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It shouldn’t come as any surprise that my favorite parts of the fair are the animals.
Have you kissed a cow today?
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I did.
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Cow!
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My husband grew up on a dairy farm.
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He gives good cow scratches.
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Moo!
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While I love cows, my husband is always impressed with the draft horses.
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I can’t even imagine what it must cost to feed these big boys.
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That’s a whole lotta horseflesh.
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And here are a few porkers.
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Just because.
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Because if we didn’t have bad timing we wouldn’t have any at all , the last day our contractor was working on the ceiling project found us out of town… which meant we didn’t see the finished product until the next day. And while I’m pleased to have our living room back to normal without a plastic room in the middle of it…
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I’m not entirely pleased with the end result.
Yes, the section of ceiling that used to look like this….
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Certainly looks much better like this.
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And the beam that used to look like this..
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Is much smoother now.
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And while it’s wonderful not to see the sag in the middle of the room and worry that the roof could fall on our heads at any moment…
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There are two issues I’m not willing to accept.
While it’s true I knew the replacement popcorn wouldn’t exactly match the existing, I wasn’t expecting such a glaring line of demarcation.
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It’s very noticeable in spots and that just won’t do.
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The other issue is stain resolution. Years of slow roof leaks left us with random brown spots on one end and though our guy hit them with some sort of Kilz product and turned them white again…
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It’s a noticeably different white and drives me crazy every time I look up.
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Since our contractor is due to return in two weeks to install new windows and a door in our bedroom, a plan will be hatched to deal with the problems. He knew I wasn’t happy and because he’s probably going to be the one to lay our new flooring in the living room he suggested we wait until then and repaint the whole ceiling. That’s probably what should have been done in the first place but we both thought we could get away with not doing it. Which is what you get for thinking. Trying to save time and money with home repairs is fruitless and rarely works.
Is the beam solid and more structurally secure? Yes.
Does it look better than it did? Absolutely.
Does it still need some tweaking? I’m afraid so.
Sigh…
🥴
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Or maybe you can. What do I know?
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I’ve driven up there many times but never hiked it. Thanks for making me look like a slacker dog.
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In a word, yes.
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I have no words for that one.
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I’d love to buy this for a Game of Thrones addict friend of mine. Too funny.
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Nothing is ever really lost. It’s just always hiding in the last place you look. Check someone else’s bladder and get back to me.
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As promised, I tried the magic batter recipe.
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And because I’m a weirdo, filmed myself trying to mix it with one hand while holding my phone with the other.
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Not sure I’d call it magic, but the batter was certainly… frothy.
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And it was definitely the easiest thing I’ve ever made.
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Pineapple angel food cake.
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Not overly magical.
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But tasty all the same.
Thus was sweet enough for me without frosting, but you do you.
😊
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When we visit a fair, my husband is always drawn to the museums of old tools. Partly because they’re interesting, but mostly because he’s old enough to remember using some of them.
He loves checking out the antique tractors but this particular brand was new even to him.
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Cockshutt?
A more colorful name than John Deere that’s for sure.
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No matter how many times I tell him or how many warning signs he reads… he’s always touching things when he’s not supposed to. If he did this with women instead of old farm implements.. we’d have a problem.
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I always wonder where they find these fabulous wagons and carriages. Some of them are in amazingly good shape.
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Ouch!
😫
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Clearly this museum has a sense of humor.
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A library and one room schoolhouse from the early 1800’s.
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The rig in the front of this picture is an early snow press. There were no plows to clear the roads back in the day, they just tried to flatten it as best they could.
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My husband’s father used one of these on their farm. Any guesses what it is?
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I’m constantly getting suggestions on my FB feed to buy things from Etsy. And while I’ve purchased a few odds and ends there in the past… these new items didn’t make me want to break out my credit card anytime soon.
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Unless it’s Halloween and I’m dressing to attract a male polar bear? I see absolutely no need for these boots.
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Good grief. I don’t want fully operational and functioning gnomes, why would I ever want defective ones?
Along with Etsy, Amazon is flooding my feed with crazy cat items it thinks I need to purchase for His Lordship.
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Yeah. That’s not happening.
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And look at the face on that cat. I don’t think fur is the only thing that’s going to be terminated.
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Okay, they’ve got me here. Lord Dudley Mountcatten might actually like a pool table of his very own.
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Maine has a lot of agricultural fairs every autumn and over the years we’ve visited quite a few. Farmington was one we’d never hit so last week we drove west.
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This county’s fair is relatively small and focuses heavily on community involvement. Prize winning pumpkins and homemade jams were in the forefront.
As were school children’s projects.
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You have to admit this one made a valid point.
There was an entire upper floor devoted to quilt, knitting, photography and art contests. There was also a large sign stating fair volunteers did not judge or pick the winners. I though that was odd until I saw some of the winners…
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I wouldn’t want to be blamed for that either.
As we stepped out of the expo building, food.
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I was disappointed not to order a fresh lemonade from the giant lemon concession stand, but alas it was closed.
I did score my favorite go to the fair treat though.
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Fried dough with cinnamon and powdered sugar. You only eat these things at the fair and you really can’t explain why… but damn. It was good.
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Inexplicably there were multiple fried pickle stands, all boasting to be the biggest and most famous. Bypassing those we wandered around until we found something that wasn’t battered and deep fried and settled on a picnic table with our wraps to enjoy the show.
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Not being twang loving blue grass fans, we ate our lunch and left our seats to those more in tune with the genre.
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😉
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We headed west the other day to visit a couple of breweries I’d been wanting to try. On the road, we saw this…
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Crowd sourcing your honeymoon. That’s a new one.
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Western Maine can be lovely.
Mountains, rolling hills and valleys with lots of family farms. And now, numerous solar panels.
Unfortunately the brewery I really wanted to visit was closed due to the unexpected death of their owner… so we headed for my second choice.
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Tumbledown Brewing,… small batch and named for a mountain.
Unfortunately their tasting room was small as well and housed at the end of a strip mall. Not what I was expecting.
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Eight beers were on tap and we tried 4.
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Sitting at one of the two tables which was an upended barrel.
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No.
We did not wear goggles.
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As luck would have it the guy behind the counter was military so you know we (and by we I mean the husband) had to stay and talk.
One flight and a four pack to go lightened our wallet by almost $40 which proves small batch does not equal small pricing.
Review – Beer wasn’t bad. Tasting room was. Not in a hurry to return.
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We’ve turned a corner here at Casa River.
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A bright clean white corner.
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The beam has been painted and the ceiling primed for popcorn. Things are looking up.
And by that, I mean I try not to look down because even though a plastic barrier wall was erected… everything is covered in drywall dust.
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Every single nook and cranny.
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Sigh…
🥴
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Has anyone tried this recipe?
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I just bought the two ingredients and will report back if it’s truly magical.
Have you ever laughed at your spouse/significant other for being horticulturally challenged? I did the other day when we visited a friend and my husband asked if I had any of these bushy plants in our garden.
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Uh, no… but it is legal here now.
🤣
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Remember the photos I posted of that fantastic sunset we had before the recent hurricane? Take note of the giant ice cream cone trash can on the left and read the town’s FB page the day after the storm
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We take our ice cream seriously up here.
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A support pickle?
I just can’t…
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River's world..... 