My favorite time of year is here and Mother Nature is putting on a show in Maine.
Pockets of beautiful autumnal color are bursting forth.
And almost everywhere you look, it’s gorgeous.
Warm days, cool nights…
Farmers markets filled with apples and pumpkins.
If there’s a prettier place than autumn in New England…
I’m sure I don’t know where it is.
Even the dearly departed are enjoying the show.
Welcome fall!
Technically, she’s a Hurricane Katrina rescue dog named Peaches who belongs to the farmers across the street…. but yes, she’s a peach as well.
They went out of town over the weekend so we had dog duty… which isn’t a hardship because I’m currently petless for the first time in my life due to a husband who wants to travel when he retires next year.
I agree Peaches.
Boo and hiss to that.
Peaches is a rough and tumble farm dog who dearly missed her father…. and spent an inordinate amount of time looking for him out the window.
She couldn’t quite grasp the fact that she wasn’t allowed to cross the road and go back home…. so even though she’s a free range canine, when we had her outside she had to be tied.
That didn’t go over very well…
So the first thing she did in retaliation?
Yeah.
Peaches – 1.
Alvin – 0.
Peaches is also the only dog I know who enjoys self flagellation.
She picks up her toys and beats herself silly. To the point where I worry she’ll hurt herself.
Naturally she only flagellated half heartedly whenever I filmed, but you get the idea.
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
It kept her occupied, and the chipmunk population breathed a sigh of relief.
Disclaimer: I am not a hockey fan and I have nothing against the city of Philadelphia.
So if I offend any die hard Flyers out there, apologies. But your new mascot has me (and frankly all of sportsdom) freaked the f*ck out a bit baffled.
Meet Gritty.
Who is, as one site put it:
“An amorphous burnt-sienna blob that looks like the product of the unholy union between a third-tier H.R. Pufnstuf character and an even-more-hirsute-than-usual Seth Rogan.”
I mean, what exactly were the creators going for here…
Homicidal maniac?
Under medicated sociopath?
If they meant to terrify women and children and send them home with bone chilling nightmares…. well done Philly.
Face it, this thing is disturbing.
Witness it’s nod to Kim Kardashian.
And the fact that Gritty took numerous spills on the ice his first night did not go unnoticed.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins reTweeted the photo with the line, “Lol, ok”
Gritty showed his true colors.
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Our backyard trees are full of apples and I’ve been picking like crazy.
Well no, I didn’t.
But yesterday I made apple bread and Norwegian apple pie, so that’s just as good.
Autumn in Maine is pretty damn fabulous, not to mention colorful. The trees are starting to turn, our neighbor is harvesting pumpkins from his fields and if you drop by the house this month you’ll be stuffed full of baked apple treats.
My glazed apple bundt cake is pretty special, although the secret ingredient may have something to do with it.
Yeah.
We do apples up right at River’s house.
I admit when I chose this week’s course I thought it was a joke.
But clearly I am woefully uninformed because Pickleball really is a thing.
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Beginner Pickleball.
Have you heard the buzz about Pickleball and wondered what it was all about? Come learn to play this wonderful paddle sport, suitable for all ages. Taught by an experienced tennis professional who has become a Pickleball devotee, this class will have you playing in no time. Paddles and balls supplied. Bring tennis shoes to put on when you arrive (no street shoes allowed on the courts).
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Pickleball?
I had visions of this:
But no…. it really does exist.
There are courts, equipment, instructors, a magazine and evidently…
Nomenclature.
After doing a little research, I discovered it’s a rather slow paced game primarily embraced by the retired set.
Although not without it’s vanguard.
And hey, if you’re lucky enough to live in Pittsburgh…
(Yes, I said that with a straight face.)
So maybe I’d better get a jump on my sunset years, grab a ball and start pickling.
Who’s with me?
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30 pm for 6 weeks.
$59/$64 Non refundable.
Yeah, we’re still at it.
Another corner turned, another paper wall flapping in the breeze.
I am officially sick of vinyl siding.
If you’ve ever put it on, you know what I mean. If you’re thinking of putting it on? Don’t. Second mortgage the house, sell a future unnamed child… whatever it takes…. and hire a professional. Yes they charge an utter fortune, and now I know why. This stuff will drive you to drink.
