Tag Archives: wind

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Newport – Day 2 … too early for Fort Adams, a brisk walk and yes, more geese.

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Next up on the list was Fort Adams, a coastal fortification built in 1824 at the mouth of Newport Harbor. On the way there we passed a memorial to Portuguese sailors, which of course….

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Was surrounded by geese.

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We live in Maine.

Canada is our neighbor.

We have a lot of Canada geese, but I swear Rhode Island has more.

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Fort Adams State Park is a lovely area.

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But unfortunately you can’t tour the fort by yourself and the ticket office didn’t open until 10:00am.

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Since we had half an hour to kill, we explored.

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And took what turned out to be one very cold walk.

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This is Narragansett Bay…

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This is the fort.

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And this is the husband ducking against the gale force wind.

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There was no escaping it, and had I taken a video you wouldn’t have been able to hear me speak.

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My jacket is zipped up to my neck and my nose is red. I have half a smile, but inwardly I was cursing the nonstop buffeting.

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The husband might have been thinking about jumping and ending it all right here, it was that bad.

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Did I mention Fort Adams is the site of the famed Newport Folk Festival? Where Dylan notoriously plugged in and went electric? After experiencing the strength of the wind, I no longer think he was making a statement. He was simply anchoring himself.

At 10:00 we happily stepped inside the small museum.

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It was previously used as the fort’s jail.

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And the cells were pretty grim.

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Not to mention small.

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Really, really small.

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The first tour was at 11:00am so I’ll give you one guess how my husband passed the time.

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In deep conversation with the tour guide.

It started with my spouse comparing those cells with the cells he patrolled as a brig guard when he was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire many moons ago. That was at the tail end of the Vietnam era, which led to stories about my guy’s time in the war.

In his element, the stories continued for the full hour. When it was time to start the tour, the guide was so impressed with my husband’s gift of gab… he offered him a job.

It’s a shame we live too far away because talking all day would be right in my husband’s wheelhouse.

🤣

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Bedroom renovation project part 8…. Getting cold feet.

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I live in Maine.

Today is November 1rst.

We’re still waiting for the oh so special Marvin window reps to grace us with their presence and friends, let me tell you… things are starting to get real up in here.

Last night the temps dropped into the 30’s and the wind blew for hours. And when I say it blew… I mean right into the bedroom through the gaps in the faulty windows that are on either side of our bed.

Cold drafts on my neck? Yes.

High pitched whistling that woke me up at 2:09am? You betcha.

Now I don’t know about you, but I am not my best self at 2:09am. Being a lifelong insomniac means the hours between 1 and 3 are pretty much the only ones I can guarantee to be deeply asleep. So when I have to get up and scramble around the bedroom in the dark looking for something to plug the leaks?

It’s not going to be pretty.

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If you notice anything odd about the picture I took this morning it will be on the right hand side.

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Because at 2:09am in the bedroom in the dark?

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Socks is what I found to plug the drafty whistling windows.

Jesus wept.

This is my life now.

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At daybreak I did manage to rustle up some foam weatherstripping from the utility closet.

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But like every other piece of bad luck I’ve been having, there wasn’t quite enough.

🥴

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The one where His Lordship battles the wind….

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten is a delicate flower. He doesn’t do rain, snow. loud noises, dogs or strange people entering his house. He’s scared of the UPS driver, the vacuum and the ironing board. Drop a book on the floor and you won’t see him for hours.

Wind? Yeah, he doesn’t like that either.

Which is why I had to share this clip of him exiting the house for his walk in 40 mph gusts.

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Where did he run?

Up on the deck where he cried to be let in the back door.

A very delicate flower indeed.

🌸

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Precariously perched.

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We all know squirrels are dedicated acrobats, pilfering seed from feeders upside down and while hanging from one foot. But the other day I found myself being impressed with their balance.

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This little guy was sitting straight up… on a bent branch of our crabapple tree… in high wind.

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It was cold, and his little front feet were tucked in.

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But his back trotters were gripping for all they were worth.

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Bravo little guy.

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Things be flyin’ in my town.

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I have to laugh at the plethora of things that are flying around my town lately.

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CMP, Central Maine Power… otherwise known as the company everyone loves to hate. They rarely get anything right, and freeing a kite from a power line to get it stuck in a tree sounds like something they would do.

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Another lost kite. This one is pretty fierce, I might have been tempted to keep it.

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We’ve had some odd things blow onto our lawn, but never a tent.

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Storage sheds are also flying.

I really need to pay more attention to the skies around here…

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I love my town.

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This week’s headlines from my little corner of the world.

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It’s duck season in Maine, so you can’t blame the poor bird for trying to find safe water.

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Not being a fan of eggs, I refuse to give this pie the recognition they believe it deserves.

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There you have it. A one of a kind chicken conveyance.

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Keep grandma off the streets!

Buy jam.

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We have chicken neighbors, but the rude things never drop by.

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It got interesting alright.

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Remember last week when I posted about the giant tarp and a high wind storm coming our way?

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Well, it came.

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And the tarp went.

Sailing off the roof, across the lawn and down into the woods where it rolled into a large ball and sailed right back up to the house.

How well did those grommets hold?

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Not very well as it turns out.

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Sadly along with the wind came rain. And with the tarp protecting nothing but snow covered ground, our ceiling leaked again.

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And the water broke through my previous patch job on the beam.

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So today I’ve been spackling and sanding trying to fill the hole.

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And bleaching the numerous stains on the ceiling…. which is getting quite ridiculous. Every storm brings a new stain in a slightly different spot.

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I’m seriously thinking of painting the damn thing in polka dots until spring.

And if you’re wondering what Lord Mountcatten was doing through all the excitement?

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Trying to ignore it of course.

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Well that was (not) fun.

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When your roof is leaking in the middle of a Maine winter and you have no idea why…. there’s really only one solution.

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You chip the ice and snow from around the door, set up a ladder….

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Climb up on the roof where you have to chip away more snow and ice…

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And lay a giant ass tarp. ( We’ll be the envy of all our neighbors now, so stylish! ) Then if you’re my husband, you leave a large part of it flapping in the corner.

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What?

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With a storm moving in, I had to fight him to secure the damn thing before it blew halfway to the next county.

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One little string, through one little grommet was all he would do.

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The snow came, turned to rain and miraculously the roof didn’t leak. But we’re due for strong winds in a few days so things are apt get interesting.

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A bar and a tree.

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Next week a contractor will be here to build a bar in our barn.

Yes, you read that correctly, a contractor… one we will pay. Actual money. That surprised me since the husband has does most of the Barn Mahal construction himself, but this guy also built the bar at our local pub… so instead of having a spouse made amateur facsimile, we’ll have a serious bar.

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With these giant extremely heavy boards the husband has kept from the original framing back in 2012.

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The boards that have been moved, shifted, relocated, bumped into and cursed for 8 long years…. so all I can say is, yay.

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Of course the other day we had to move them one last time.

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Because my other half wanted to get an idea what the future boozer would look like.

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And yes, that’s a driftwood Christmas tree on the right.

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My girlfriend made it, used it one year, then gave it to me for our porch. Unfortunately we experience a cross breeze from our neighbor’s field equivalent to the Ames research center wind tunnel NASA uses to test its rockets. That tree literally flew. Which is generally not what you want Christmas decorations to do.

So it’s been inside the barn for a few years and despite my pleading that it would be a nice addition to the bar room, husband wants it gone.

Tons of useless rusty crap? He’ll find the room. One unique and quirky decorative tree? Bye bye.

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