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Look who’s back!
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I spotted our first woodchuck yesterday.
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And immediately tossed out some lettuce and broccoli to welcome the little guy back.
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I’m saying little guy but it might be a girl. I only know it doesn’t look like our old momma chuck of years past.
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She’s been around for a long time and sadly, I think it’s time for the next generation to take over.
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The husband and I found a (not so new, but new to us) brewery in Lewiston recently.
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Baxter brewing is housed in the old Bates mill complex …
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And has a fabulous tasting room space.
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I love when companies repurpose old buildings. This was a hydro powered textile mill back in the day and if you look closely in the far corner of that picture you’ll see a raw rock wall. During heavy rain storms it weeps… wear waterproof shoes if you sit there.
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The beer?
Yeah, there’s lots of it on tap.
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That chocolate orange stout?
Primo!
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They also have a full bar and since I’m a sucker for fresh herbs in my cocktails…
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I sampled the thyme after thyme mule with pear and lime ginger beer. Yum!
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At the bar we spied an outdoor mural we missed on the way in.
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Along with the beer?
Food.
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Sadly it wasn’t as good as the booze.
The husband’s French onion soup was sent back because it was basically just a bowl of soggy bread.
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My dumplings were tasty but a bit overdone with hard edges.
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The generator that powered the mill.
It’s massive and would have cost a fortune to remove so they just painted it and left it in place.
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The husband liked his chicken tenders, though I thought the coating was too heavy and too dry.
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I should have known better than to order a smash burger… I don’t usually like them as they’re thin and well done… but the bartender said the maple honey cream sauce was amazing so I took the plunge.
Sauce aside, it was a dry hockey puck.
Am I the only one who hates this smash perfectly good meat to smithereens trend?
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Poor pub food aside, the atmosphere and beer were good enough to warrant a return trip.
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We’ll just order something it’s harder to screw up. Like nachos, or salad.
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😊
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After we visited the delightfully quirky Calefs General Store in New Hampshire last week, we were hungry for lunch. Not being familiar with the area we asked the ladies who worked there for a recommendation.
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They directed us to Dante’s, an Italian restaurant we were assured was popular, crowded and always delicious.
Unassuming from the outside…
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And not at all crowded on the inside, I was beginning to doubt the review.
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The bar is always my husband’s preferred seating choice and since it was completely empty, we got started.
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I like arincini, but have never in my life been served any this large.
Seriously, they were the size of tennis balls.
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Almost as big as my blood orange and vodka spritz.
Shame they were cold in the middle and virtually tasteless. If they’d been tasty I could have eaten them as a meal.
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This was supposed to be ravioli carbonara, but instead of pancetta they used ham and instead of garlic there were large chunks of onion.
The portion was huge, but again… rather tasteless.
Vowing never to return to this disappointing place, we noticed a woman walking out of a doorway adjacent to the bar with a brush and a can of hair spray.
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Turns out it’s a hair salon.
Right there.
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And next to the hair salon? A fitness center.
It was a regular one stop shop!
You could work out, blow out and pig out all in the same building.
Now that’s multi tasking.
🤣
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As many of you know, we’ve battled a certain red squirrel in the past.
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She’s chewed holes in our barn, our garage and our wood shed.
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She’s gnawed her way into the eaves of our home and given birth to a large brood we physically had to evict. She attacked my husband when he was cleaning gutters and built a nest in his truck engine, destroying wires that required it to be towed to the repair shop. I could go on, but I think you get the gist.
She’s a menace.
So the other day… when I saw she had a friend?
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I was concerned, but before I could fully process the horror? I saw this…
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Four!
There are now four red menaces in residence.
We’re doomed.
😫
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Storms have been passing in and out of our area.
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This one moved right over the neighbor’s farm and the now completed, view busting greenhouse.
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Someone got some impressive weather….
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But this time it wasn’t us.
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What I got was a spiced cranberry lemon drop martini and crab cakes.
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And spicy Tuscan shrimp with sun dried tomatoes and spinach.
