Tag Archives: photos

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Hummingbird wars.

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We have two hummingbird nectar feeders on our back deck. (Sugar and water only please. Don’t buy that packet with the awful red dye. Use red glass feeders instead.)

2023 has been a banner year for hummers and I don’t think we’ve ever seen this many at one time. But with high numbers come battles, because while they’re beautiful … they’re also quite territorial.

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The minute one sits down to feed, another arrives to chase it off.

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Please appreciate the fact I had to take 20 photos to get these two of the little jewels in flight. Those little suckers are quick.

Here’s a short video of a male and a female. They drank together for a short while.

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And if that wasn’t amazing enough?

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Three hummers. Happily feeding together…

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That’s never happened before.

❤️

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Good morning!

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Mother Nature is a beautiful thing and sometimes she rewards my insomnia with an early morning show.

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When the dawn sky looks like this in our backyard, I don’t mind being awake at 4:30am.

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Well, actually I do…. and curse that demonic body altering thing called menopause on a regular basis.

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But at least there’s an occasional benefit.

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Not that it makes up for weight gain, fatigue and hot flashes…

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But it sure is pretty.

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A man and his ditch.

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My husband is not happy.

Not in any way, shape, or form.

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Every time he goes outside he gravitates to the hideous Grand Canyon we now have at the edge of our property.

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Talk about an eyesore. People are literally walking by with their mouths open. A few have even stopped in to ask… why?

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What a mess. And aside from the fact they took a good two feet of our lawn? They couldn’t even be bothered to do it uniformly, and that rankles.

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Let’s forget that it looks like a giant gaping maw…the whole purpose of the project was to stop the caving in and erosion.

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See the stripes? That’s what happened after the first rain. All the seed and hay flowed to the bottom…

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And we had intermittent washouts. Which is exactly what we had before.

It’s maddening.

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In case you’re wondering, it’s three feet in that spot. In some places it’s three and a half. Won’t that be fun to mow…

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Assuming we can ever get grass to grow there again.

Sigh…

😫

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The one where His Lordship investigates the deck project…

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Work has been progressing on the deck and the other day it was finally time for Lord Dudley Mountcatten to check things out.

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He approached warily, and then took a detour.

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To the stack of unused boards

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And then to the stack of extra wood, which he promptly climbed on and knocked over scaring himself to death.

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I laughed, so he jumped back on the deck boards and gave me the evil eye.

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When he finally ascended to the half finished deck, he explored a bit…

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And plopped.

We tend to do more sitting than walking on our outdoor excursions. His Lordship does not like to waste energy unnecessarily.

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But when he’d had enough fresh air?

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He paced back and forth in front of the door….

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Not understanding why I wouldn’t jump across the divide to open it.

So instead…

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He plopped, and seemed to approve of the new decking materials.

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Life’s a ditch… the nightmare result.

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After arguing with state officials for a month and pleading with them to let us fill in our collapsing ditch, this was their answer.

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A veritable Marianas trench at the end of our front lawn.

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It’s huge.

More than twice as wide than it was.

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It’s ugly.

A massive scar on the landscape.

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See the gravel? They were supposed to replace that with dirt and seed it.

They didn’t.

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See the sloping sides on which the temporary mailbox they refused to move sits? They were supposed to build those up so they wouldn’t collapse.

They didn’t.

This is worse than it was before.

A total nightmare.

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Deck replacement day 5… it looks like a deck!

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It’s been a long time coming, but things are finally starting to coalesce.

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I peeked out back at noon and saw almost half the deck boards had been laid.

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When the husband got home at 5:00pm, two thirds were done.

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Apparently with the help of a wooden mallet.

But because nothing ever goes smoothly here, it was then we learned the contractor had misjudged the width of the boards and would be two short at the end of the project. And since this is a special color no one keeps in stock, we’ll have to live with an unfinished deck for at least two weeks while we wait for the order to come in.

Sigh…

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But if I take a photo from this angle, I can pretend all is well.

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Life’s a ditch… part 3.

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The final part of this nightmare project was a total waste of time.

Remember the dry grass seed the crew spread, and then dispersed with a leaf blower?

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Up next was the hay tube.

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I knew it would be bad, and it didn’t disappoint.

Or rather it did. It was all disappointing….

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Dry hay particles , on a windy day.

What could go wrong?

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The air was choked with the stuff.

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Sigh….

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Life’s a ditch.

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As you know, the state of Maine decided to dig out the ditch in front of our house… even though we wanted to fill it in.

The head mucky muck said they would call my husband and give him fair warning when the crew would arrive so he could plan to be here during the process.

You know where I’m going with this right?

On the very day my husband ended his (unhappy) retirement and went back to work at the office?

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Yeah.

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Bright and early at 6:45am, with no warning whatsoever.

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I scrambled to get dressed and went out to talk to the crew, trying to explain the problems we’d been having. No one cared. Their instructions were to dig out a ditch and that’s what they were going to do.

I told them about the temporary mailbox situation and said it was too heavy for me to move, but could they please drag it out of the way when they shored up the sides of the ditch.

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As you can see…

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That did not happen.

They went right around it.

WTF?

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It was a noisy, dirty day at Casa River and I knew all they were doing was making the ditch worse. The carefully tended grass on top?

Gone.

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But look, they spread some dry seed.

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Which they then dislodged with a leaf blower.

Again… WTF?

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In the bottom of the ditch, they spread a rolled line of hay like fiber.

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What that’s supposed to do I have no clue.

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They dug and they swept, but if you look closely they did nothing to build up the sides of the ditch or the top which is what caused the caving in problem in the first place.

😡

To be continued…

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Darby’s Tavern

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A trip up the coast to Belfast brought us to Darby’s Tavern.

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It was built in 1865 and still has its original tin ceiling.

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The bar screams prohibition era retro.

And speaking of the bar…

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A ruby red grapefruit martini hit the spot.

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I think the Babe approved.

Darby’s is famous for it’s “from scratch” kitchen, and lunch did not disappoint.

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I started with homemade cornbread with blueberry maple butter. Ooh la la! So good I didn’t want to share.

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But the husband started with a sinfully rich cream of broccoli soup and kept reaching for my bread.

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Above the bar? The antique Budweiser lamp my husband has been trying to cajole off his brother who owns the same one . When you switch it on, the lamp lights and the Clydesdales start walking. Real man cave material, but Darbys wouldn’t sell theirs either.

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I ordered off the specials menu, though I had no idea what made a crab’s toe peek.

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Didn’t matter, it was delicious. Toes et al.

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Husband chose a broiled haddock in scampi sauce with a fresh green salad and maple Dijon vinaigrette.

Good drinks, good food, good place!

👍

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