Yes, he screwed that in place. And no, he was too annoyed to answer my innocent WTF question.
Hell, even the dog looked confused.
(Not ours, we were dog sitting for the farmers over the weekend. Dogs, chickens…. whatcha got? We’ll watch them all!)
Please let it be noted I cringed when I saw this –
Because when your husband pays $4,000 to fix scratches and paint his old truck? And then uses it as a workbench?
Grrrr.
But the back was finished…
With the third side well on it’s way.
And in case you’re thinking all I do is take blog pictures while he’s hard at work, think again.
I have to take up the mowing slack this project has left behind.
And trust me, it’s a lot of mowing.
I earn my keep.
If only I had a little help…
I was flipping through New York magazine the other day…
And being from Maine, one particular photograph struck me.
It was of a Dolce and Gabbana evening gown.
And it got me wondering.
Exactly to what kind of high society event does one wear a giant lobster claw?
I could see her snatching a champagne flute off a waiter’s tray with it, sure.
And maybe crushing some Harvey Weinstein like idiot’s roving hand.
But still.
It seems a trifle cumbersome for a night on the town.
We live in the country, which means we have critters visiting on a daily basis.
We’re animal lovers, which means we love them all.
Raccoons, opossums, woodchucks, chipmunks, pheasants, fox, hawks, the occasional bear, one moose….. and yes, even the skunks.
They come to nosh under our bird feeders, nibble our blueberry bushes and raid our apple trees. We love it. And year after year, we get more deer. At times, we’ve had as many as 24 in the backyard…. which was glorious. They’re such graceful, beautiful creatures.
Of course they’ve also broke every bird feeder I’ve ever hung, which is why we started buying feed a few years ago and putting out a nightly treat.
Now before you pop an environmental cork, we are not subsistence feeding deer. It’s 2 little bowls with a few cups of sweetened grain in each. Not nearly enough to satisfy a single deer, no less a herd. They’re still feeding naturally, we don’t allow hunting on the property and neither do the neighbors, so we’re not luring them to their deaths. Think of it as an Oreo or two. They love it, and we love to watch them.
We have families with young spotted fawns, we have rugged old bucks with impressive racks and even one doe with a bum leg who we worried about the entire winter, but she survived just fine.
The herd tends to disperse in the summer and for the last few months we’ve only had 2 yearlings. But the other night we had 6.
Autumn is coming….
And we love our backyard.
🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌
I told you!
I told you there was something weird going on around here, but nooooo. You all just thought I was nuts.
Well, crunch on this pistachio for a moment people:
There is something (or someone!) trying to escape from under my driveway.
You heard me.
It’s in there… and it wants out!
I was mowing the lawn the other day and thought I saw a mushroom.
We’ve had a lot of rain recently and the little bastards are popping up everywhere.
So when I caught sight of this one, I tried to kick it over…. because you know, ick.
But it didn’t move.
Not one single millimeter.
It’s stable, and solid.
And growing..
Rising up out of the tar like some mutant alien organism.
And that can’t be good.
I mean Holy guacamole Batman, look at it!
It’s beginning to look like…
A brain.
It’s….. evolving.
And I’m scared.
😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
(Just because I can.)
In the continuing saga that was our chicken babysitting duty, the coop was on the move in 2011.
Well, technically the coop in the woods was turned into a migrant farm workers cabin.
Before –
During –
Yes, that’s a water heater in a tree.
Isn’t that where you keep yours?
After looked something like this.
So while the new workers were sleeping on top of a few years worth of buried chicken poo…. the new feathered residence was born. Although we were happy not to have to hike through snow, ice and frigid temperatures that next year, we were less than thrilled with the Rube Goldberg like design our neighbor put close to the road and right in our line of sight.
Pretty, it wasn’t.
A greenhouse for free ranging and an old horse trailer for roosting….
With a box in between for an entrance. Thankfully this incarnation didn’t last long, but it worked for a while.
And we fed the ever expanding flock whenever the farmers were out of town.
The birds didn’t seem to mind the new digs…. and my late mother, who was 88 at the time, always enjoyed visiting the little cluckers. (Please note the double protective head gear. Momma was no fool.)
Required chicken butt photo below.
Because they’re just so…. fluffy!
And yes, there’s riveting video as well.
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River's world..... 