porch.