The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay puts on a fantastic Christmas light show every year. We went years ago when they first started and having heard they’d grown bigger and better I decided we needed a return trip.
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Bigger and better? Yes.
More crowded? Hell yeah. Judging from the steady flow of traffic, I think the entire state’s population was there.
The tiny parking lot had multiplied into lettered tiers and the small entry building had morphed into a massive welcome center.
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It was well organized, fully staffed and with advanced ticketing required, had no lines or long waits to enter.
How much bigger was it than our previous visit?
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Enough to require a map bigger.
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In a word?
It was magical…
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I’m not going to write a lot of commentary as it pretty much speaks for itself.
Just walk along with us and enjoy…
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Did I mention there were giant wooden trolls?
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The show only runs Thursday thru Sunday nights in December and has segmented entry hours. You have to reserve your spot weeks in advance as they sell out quickly. This means the weather is a crap shoot. Since it’s been unseasonably warm we weren’t worried…. until we woke up that day to 14 degrees and 35 mph winds.
Yeah, it was frickin’ freezing and we were bundled up like Nanook of the North and walking around with cups of hot chocolate to withstand the cold.
In case you hadn’t heard, we had a bit of weather up here in Maine.
Turn up your volume for full effect because it was crazy loud in person.
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At the time of year when we should be covered in fluffy white stuff, Mother Nature and climate change decided to throw us what amounted to a mini hurricane instead.
70mph wind gusts and rain that came in sideways.
Naturally it ripped shingles off our roof which my husband had to try and cover and weigh down during the storm.
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It was a crazy day of howling winds, torrential rain and of course no electricity.
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After dark, we turned on the battery operated camp lights and had a marathon 6 hour gin rummy game.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten supervised.
I won.
Around midnight we heard a big crash and called our neighbor to check that she was alright. A tree had fallen across her driveway and she asked if my husband could bring his chainsaw and help her move/cut it the next morning. My husband… being my husband… went down there right then, in the pitch black dark, with gale force winds practically blowing him down the hill.
The man is nuts, I swear.
On his return?
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He cut up the branch of my choke cherry tree that had fallen. Never a dull moment around here.
The next day was calm…. and people in our town still had their sense of humor.
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Thankfully the temperature was above 40 degrees since we still had no power…. and my poor guy spent 5 hours on the roof replacing shingles.
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It was a doozy of a storm and did a lot of damage across our state, mostly due to flooding.
Here are a few pictures from our area…
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Terrible timing so close to Christmas.
Though there really is no good time for storms like these.
Have you ever seen something that was simply too perfect?
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Okay, so it’s not a pear tree. But a partridge on your Christmas wreath is pretty damn close.
We had one of those beauties on our front lawn a few years ago.
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I had no idea what it was and had to look him up in my bird watchers bible.
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Native to the Middle East and southern Asia, the Chukar was brought as a game bird to North America, where it has thrived in some arid regions of the west. From late summer to early spring, Chukars travel in coveys, but they may be hard to see as they range through the brush of steep desert canyons. They become more conspicuous in spring, when the harsh cackling chuk chuk chukar of the territorial males echoes from the rocky cliffs.
They’re noisy little devils and if you’ve ever heard one… you’re not apt to forget it.
I drove home under some ominous skies the other afternoon.
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And woke up to our first dusting of snow.
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It was gone by mid day just in time for our contractor to drop by between jobs and seal up the new windows with some not so attractive foam.
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He’s finishing off a barn next door that’s taking longer than planned but as soon as he’s done he’ll be back over here to finish our nightmare project.
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As usual, Lord Dudley Mountcatten couldn’t care less.
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💕
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 