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!
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.
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.
🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌
Never let it be said I don’t help my friends.
Do you have one of those hard to buy for people on your shopping list?
You know…. that one person you struggle with every year because they already have everything?
Well, I can almost guarantee you they don’t have any of these.
Yes.
Those are gifts made with moose poo.
Well, Mainers love to recycle.
As well as sell tourists lots of useless crap they don’t need.
I can’t really answer that.
But if you need a floating moose turd key chain, I can probably hook you up.
You’re welcome.
😎
Not much makes me do a double take these days. In case you haven’t noticed?
People be crazy.
But this local story was worth a second look.
Giving new meaning to the term baked lobster.
Yes, there is a woman in Maine who owns a restaurant.
Yes, she serves lobster.
And yes, she has decided to get them high before cooking them to alleviate their pain.
Indeed.
You can now request your lobster to be sedated with pot before he goes in the…. well,
Pot.
I’m told the cooked lobster tastes better after the smoking, but then again…. doesn’t everything?
So in closing, may I just say….
#1. It’s official, I’ve now seen everything.
And #2. Speaking from the vast experience of an extremely misspent youth, there is no amount of weed, no matter how potent… that will lessen the effect of being thrown into a vat of boiling water.
(And if you can prove me wrong on that one, please PM me immediately.)
It’s that time again.
This week’s class:
Ukulele Extravaganza, Beginner
For many years the happy instrument so closely associated with Hawaii has been experiencing a huge revival around the world. Here is your chance to take part in the ukulele revolution. Folks of all adult ages will enjoy playing this very cool but accessible instrument. In this class students will learn to read music and play songs by picking and strumming. No prior musical experience is necessary. The instructor taught instrumental music at the Middle School from 1986-2017 and after taking a leave of absence to study music therapy at Arizona State University in 2008, she fell in love with playing the ukulele! She studies ukulele with master luthier/performer/teacher, Joel Eckhaus in South Portland, the Hawaiian masters at the Aloha Music Camp in Hawaii, and at the Ukulele Summit in Bethesda, Maryland.
Again… this is a real part of the curriculum.
And yes, you too can learn to play the Ukulele and be the envy of all your friends.
So let’s break this down:
How have I missed the huge Ukulele revival?
What have I been doing….
Okay, sure.
But the Ukulele revolution?
I wasn’t that busy…
Well, maybe.
Although calling the Ukulele a cool instrument may be stretching the truth a bit.
But if you want to drive your immediate social circle to drink and get yourself crossed off every guest list from now on be a hit at parties, give Maine continuing education a try.
Classes start Mon, Sept 17, 6-7 PM, for 9 weeks
$59 non refundable.
In my continuing effort to enlighten…
Let’s dive a little deeper into continuing education.
Last week’s spoon bending was a hit, You’re never too old to learn…. Spoons.
And while this week’s class may be a little Maine-centric…. isn’t that half the fun?
So grab your taters and let’s go to school.
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Spud Night – I’ve Got My Eyes on You!
If you are a Mainer (or from away) who is stuck in a potato rut, you will want to join us! We will learn how to choose the correct potato variety for use, see and taste many grown varieties and taste Roasted Fingerling potatoes. The class will make Swiss Rosti Potatoes, warm German Potato salad and Sweet Potato Puree with Smoked Paprika. The evening will be both demonstration and hands on. Bring a peeler and sealed tubs to take home leftovers (if there are any!)
$10 material fee included. No discounts
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Again, yes. This is real.
There is actually a course on potatoes.
And admit it, you’re stuck in a potato rut.
We all are.
Hell, even Mr. Potato Head needs an update now and then.
Look how downright creepy he started out.
Would you let your child on the playground with that moustache twirling tater?
Of course not, so grab your peeler and get to class.
Thurs, Oct 25, 6-9 PM
1 Session
They’re going to need a bigger pot.
And a lot more butter.
Our second brewery of the day was a place that came highly recommended. It got great reviews, and was said to be a “must visit”…so we did.
Oxbow is a larger organization with multiple locations and wider distribution, so I was expecting it to outshine Odd Alewives.
It didn’t.
Tucked away in the woods of Newcastle, it was rustic and a little bit rednecky.
Well, I didn’t hear banjo music…
But the place was a bit of a mess.
And the rest rooms?
Not what a girl wants to see when she’s been drinking beer and riding a motorcycle all day.
But, we were there.
And there was beer, so we didn’t have to but I made them had to try it all.
Eight 4 ounce samplers of dishwater later… I still hadn’t found one I would order full sized. How was that possible?
The one on the end was called Magenta and was made with… are you ready?… grape juice.
It smelled like sweet grape candy and tasted like fermented pigs feet, sour piss, rotted muskrat carcass I don’t know what.
But trust me, it was bad.
I ended up finishing everyone’s samplers, because bad or not… beer is a terrible thing to waste…. but I was thinking of alternate uses as I drank.
And then, since our friends had a long ride home, we saddled up and headed out.
And bad beer aside…
It really was a lovely day.
River's world..... 