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I was giving myself a pedicure the other day and Lord Dudley Mountcatten was fascinated.
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He did not however like my tools.
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When I got tired of picking it up off the floor? I quit.
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The next time I get a boo boo? I totally want to cover it with a bacon bandage.
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How hot has it been in Maine?
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Hot enough that even the turkeys are seeking shade.
And speaking of hot….
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Damn.
Now that’s hot.
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I saw this the other day and was sorely tempted.
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I totally need cherry tomato toting ants.
In other local news….
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Such a neighborly thing to do.
And lately a dip in the pool has been sounding wonderful with temps being hot, hot, hot.
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Of course this is Maine, so while it felt like 104 one morning…
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Two days later it felt like 45.
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I replanted my left over garden bed with geraniums after the baby woodchucks ate all the petunias.
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But not before the little bastards darlings chewed all the leaves off my gay feather.
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At least they left the blooms this time.
🥴
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Now I’m wondering what an appropriate beef jerky card message would be.
I wanna hold your ham?
Nice to meat you?
Don’t go bacon my heart.
I have a t-bone to pick with you?
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Do you see him?
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How about now?
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten saw him.
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Though eating him was probably higher on his list than it would be on yours.
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Yes, it was a little chipmunk scampering through the rhododendron in front of my kitchen window.
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The day was hot, the shade the bush provided was cool….
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So the little guy just stretched out… and chilled.
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Danger Will Robinson!
There’s trouble in the man cave.
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I walked into the barn this morning and noticed it was a wee bit nippy.
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We keep the new heat pump ( 3 months old ) set at 68 and with all the sun coming through the windows… it’s always been warm and toasty. But today? The temperature was rapidly dropping.
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Lights were flashing and the unit wasn’t running. After spending an extremely annoying half hour troubleshooting with the owners manual, we broke down and called the guy who installed it… who also happens to be the son of my best friend.
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He had me check the error codes and did some research. Then he called back saying he didn’t have the parts he needed to repair it in stock, and couldn’t get them right away… so he was sending his crew over this afternoon to replace the whole exterior unit.
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Now that’s what I call customer service.
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A path has been shoveled and we currently await the new unit.
While it’s true we like our beer and cocktails cold, we usually prefer to be well above freezing ourselves.
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Since I’m still trying to plow through my massive stack of magazines, I have to share.
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Do we really need shoes that breathe? I don’t… but maybe that’s just me.
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I’m all for alternative leather products… eucalyptus? Cool. But if they come up with kale filled seats? I’m boycotting on sheer principle.
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According to this map temperatures are rising almost everywhere but it looks like me and my hot flashes are in the right place. Hang in there Maine! River melts into a puddle in anything above 75 degrees.
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If you’ve never had canned brown bread you haven’t lived a full life. This is a Maine staple, made in Portland, Maine… so why this article calls it Boston brown is a mystery. Moist and filled with molasses?
Try it. Your mouth will thank me.
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Dexter is coming back!
I don’t have Showtime anymore but might have to resubscribe in order to revisit my favorite serial killer.
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Ghost pepper strawberry frosting?
No.
Just no.
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Ever since we installed the new deck railings we’ve needed to re-stain the deck. And by we, I mean me… because while he’ll constantly remark it needs to be done? The husband never does it. Not once in 18 years.
Problem is, we needed to buy a new pressure washer to clean the siding and I didn’t want to stain until that happened.
So I waited. And waited….. and waited some more.
( Never nagging. No. Not me.)
But after the husband saw the prices of a new Honda pressure washer?
I feel confident saying it’s not happening anytime soon.
So I moved things to the lawn, grabbed my brush and went to work.
Many holy hell why is it surface of the sun hot hours later…
I was done.
And pretty pleased with the results.
Dirty siding aside, it looks nice.
Clean, fresh and ready for the red squirrel family’s onslaught of poo.
Next morning fog shot just because.
(And not to my husband, though I want to. I really want to!)
Planting apple trees in excessive summer heat, during a drought?
Not a good idea.
A week afterwards?
Most of them look like this…. and I simply have to say it before I burst.
I told you so!
It’s been crazy hot and dry. Our lawn is turning brown and crunching underfoot.
Not exactly prime transplanting conditions.
But he wouldn’t listen… so now we have 9 almost dead twigs.
And before you say it, I have watered them.
I purchased three 100′ foot expandable hoses strictly for that purpose.
I added them to my original 100′ foot hose and have repeatedly hauled the four 100′ foot hoses out to the far corners of our property watering the damned things.
One tree.
One in ten is all that looks healthy.
I told him!
But he wouldn’t listen.
Indeed.
Hope springs eternal, at least for my husband when it comes to trees.
The three oaks he transplanted a while ago croaked and had to be dug up.
So when we were in the middle of a drought and a heat wave?
He figured that would be a great time for us to plant 10 apple trees.
Holes were dug in ground that felt like cement.
And I had to run the bucket brigade again.
Because naturally he wanted to plant them at the far ends of our property.
But I did find some wild raspberries.
And blackberries.
It took us all damned day.
But trees were planted.
The heat was intense and I told him this was the wrong time of year to plant.
But you know how that went.
Will he water and fertilize and care for these new transplants in this mid summer heat wave?
Hell no.
Say goodbye trees, you’re doomed.
This week’s harvest from our neighbor’s CSA yielded scallions, cabbage, beets, Swiss chard, basil, parsley, garlic scapes, a tomato, a zucchini and raspberries.
Needless to say the raspberries were demolished with ice cream the first night and since we craved more, we headed across the road to their farm stand.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a tractor trailer box renovated into a turquoise and gold farm stand…
But hey, it works.
Fairy tale eggplant?
There are so many off color jokes I could make right now my brain is threatening to explode.
And in case you’re wondering how the veggies don’t bake in the heat?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Just as we were about to leave, our neighbor’s daughters showed us all of her father’s left over apple trees. He’d planted as many as he could for his new orchard and didn’t want the rest.
You know where this is going…. right?
Free trees?
Yeah.
It’s been 100 degrees in the shade, the ground is solid concrete because we haven’t had any rain for weeks… and my husband wants to plant more trees.
Stay tuned.
But it doesn’t get your deck railing project finished any sooner.
We were back at it and it was still hot.
Unfortunately the heat wave coincided with an extended dry spell and our lawn was starting to crunch.
But old railings were torn down.
And rusty nails exposed.
I stained the new wood we had to waste almost 2 hours going to get that morning because someone… I won’t mention who… cut the other pieces incorrectly.
And then that someone (oops, my bad) discovered a sander in the barn and wanted to play.
He was fine on the flat surfaces, but scared me to death when he started trying to sand in between. That thing would hit a beam, jump out of his hand and spin wildly across the deck. It happened a dozen times but I could never quite catch it on film.
In between his legs.
Close to the power cord.
I knew something was gonna give, and it did.
That thing jumped up and sliced his jeans right open. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, but at that point I said no more sanding!
Which he completely ignored and kept sanding.
After sanding, and almost slicing his leg off?
He hammered nails.
And swept the same portion of deck I had just swept.
Apparently I didn’t do it right.
We did manage to get a few pieces of wood installed before dinner.
With some gentle persuasion.
So this was basically it.
For a whole days work.
Good thing no one is paying us by the hour……