😊
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Our Coopers Hawk has been visiting the backyard again. He lands on the deck railing, in the apple trees, on the telephone pole and on his very favorite spot…
The bird feeding station.
It’s a shame he dislikes the paparazzi and flies away as soon as he spots me… but I did manage this rather nice photo.
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They’re so beautiful.
❤️
The following is a notice from a Maine church… and while I’m not a religious person, I have to admit God Invented Chocolate is a great advertising gimmick.
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Clever marketing, that.
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Who makes these things?
When I’m craving sweets… I can guarantee you the last thing I’m reaching for is cabbage.
🥴
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There.
That’s better…
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If you’re on Facebook you’ve seen them. Good looking, easy recipes people are always raving about.
They’re virtually irresistible, at least to me.
I save them, gather the ingredients and wait for the culinary magic to happen.
Problem is, it rarely does. Because while these recipes always look wonderful? They never are.
Yesterday I wasted time with this one:
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Apple fritters!
What could go wrong?
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Turns out, everything.
They didn’t look or taste like fritters…. the color was off, the taste was sub par, the texture unappealing.
They were so bad it was almost funny.
Time after time I tell myself not to bother with Facebook recipes. I know I’ll be disappointed. But then I see a new one… and I can’t help myself.
Hope springs eternal.
🥴
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The husband and I celebrated a wedding anniversary recently.
This was my Facebook post for the day.
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Sorry, but it’s true. He’s an amazing husband, partner and overall great guy. Generous, strong willed, kind hearted and honest. Is it any wonder I’ve kept him so long?
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A lovely bouquet was delivered that morning…
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And then the happy couple took a drive down the coast for a walk.
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It was a bit brisk, so we didn’t make the whole loop…
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But we ended the day with cocktails and a nice meal.
The blackberry elderflower Prosecco spritz with fresh mint was divine.
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As were my giant crab cakes.
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These sexy swimmers of yesteryear were hanging on the wall to my right, but I only had eyes for my guy.
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Honey balsamic salmon for the husband… the sugar caramelized, but it was perfectly cooked.
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And a fabulous chicken Marsala for moi.
Here’s to another four happy decades.
💕
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Judging from your responses to my liken last year to a food post, I’m not the only blogger who had a rotten 12 months.
Here are your nasty food choices… in order of posting not awfulness.
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Haggis?
Enough said.
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Cilantro, the devil’s weed.
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A shit sandwich is bad, though admittedly this one looks pretty happy.
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Mushed pea porridge, to which I always want to ask the question…. why?
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Meringue. That utterly tasteless abomination.
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Listeria laden grapefruit.
Google images didn’t have that particular culinary horror, but this looked gross enough to suffice.
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Cod liver oil.
Oh my.
Conclusion?
We’re all well rid of 2024.
😉
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Over Christmas, our neighbors took a cruise on that gigantic new floating city, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas. It’s the largest cruise ship in the world and sounds like my idea of Hell, but to each their own.
While they were away? I had cat duty.
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And drove down their long driveway every day to their house in the woods.
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Sometimes with company, which is always a nice surprise.
The nicer surprise?
The thank you gift she brought home for me a week later.
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Oh my lord!
Have you ever tried these?
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The banana was to die for. Rich, moist and perfectly rummy. I had one slice, and then shamefully devoured half the cake with a glass of cold milk.
Dinner? Who needs it.
The cake was so amazing I had to research where I could purchase another. I hoped it wouldn’t involve taking a cruise… but honestly, I’d be tempted.
From the website:
….main claim to fame is its rum cakes, which are baked in Jamaica, Barbados and the Bahamas and employs machinery that ensures long shelf lives without using refrigeration or preservatives. “We still make the cake the same way it was made years ago,” says Hamaty-Simmonds, “which includes generous portions of Tortuga Rum from the Caribbean. You have to taste it!”
Upon further sleuthing, thank you Jeff Bezos…
I shall be ordering one from Amazon today.
My third nice surprise? A green plant I’ve had in our living room for over 5 years just decided to bloom.
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With weird and wonderfully quirky little orange flowers.
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How bizarre is that!
😊
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River's world..... 