Tag Archives: weather

Miscellaneous missives.

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Furniture shopping continues and my snarky friends are still being helpful. Their latest suggestion?

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Well, it is green.

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The dark eyed Junco is a small bird of the sparrow family that we never see until the snow flies. They’re always the first to appear after a storm and we’re not the only ones looking….

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten keeps a close eye as well.

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Well, that’s rude.

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Trim work has started on the bedroom windows which means the man cave has once again been taken over….

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And reeks of wood stain and polyurethane.

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It’s odd how sometimes you read a passage in a book and it just gets you. This choked me up the other day. I hope it’s true….

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Sign seen at a local restaurant.

😊

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Pre storm morning beach walk…

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Not wanting to waste any precious time on our week long vacation, day four threw a monkey wrench in my carefully planned trip.

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We woke to overcast skies, an egret in the pond and a forecast of what turned out to be a mini hurricane. Heavy rain, high winds and dangerous surf are not prime beach resort conditions.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I burned breakfast. Again…. due to the stupid flat surface stove that had two burners in one.

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High level heat if you turned right, high level heat if you turned left. This proved too much for my under caffeinated morning brain to handle and henceforth, the husband was on his own when it came to eggs.

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But at least the dish sponge was happy.

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Not having walked the beach since we got there, I forced my spouse onto the sand before the storm arrived. That’s his arm to the right of the photo, pointing out which unit was ours. I’m not sure why as we had just exited it and I was unlikely to forget that quickly.

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My husband is not a beach guy, not an idle walker. He needs a destination and purpose…

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I told him pleasing his wife of 40 years should be motivation enough.

😉

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We had the beach to ourselves, but it was cool, dark, damp and hellaciously windy.

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As proved by my epic hairspray fail.

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On the far right side…

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The marina.

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In between?

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Lots of marvelous shore birds.

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Even my husband likes to watch those.

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It’s hard not to smile.

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And then there was snow.

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We haven’t had a lot of snow this year.

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Or last year or the year before that unfortunately … so when the pretty white fluffy stuff does fall and stick?

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I wake up early to photograph it in that lovely pinkish blue morning light.

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And while I do enjoy it…

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Our contractor who still has to replace the siding from the bedroom window replacement does not.

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Can’t say I blame him.

🥴

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Windy beaches, selfies and fake stars.

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After discovering the lighthouse we’d come to see was closed, we decided to walk the Hunting Island beach instead.

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Following the rubber highway across the dunes we hit the sand and were just about blown away.

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I packed for the south, where it’s supposed to be warm…. and I swear the week we spent in South Carolina was colder than Maine.

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The beach was lovely.

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But to be honest it was too cold and windy to enjoy.

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The husband was less than thrilled to be walking in arctic wind, but I persevered.

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For a little while anyway.

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You know it’s windy when the sea foam is bouncing down the sand.

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We left before frostbite set in and continued on.

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Past a shrimping fleet and towards Fripp Island which we were told was lovely.

It might have been, but we’ll never know because it’s a gated private island where we were told to turn around and leave in no uncertain terms.

Didn’t they realize the rental vehicle we were driving cost $100k? That should have counted for something.

I mean really… it had a dashboard star display.

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What more could they want?

🥴

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In with the new… and a disturbing foamy bonus.

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When last I left the bedroom picture window saga, the old had been removed and the new was on its way.

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Carefully, across the ice covered snow.

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This baby was heavy, and awkward to lift as there’s really no place to grab.

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You knew it wouldn’t be easy, right?

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Did I mention it was about 12 degrees that day?

Good times.

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Hallelujah, it was in.

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Secured, insulated and awaiting new trim and sills.

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And speaking of insulation..

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Sometimes the spray foam has a mind of its own.

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A rather disturbing mind as it turns out.

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Or maybe that’s just me.

😉

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The furry, four legged escape artist.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten likes to look out the back door and that hasn’t been possible with the plastic barrier in place.

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His Lordship was not pleased.

Just after it was erected, the old door was removed…

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So of course, it snowed.

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We haven’t had snow all winter… but let our contractor start working and bam. White stuff.

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The rotted sub floor and framing was replaced and as work continued with a giant hole in the living room …

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Lord Dudley plotted.

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I guarded against it and tried to keep a close eye on him, but naturally the little devil found a weak spot and made a run for it.

Thankfully His Lordship is not a fan of snow and after a few cursory steps that resulted in wet feet… he just sat on the doorstep and watched birds.

After hustling him back inside?

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He decided a warm sunny spot was more to his liking.

And at least someone was using the treadmill.

😉

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Well that was (not) fun.

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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.

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First snow.

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Now it feels like winter!

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We had our first snow recently and it was the heavy wet variety that instantly turns your world into an ice cream wonderland.

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Yes, it’s hard to shovel… but with the smooth new driveway under me it was much less painful.

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We only got a few inches and it will probably melt before long because winters aren’t as cold as they used to be in Maine…

Look at the green grass underneath.

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But for now, I’m enjoying the storybook scenes.

❄️

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Miscellaneous missives.

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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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