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Remember when I asked if anyone in our town wanted some apples on Facebook a while back?
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And a nice woman with two children came over to harvest some of the bonanza?
Well, she left me a nice surprise in the mailbox the other day.
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A jar of homemade applesauce. And while that was thoughtful enough? The best part was this…
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Proof of awesomeness to show my husband. … because for some reason he never believes me when I tell him.
🤣
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Autumn is the traditional season of harvest. Pumpkins, apples, squash. But yours truly prefers the liquid version…
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Harvest Sangria!
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This drink is da bomb and I’m not ashamed to say I had three with lunch the other day.
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Looking out the extremely dirty window is some fall foliage on the river, an old mill and the historic bridge the town keeps trying to replace.
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Inside there was a calamari appetizer with orange hoisin sauce to share, a crab roll for me….
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And seafood scampi with scallops, shrimp and mussels for the hubs.
Life is good.
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I’ve eaten apples.
I’ve baked with apples.
I’ve given apples to friends, to neighbors, to a pig, to workers and to strangers.
The deer have eaten apples. The raccoons have eaten apples. Even the fox have eaten apples.
And yet…
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We’re still loaded with fruit. There was only one thing left to do.
Gather up enough to fill the trunk of our car and take them to a wildlife rehabilitation shelter in the neighboring town.
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Oh. My. God.
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I fell in love a dozen times over.
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And my heart broke a dozen times as well.
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Abused animals. Sick animals. Animals that had been hit with a car on purpose.
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How can people be so cruel.
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If you’ve ever looked into a porcupine’s eyes and heard his little squee ( it sounds just like a baby)…. you know what I’m talking about.
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More marshmallow please.
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Seeing these little guys chow down on our apples?
Almost brought me to tears.
❤️
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Dropping one more post in the line up today because it’s Halloween… and some of my friends are disturbed clever.
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Creepiest costume award goes to a woman the husband used to work with. She and her wife go all out for the holiday and seeing her dressed as Pennywise will probably give me nightmares for a week.
I hate clowns!
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In keeping with the Stephen King theme, another friend had a party… and the happy couple from the Shining showed up.
Food is always important…
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As is presentation.
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Here’s hoping your Halloween is equally as creepy creative.
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I went grocery shopping yesterday…. and while I usually just buy what I want regardless of the cost, gazing down at the pot roast in my hand made me audibly gasp.
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A quite small, unimpressive rump roast had a $36 price tag… and damned if I didn’t leave it right there.
May I just say, what the utter f*ck?
I paid $17 for a pound of 80/20 hamburger and almost fainted when I saw this…
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Yes, it’s a rib roast. But so small I doubt you’d get 4 good slices. And while I used to cook them quite often… if I’m paying $25 per plate? I’ll go out to a restaurant, let someone else cook it and be served thank you very much.
Beef prices are certifiably insane right now.
And if you think it’s any better in the seafood department, think again.
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Picked lobster meat is $53 a pound. Throw in a little mayonnaise and it’s $60.
And I live in Maine for Christ’s sake!
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I’m not a fan of Wal Mart, but in my neck of the woods it’s the best and cheapest place to buy the hundreds of pounds of bird seed our greedy avian friends devour.
On this trip I needed milk and bread… which meant I had to traverse the entire store from left front corner to right rear corner because Wal Mart is nothing if not an evil marketer.
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Sandwich meat?
Not today.
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Breadless breading?
No thank you.
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And while I never, ever buy meat at Wally World…
This package of “premium pork steak” ensured I’ll never even be tempted.
🤢
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The husband has been trying to talk me into trading in my 2014 Subaru Forester for years now. But I love Ethel, and she only has 64,000 gentle miles, so I keep saying no.
Determined to prove that now is the perfect time to upgrade, I allowed him to drag me to a dealership to check out the 2022 models. There was only one problem.
There aren’t any 2022 models.
