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Darby’s Tavern

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A trip up the coast to Belfast brought us to Darby’s Tavern.

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It was built in 1865 and still has its original tin ceiling.

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The bar screams prohibition era retro.

And speaking of the bar…

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A ruby red grapefruit martini hit the spot.

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I think the Babe approved.

Darby’s is famous for it’s “from scratch” kitchen, and lunch did not disappoint.

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I started with homemade cornbread with blueberry maple butter. Ooh la la! So good I didn’t want to share.

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But the husband started with a sinfully rich cream of broccoli soup and kept reaching for my bread.

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Above the bar? The antique Budweiser lamp my husband has been trying to cajole off his brother who owns the same one . When you switch it on, the lamp lights and the Clydesdales start walking. Real man cave material, but Darbys wouldn’t sell theirs either.

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I ordered off the specials menu, though I had no idea what made a crab’s toe peek.

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Didn’t matter, it was delicious. Toes et al.

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Husband chose a broiled haddock in scampi sauce with a fresh green salad and maple Dijon vinaigrette.

Good drinks, good food, good place!

👍

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A veritable sparrow torture chamber.

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Warning: disturbing avian photo to follow, but trust me… no birds were harmed in the making of this blog.

If you remember, our contractor had just laid rubber protective tape over the framing of our back deck.

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I can’t say I examined it too closely after he told us it would protect the boards from water damage. I figured he knew what he was doing…

Until yesterday when I heard something strange out back and went to investigate.

What I found was a small sparrow hanging on the board, with one wing stuck to the tape. It’s little bird companions were tweeting and pecking and trying in vain to free it. I didn’t take a picture, I didn’t have time. I just wanted to save the poor thing.

Which I did, and it flew away happily.

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Although with a few less feathers attached.

Feeling pleased with myself for saving the small fellow I went back in the house, until I heard something strange out back an hour later.

Another bird was caught in the tape.

I saved that one as well and hoped that was the end of it.

Nope.

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Bird number three… who I did take a quick picture of before I scooped him up and freed him. This one bit me for my trouble.

Not wanting to continue the sparrow torture sessions, I grabbed a knife and made small cuts in the tape so it would lay down flat around the upright posts.

Thankfully no more feathered friends were trapped after that.

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Random snippets

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Cow!

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Mister Cow is happy in his new home and growing rapidly.

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Billions returns for its final season this weekend. Axe is back… and I’m totally on board.

👍

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Pineapple margarita, just because.

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The baby chucks don’t look much like babies anymore.

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It’s getting harder to distinguish momma from the group.

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I performed a minor miracle last week and dragged my husband to the movie theater. This happens approximately once a year, so I have to choose carefully. And since I’m a history nerd? It wasn’t Barbie we went to see.

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When His Lordship is determined to look outside, no mere blind will stop him.

🤣

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Let’s play.

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Humor me.

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That’s an easy one for me.

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The Good Humor truck song. Music to the ears of every hungry child in the 60’s and 70’s.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey and every summer we had a special bowl filled with change by the back door. When you heard the first far away strains of that distinctive little ditty? You grabbed a handful and ran outside.

My preferred treat?

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The toasted almond bar.

To this day, I crave them… which is a tragedy.

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Sometimes life just isn’t fair. No more toasted almond goodness. Though I discovered I could buy this on eBay….

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But if my favorite treat isn’t available, why bother?

How about you…

What sound from your childhood don’t you hear anymore?

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Deck replacement… day 3 did not go well either.

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While we really like our contractor, I have to admit he’s not the fastest worker we’ve ever seen. His motto is do it once, do it right… which is great in theory… but I have a feeling it’s going to be hard on the check book.

After three days of work….

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We have perfectly level framing (which was already there, he just sanded the boards) …

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And rubber sealant tape.

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And one loose laid picture frame board.

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And rain.

Yes, we had that as well.

It rained so hard the contractor gave up and left, which was fine. Until we realized he didn’t take down his tent.

