For those of you not lucky enough to live in my beautiful state, here’s a peek at what you might see on any given day.
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Lobster. It’s everywhere.
Even at the gas station.
When you live on an island like I did, you party near the water on beaches, near the water on piers, and sometimes…
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On the water itself.
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These are pictures from a friend of mine who’s in a local band.
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The concert was staged on a float….
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Which means concert goers had to float as well.
And finally… I doubt there’s anything more iconic about Maine than a traditional lobster bake. If you’ve never attended one, you should. There’s nothing quite like it.
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The food… lobster, clams, potatoes, corn, onions and eggs are all covered with seaweed and burlap and set to steam over a wood fire.
This is our little kitchen porch, which is really just a covered landing.
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In the corner there’s a stand on which I place potted plants every year. It’s usually well balanced with one begonia on the top and one begonia on the bottom. Until the woodchucks discovered the bottom flower and started nibbling…
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Bottom flower was then moved to the middle shelf and middle shelf decorations were moved to the bottom.
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Which was fine…
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Until a chipmunk found the bird’s nest and decided he needed to deconstruct it.
And if that’s not bad enough?
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Something has started using our man cave/Barn Mahal porch as a toilet.
One afternoon, when the temperature was near 90 and the humidity level was almost as high, my husband decided it would be a good time to start ripping up the old deck. You know, the one we hired a contractor to rip up and rebuild.
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It was hard, heavy, hot work. Which is why we’re paying someone else to do it.
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An hour or so into the demolition, said contractor showed up…
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And was a little surprised the husband had already started the project for which we’d hired him.
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But they worked side by side, in the heat…
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Because no one told him husbands who are bored with retirement need to keep busy.
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In less than three hours…
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All the rotted old wood planks had been ripped up…
Thankfully we didn’t get much of that awful smoke from Canada’s wildfires… but one night the sunset did look a little hazy.
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Bad air quality makes for beautiful pictures.
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Beer number two from Wisconsin was tasted and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Weird Hat Band from Young Blood brewery sounded absolutely bizarre… a pastry sour with peach, basil, graham cracker and vanilla… but wow. It worked. In a delightfully weird way.
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Lord Mountcatten reclining on the new driveway. He’s still hesitant to walk it’s length, but has no qualms about napping on it.
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The husband, weed whacking the ditch from Hell.
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We are currently waiting for the state DOT man to make his second visit and final pronouncement on the future of said ditch.
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Meanwhile.. here’s the husband, caught in the act of throwing a large chunk of tar into the neighbor’s field.
This is the last picture taken of my husband and his sister.
She had asked him to bring her one of his Marine Corps hats so she could wear it in honor of his service. He happily obliged.
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My sister in law passed a few weeks ago and it’s just now I can bring myself to blog about it. For those of you who read regularly, you know it was a blessing… and sadly what she wanted.
But that doesn’t mean it was easy.
We received the call from her daughter Monday at noon and rushed over to the nursing home to be with her. Though you know it’s inevitable, losing your mother is hard… and slowly watching her die? Just about unbearable.
It was a bedside death watch with everything that implies. Five family members and a close friend, sitting… and waiting. Watching her painfully gasp for breath, float in and out of consciousness and be given enough morphine to drop a horse. You could tell even the nurses were surprised how long she hung on.
Tears? I cried rivers and couldn’t stop. But not just for her…. it was watching her daughter trying to let go that really broke my heart. When it finally happened, 11 hours later, her daughter simply crumpled to the floor. Broken, exhausted, and physically spent.
We did everything we could to help then… emotionally and financially. Which is why the next day found us at the funeral home making arrangements for cremation.
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Death is big business, never forget that. I’ve learned painful … not to mention expensive… lessons about what is necessary and what is superfluous charging for things you don’t know you don’t need.
We chose the same place that cared for my mother, my husband’s mother and his brother. A small, honest, family run business… which are getting harder to find these days. We made the arrangements, we paid, we picked up her remains and brought them to her daughter a week later.
A small celebration of life is being planned at her daughter’s house for Labor Day weekend and we’ll try to help with that as well.
My SIL’s struggle is over.
Her daughter’s struggle… trying to understand why her mother could never find joy in life… is ongoing.
Home repair projects are lining up faster than ever here at Casa River… and if my husband wants to go back to work instead of enjoying retirement? Then I’m going to spend his reinstated paycheck hiring a contractor to fix the things that need to be fixed.
New driveway? Done.
New windows for the master bedroom? Ordered.
New back deck? Materials being delivered today.
And then there’s the disaster we call a living room ceiling.
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The one that’s been damaged by roof leaks for the the past decade.
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( It doesn’t really look this awful, I had to increase the contrast for the pictures)
Thankfully the cause of the leak was finally found and repaired, but it’s left us with a mess that’s been screaming for help.
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Our house was built in 1974 and an addition was added in 1994. This bump out to the living room included a support beam like structure that has been nothing but trouble.
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It’s slightly sagging in the middle and of course it was also water damaged.
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The problem in fixing and replacing it…. is we don’t really know what’s up there. The only access is through a tiny hole in the den closet and though my husband has crawled up there numerous times, there’s no attic and no way to reach that particular area.
After one contractor quoted us $25,000 to fix it sight unseen, and another quoted $35,000 to completely rework the trusses, we despaired. But the guy who will be doing our back deck and windows agreed to give it a go and brought over some fun equipment to investigate.
This required moving the furniture into a pile on the other side of the room which Lord Dudley Mountcatten did not appreciate.
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How can you fling your mouse off the couch when it’s right next to the coffee table?
Oh, the horror.
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The first step was drilling holes in the ceiling.
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Second step… threading the spy camera lens into the holes.
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Third step… trying to figure out what the hell you’re looking at.
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Fourth step… drawing a highly technical schematic.
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The contractor wasn’t pleased with the outcome, something about overlapping beams and braces and trusses … but agreed to repair and replace it as best he could. This will involve an utter mess and temporary load bearing devices which I’m not looking forward to, but it has to be done.
And until that day?
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We have a beautiful Swiss cheese ceiling to enjoy.
Daisies. They’re such happy little flowers, I always smile when I see them bloom. Which is why… after seeing how well this one performed… I went back to the nursery for more. See the monster plant to the left threatening to swallow the bloomer whole? That’s a daisy as well, but clearly not the same variety.
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Bee balm, in bright pink instead of the traditional red. I think the bees are confused.
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Day lilies.
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I planted this flowering bush when we first moved in over 20 years ago and damned if I can remember what it’s called.
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The blooms are positively fuzzy.
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More day lilies.
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They’re such low maintenance things it’s hard not to plant them everywhere.
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😊
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 