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This and that.

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How do you get your weather? The local news, NOAA, an app?

In Maine… we look to a slightly different forecaster.

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I’ve heard the woolies have wider black than rust this year.

*Gulp*.

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It’s been a while but my husband finally decided to finish the shed addition door.

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Yes, the entire wall is a door.

This is not going to end well, mark my words.

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It’s property tax time again and I’m not pleased.

Last year our taxes went up $1,000. The year before that, they went up $1,200. This year they only went up $500 so I should probably be relieved. But our town has no police force, no local ambulance service and a volunteer fire department so WTH are we paying for?

The nearly $5k is for our house on an acre and a half. The $1,437 is for the man cave/Barn Mahal on our other acre and a half. (The appraisers think the barn is unfinished and just for storage, so don’t tell them the difference please.)

We own our house, the mortgage was paid off years ago and that’s a wonderful feeling. But forking over what amounts to $532.75 a month for the privilege of being here? Not so much.

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Random photo of Lord Dudley Mountcatten, just because.

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37 thoughts on “This and that.”

  5. I’d have to look it up but I pay almost that for an 1116 sq. ft. apartment. But then I am supporting a lot of services including a school system…so there is that. I’ve got an icky feeling in my bones that it is going to be a bad winter – we are do for a snowmaggedon. Let’s hope my bones lie…

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  6. The wooly bears tend to cross the road a lot on sunny days here. I saw several on our fall ride last week but I’ll admit I didn’t pay attention to the length of the central brown section, though I thought about it. At bike speed it takes some focus to notice…and I didn’t want to be looking down.

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  8. I was crossing the road one sunny day last week and got sideswiped by some crazy bicyclist so focused on staring down at a woolly caterpillar he almost ran me over. If I find that guy, I’m a-gonna give him a piece of my mind!

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  10. My younger daughter in British Columbia went camping last weekend and noticed the wooly bears were almost all black this fall. I hope for her sake it’s just an old wives’ tale (old spouse’s tale?). Vancouver is poorly prepared to handle snow, since they’re convinced it “doesn’t come very often here.”

    California has a 1% cap on property taxes, which had a devastating effect on public services like schools, libraries, and parks when it was first enacted. They gradually figured out a workaround, and property values in the meantime have skyrocketed to the point where one percent of a house’s value can mean a tax bill of over $100K. But the cost of doing business has also risen, so it’s always a hurry up and catch up for the schools here. They need to do something other than fund schools with local property taxes.

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  12. All the hicks down here call ’em woolly worms. I don’t have much confidence in them. That’s OK, Cathy has enough confidence for both of us, especially if the local homespun hillbilly wisdom calls for lots and lots of snow, then she’s locked in tight. The barn door doesn’t thrill me either.

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      1. I agree. We had a very popular weatherman here named Bob Caldwell who gave us the common sense weather. You know, “Stick your head out the window. If it comes back wet, it must be raining.” All true I swear. That’s what I call weather you can count on.

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  13. I get my weather from my weather app; I rarely watch our local forecast.

    Our property taxes are also outlandish.

    It looks like they might go away in the next year, so that makes our Florida hearts so happy.

    Why do they go up? Can anyone explain that to you? It makes no sense, especially if you have no police or ambulance.

    For us, our taxes are also based on the value of our home. So, if my house is worth ten times the person down the street, I pay ten times as much, but I’m still getting the same services. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

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  14. LA County pays a lot in property tax for not a lot in actual property, but we get a (racist) police force, fire department, schools, and so many roads. Plus excellent utilities, free school lunches and breakfasts, paid leave to care for anyone, the lowest maternal mortality rate in the country, and a lot of consumer/labor protections that don’t exist in red states. We pay about $50 more a month than you do, I think.

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