We had a really warm week in Maine with temps hitting the lower 80’s. Not my idea of fall, but lots of people were thrilled summer is still hanging on.
With cool nights and warm days comes fog.
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So much fog the deer who usually only show up at dusk are here at dawn.
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This next picture is of a poor starling who smashed into our living room picture window.
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He was okay and eventually flew away after recovering from the shock. But he sure drove our cat crazy.
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Yes, people here still believe caterpillars can predict the weather.
Here’s a drone shot of a section of our farming neighbor’s property. It was so pretty I thought I’d share.
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I’m in awe of all those perfectly aligned weeded garden beds.
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In case you ever wondered what type of finish you should be using.
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A local Maine man who did well for himself and ended up owning half his town’s businesses just implemented this program. Free food for school age children. Proof positive there are still good people in this world.
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As you know, once we install new living room floors I’ll be shopping for new furniture. And while the husband is fine with replacing the couches, armchairs and coffee tables he started mumbling that we really didn’t need to update the dining room table and chairs we’ve had for almost 40 years.
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I beg to differ.
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A new medical study has revealed women who have frequent and long lasting hot flashes… read, me… are at a greater risk for heart disease and stroke. Women who have frequent night sweats… read, me… are at a greater risk for dementia.
On a walk with Lord Dudley Mountcatten the other day I noticed he found something in front of the garage.
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Batting it this way and that, I stepped in to rescue the poor praying mantis he was harassing and carried it to my flower garden.
Our yard used to be full of these delightful insects (Females bite the males heads off after mating. What’s not to love?) but in the past few years we’ve seen their number drastically decline.
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And while I’m used to the green version, this mantis was completely brown.
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So I’m not sure if it was a different species…
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Or just going through some sort of molt.
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Either way, I was pleased with the rescue.
His Lordship on the other hand, was not.
P.S…. did a little research on the mating ritual of the mantis and have to share.
Males of some mantid species mate more effectively when decapitated. Why? A nerve center in the male’s head inhibits mating until a female is clasped. If this nerve is removed, such as when the female bites off the male’s head, all control is lost and the result is repeated copulation.
Our farming neighbors went away for a few nights recently and asked us to watch their wonderful dog Peaches.
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She’s the quintessential lovable mixed breed and we’ve loved her since she was a hurricane rescue 13 years ago.
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Unfortunately, Lord Dudley Mountcatten did not share our enthusiasm for a house guest.
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Peaches is extremely mellow and very used to cats. She doesn’t chase or pay the least bit of attention to them.. but His Lordship still couldn’t figure out why this creature was in his house.
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Bad timing there. Lord Dudley was so close… and then someone knocked on the door.
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It’s a credit to Peaches temperament that our cat would even be in the same room.
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Of course the fact that she spent a good deal of her time with us sleeping might have had something to do with that.
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But I still think I’m going to pay a price for disturbing His Royal Highness’s routine.
After our visit to the fair, we tried a place I’d been hearing good things about for dinner….the Old Mill Pub in Skowhegan.
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It didn’t look like much and since the inside dining room was packed, we headed outside.
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Where the view from our table wasn’t half bad.
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Things started well with a fabulous blueberry mule.
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And an amazing French Onion soup for the husband.
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This is his go to appetizer so when you’ve tried hundreds, you always appreciate when it’s done right.
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Dinner for me was yummy maple bourbon glazed steak tips with garlic mashed red potatoes and sautéed broccoli (not pictured) …. and a light and lovely lemon butter haddock and mashed for the spouse.
We’re not often in this part of Maine, but I’m putting the Old Mill Pub on my list of places to revisit if we are.
Because it wouldn’t be a fair without some chickens.
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There were quite a few prize winning divas strutting their stuff.
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But this all black rooster took the prize for bizarre.
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The next blue ribbon winner?
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Must have won for bad hair day.
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How do these Polish even see?
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There were fancy pigeons, but to be honest these made me sad.
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They’ve clearly been bred for over exaggerated foot feathers and the poor things could hardly walk.
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But the peacocks were lovely.
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And this duck who decided no one could drink because he wanted a bath was funny.
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We ended with a very curious goose who followed me all around the enclosure. I believe he was for sale and wanted to come home with us… but alas, my husband refused.
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.
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?
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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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 