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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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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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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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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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As you know we have a beautifully smooth new driveway. It’s dark black and lovely… as it should be for $20,000… but I think we were making the road in front of our house look bad.
That’s the only explanation I can come up with for this..
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A paving crew….
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Redoing a ten mile stretch of road to match our driveway.
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This pleases the color coordinator in me greatly.
Our vehicles suspensions are saying thank you as well since Maine pot holes are epic and can swallow you whole.
As can our hideous new ditch shown here with uncoordinated grass.
🥴
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten has been spending a lot of time in our bedroom since our contractor has been working in the living room. And if he’s in there?
So is his favorite mouse.
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How much does he love this particular rodent?
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Enough to pick it up and carry it to bed with him.
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And don’t even think about removing said mouse.
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Unless you want to lose a finger.
😉
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Though my husband isn’t crazy about their food, I finally wore him down enough for another evening at one of my favorite cocktail bars, The Blind Pig.
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Located in downtown Gardiner…
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In a lovely old brick building…
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With a terraced outdoor seating section…
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We made straight for the bar… because that’s where the magic happens. The Pig’s cocktail list is epic and changes with the seasons. I started with a pear mojito because it’s my go to there and never disappoints.
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Luckily the salmon baked in parchment paper with roasted fingerlings and asparagus tickled my spouse’s tastebuds so much he agreed to rethink his previous Blind Pig ban.
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I had a yummy lamb bolognese, and because we were sitting under a pig wearing a pink cowboy hat…
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A blackberry lavender margarita as well.
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Dessert was homemade lemon blueberry cake…
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Which the husband didn’t like and I was forced to finish by myself.
Oh. The hardships I endure for love…
😉
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You tend to attract more than sparrows.
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And while I think this is a Coopers Hawk…
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I know he’s looking for a nice fat juicy dove for breakfast.
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It’s never easy to watch, but he has to eat too.
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And birds of prey are such glorious graceful creatures…
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❤️
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As I sit here typing this post, a hurricane is blowing its way past us outside. Thankfully the worst of it will be felt to our north… and though we already have tree branches down and will probably lose power later this afternoon, I’m not too worried. Maine rarely sees hurricanes so people were panicking and buying every battery and bottle of water they could find, but we lived in coastal North Carolina for 17 years. That was the time to worry.
Last evening after putting away the porch and deck furniture, bringing bird feeders and hanging flower baskets inside and tying down the grill cover … we did what one does on the eve of a hurricane.
We went for ice cream.
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Cones in hand, we enjoyed the glorious show Mother Nature was putting on in the sky.
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These are untouched photos from my phone. It really was that fabulous.
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It was one of those sunsets you hate to see end.
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River's world..... 