Monthly Archives: September 2023

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How odd.

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I’m constantly getting suggestions on my FB feed to buy things from Etsy. And while I’ve purchased a few odds and ends there in the past… these new items didn’t make me want to break out my credit card anytime soon.

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Unless it’s Halloween and I’m dressing to attract a male polar bear? I see absolutely no need for these boots.

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Good grief. I don’t want fully operational and functioning gnomes, why would I ever want defective ones?

Along with Etsy, Amazon is flooding my feed with crazy cat items it thinks I need to purchase for His Lordship.

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Yeah. That’s not happening.

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And look at the face on that cat. I don’t think fur is the only thing that’s going to be terminated.

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Okay, they’ve got me here. Lord Dudley Mountcatten might actually like a pool table of his very own.

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Let’s go to the fair! Part one…

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Maine has a lot of agricultural fairs every autumn and over the years we’ve visited quite a few. Farmington was one we’d never hit so last week we drove west.

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This county’s fair is relatively small and focuses heavily on community involvement. Prize winning pumpkins and homemade jams were in the forefront.

As were school children’s projects.

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You have to admit this one made a valid point.

There was an entire upper floor devoted to quilt, knitting, photography and art contests. There was also a large sign stating fair volunteers did not judge or pick the winners. I though that was odd until I saw some of the winners…

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I wouldn’t want to be blamed for that either.

As we stepped out of the expo building, food.

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I was disappointed not to order a fresh lemonade from the giant lemon concession stand, but alas it was closed.

I did score my favorite go to the fair treat though.

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Fried dough with cinnamon and powdered sugar. You only eat these things at the fair and you really can’t explain why… but damn. It was good.

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Inexplicably there were multiple fried pickle stands, all boasting to be the biggest and most famous. Bypassing those we wandered around until we found something that wasn’t battered and deep fried and settled on a picnic table with our wraps to enjoy the show.

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Not being twang loving blue grass fans, we ate our lunch and left our seats to those more in tune with the genre.

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😉

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Tumbledown brewery trip.

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We headed west the other day to visit a couple of breweries I’d been wanting to try. On the road, we saw this…

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Crowd sourcing your honeymoon. That’s a new one.

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Western Maine can be lovely.

Mountains, rolling hills and valleys with lots of family farms. And now, numerous solar panels.

Unfortunately the brewery I really wanted to visit was closed due to the unexpected death of their owner… so we headed for my second choice.

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Tumbledown Brewing,… small batch and named for a mountain.

Unfortunately their tasting room was small as well and housed at the end of a strip mall. Not what I was expecting.

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Eight beers were on tap and we tried 4.

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Sitting at one of the two tables which was an upended barrel.

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No.

We did not wear goggles.

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As luck would have it the guy behind the counter was military so you know we (and by we I mean the husband) had to stay and talk.

One flight and a four pack to go lightened our wallet by almost $40 which proves small batch does not equal small pricing.

Review – Beer wasn’t bad. Tasting room was. Not in a hurry to return.

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Let’s play.

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Because you’re already here, you might as well.

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I didn’t even have to think about this one…. read.

I’ve often said I could happily live on a deserted island as long as I had a large enough stack of reading material.

Never underestimate the power of a good book to keep you company. Some of them are my best friends.

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How about you…

What are you doing to stay sane in solitary?

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Miscellaneous nonsense.

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Has anyone tried this recipe?

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I just bought the two ingredients and will report back if it’s truly magical.

Have you ever laughed at your spouse/significant other for being horticulturally challenged? I did the other day when we visited a friend and my husband asked if I had any of these bushy plants in our garden.

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Uh, no… but it is legal here now.

🤣

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Remember the photos I posted of that fantastic sunset we had before the recent hurricane? Take note of the giant ice cream cone trash can on the left and read the town’s FB page the day after the storm

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We take our ice cream seriously up here.

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A support pickle?

I just can’t…

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We must have made them look bad.

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As you know we have a beautifully smooth new driveway. It’s dark black and lovely… as it should be for $20,000… but I think we were making the road in front of our house look bad.

That’s the only explanation I can come up with for this..

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A paving crew….

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Redoing a ten mile stretch of road to match our driveway.

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This pleases the color coordinator in me greatly.

Our vehicles suspensions are saying thank you as well since Maine pot holes are epic and can swallow you whole.

As can our hideous new ditch shown here with uncoordinated grass.

🥴

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More (not really) helpful survival tips.

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A few more tips that are weird enough to share.

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Well damn. That blows the veracity of every cartoon I watched as a kid right out of the water.

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Okay, that’s a pretty handy tip if it works…. but am I the only one who substituted the word kindling for kindle every time they read it? Kindling is a noun, kindle is a verb. Unless they plan on setting their ereaders on fire… this is grammatically incorrect.

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You know I’m going to try this, but since everyone’s hands are different sizes I may have more daylight left than you. Neener neener.

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Yes. Because everyone has a termite mound in their backyard …

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When you really love your mouse.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten has been spending a lot of time in our bedroom since our contractor has been working in the living room. And if he’s in there?

So is his favorite mouse.

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How much does he love this particular rodent?

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Enough to pick it up and carry it to bed with him.

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And don’t even think about removing said mouse.

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Unless you want to lose a finger.

😉

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The… but it has nowhere to go so that’s a half assed solution…. project.

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Remember the river I blogged about a while back? The one that runs between our house and garage every time we have heavy rain?

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The one I’m blaming on our new and pretty, but clearly sloping the wrong way driveway?

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Well, our contractor came up with an idea to fix the problem and offered to implement the plan…. which led to this.

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My thrifty husband wanting to save money and doing it himself.

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I was thrilled with the idea of sinking a catch basin and perforated drainage line to direct the water to flow elsewhere.

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Except my spouse…king of the half assed, why bother doing it correctly the first time if you can save on labor projects… had another idea.

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Oh, he sunk the catch basin.

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And screwed the cover on.

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But decided this was enough and no drainage lines were necessary.

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So now we have a catch basin with nowhere for the water to go.

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Yes, he put it in the right spot where water collects… as shown by the morning after a heavy rain.

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But as soon as the basin fills up no further drainage is achieved and we still have standing water.

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Sigh…

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