We checked 4 dealerships, but due to chip shortages and shipping backlogs the closest they could show me was a 2021 loaner of an entirely different grade.
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The husband insisted we test drive it, which we did. And while I admit it was newer and a bit peppier than mine, I was less than thrilled with the new energy conserving process that shuts off the engine every time you idle at a stop light. While the actual shutting down was smooth, the restart was jarring and bound to be annoying over time. They told us we could disable the feature, but it would have to be done every single time we drove as it resets to default.
For $38,000 plus? I said no thanks. But the husband was pushing me to order a new one and wait God knows how many months to get it….
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So he dragged me into the salesman’s office and had them appraise Ethel for a trade.
My Ethel.
I understand she’s 7 years old.. but she has low mileage and is loaded (with heated leather seats, back up camera, Nav and panoramic moon roof). My absolutely perfect Ethel… who Kelly Blue Book says has a trade in value of $16,500 and a private sale value of $17,800?
They offered us $10,000.
And that was all it took for my husband to be insulted, leave and stop badgering me to trade my vehicle.
Thank you Covid 19. Your virus induced shortages actually benefitted me this time around.
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After that fiasco, it was time for lunch at one of our favorite waterfront restaurants.
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A raspberry lime gin Ricky…
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And a scrumptious crab cake appetizer later, I was on my way to happy.
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Add a Campari Sangria and a fresh panko breaded haddock sandwich… and I was there.
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The husband started with clam chowder and moved on to a blood rare filet with grilled asparagus which, while quite satisfying….
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Set our wallet back a cool $53.
So yeah, thanks Covid 19 for driving food prices up so high our favorite place for lunch now makes my debit card shudder.
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Lovely fall photo inserted just because I can.
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Ours trees are bursting with apples….
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So what better thing to do on a perfect fall day than bake?
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Deep dish apple pie for dessert. And while I was at it?
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Deep dish chicken pot pie for dinner.
You can’t go wrong with pie.
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When you exit the Kancamagus Highway…
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You find yourself in the town of Woodstock, and when you’re in Woodstock?
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You have to visit the Woodstock Inn and Brewery.
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Of course if you visit this time of year.. you can expect to search endlessly for a parking spot, be unable to sit outside due to the high crowd volume, and find that the only indoor space available are two stools at the end of the bar.
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The brewery is a funky place, filled with all kinds interesting eye candy.
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But it was extremely crowded as well as extremely loud, so we decided to have a drink and an appetizer and be on our way.
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Pomegranate margarita and some fabulous duck wontons with sweet Thai chili sauce for me.
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And a French onion soup so loaded with cheese for the husband I thought he’d never get through it.
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After our snack we headed to Franconia Notch…
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Where the fall color was a bit past peak but still impressive.
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Trees.
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Fall leaves.
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And mountains.
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No narrative required.
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The husband and I reluctantly stopped at a tourist-centric restaurant last week which is something we try hard to avoid. Why do we dislike the tourist places? The seafood is usually sub par, ( it was ) the decor is usually tacky ( plastic lobsters, fake fishing nets) and the menu usually contains pictures they think tourists want to see.
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This is the world’s largest lobster roll, it sells for $100 and if you finish the whole thing by yourself? You’re made a member of the clean plate club. But that picture? Just… no.
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Required photo of Lord Dudley Mountcatten watching a flock of starlings.
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Finally…. An advent calendar I can get behind. Or under as the case may be.
👍
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It poured the other night and as you can see…. the husband’s latest roof repair did not hold up. And if that wasn’t bad enough, my latest patch job turned out to be perfect for funneling water down the wall and creating liquid filled bubbles. This has been going on so long I’m tempted to just wrap the house in plastic and call it good.
🥴
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I’ve been known to have an epiphany or two while drinking, but wine that tastes God? That’s a whole other ball of wax.
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Color me surprised. I had absolutely no idea.
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River's world..... 