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An hour later tent drainage surgery had to be performed.

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And there was a lot to drain.

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Water is heavy.

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Which is why the husband performed the surgery and I documented the procedure.

Three days.

16 billable hours at $55 and hour.

$880… for prep work and some rubber tape. This is going to be one very expensive deck.

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No searching required.

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*Note to reader: For optimum pleasure this blog should be read with Marshall Tucker’s ‘Searching for a Rainbow’ playing in the background. *

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Rain? Oh, we’ve had rain.

Almost every day for a month and a half.

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And aside from making our lawn green, lush and almost impossible to keep mowed… there are rainbows.

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Which really isn’t a bad trade off .

❤️

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Deck replacement… day 2 did not go well.

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The new composite boards were stacked and ready.

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The contractor set up a tent to beat the heat of the baking sun.

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He started work on the framing.

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And then my husband went out to talk.

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And talk, and talk, and talk.

At the $55 an hour we’re paying this guy, I could do with a little more work and a lot less talk so I hauled the husband inside and got him busy organizing some of his old magazines and newspapers.

Bad idea. Very bad.

Because as soon as he found some interesting ones?

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He took them out to show the contractor.

And then he talked, and talked, and talked.

Jesus wept…we’ll have to remortgage the house before this is through.

And if Jesus weeping wasn’t bad enough?

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The heavens decided to weep that afternoon as well.

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Torrential rain, heavy downpours and big mud puddles.

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Left us with very little progress.

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But there is a great big tool trailer parked on the lawn.

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That’s a plus, right?

🥴

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Untouched color.

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Nine years ago… gosh, has it been that long?.. when my mother died, a friend gave me a memorial rose bush to plant in her honor.

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It’s struggled to hang on over the years… through droughts and floods and yes, woodchucks. But when it blooms? It really is fabulous.

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These are untouched iPhone photos.

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The colors really are this bright.

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The variations of shades knock me out every time.

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I think my mother would approve.

❤️

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He fought valiantly, but alas…

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The day my husband had been waiting for finally arrived. The top road engineer from the State (and two support staff for backup) were here. Outnumbered and surrounded, my husband was undeterred and ready to discuss the ditch from Hell in great detail.

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He explained how repeated snow plow drivers and mailman had driven on the edge and ruined the structural integrity.

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He explained how the sides have been caving in and filling the ditch with dirt, sand, gravel and chunks of road tar.

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He complained about the town scraping off all his hard won grass that helped the erosion.

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He told them he wanted to install .. at our expense…a perforated drainage pipe and fill in the ditch to bring a level lawn out to the road … like our neighbors on both sides and across the street.

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And that’s when things got tense. Because no matter how many reasons my husband gave, the head engineer would not be swayed.

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He kept repeating the ditch was necessary for proper road drainage. Which is odd, because it was the previous owner who (illegally) dug the ditch to begin with.

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Nothing my husband said… and believe me over the course of an hour he said a lot…. could sway the official.

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The end result?

Before the state paves the entire road, which will happen in the next few weeks, a crew will arrive to completely dig out and shore up the sides of our ditch. They will lay new dirt on the sides and scatter grass seed.

Big whoop.

To me this will be even worse than what we have now. It will be steeper… and harder to mow and weed whack than ever. Grass seed? Useless, it will just wash away into the ditch.

And before you say we should have just filled it in ourselves and not told them? The official told us if we did that we’d be given a huge fine and forced to dig it back out again… and if we didn’t? They’d come dig it out themselves and charge us for doing it.

They say you can’t fight city hall. Apparently you can’t fight the Maine DOT either.

😡

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Eerie skies…

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While I will never miss the ungodly heat of the south, I do miss their ripping thunderstorms. The few rumblers we have in Maine rarely come close in intensity but recently we had a beauty.

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And yes, I’m that weirdo neighbor who sits on their porch and waits for it to roll in.

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With camera in hand.

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The real action didn’t start until after dark…

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But you could feel it in the air.

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Boomers were coming…

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