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Yes, we Mainers are an interesting and sometimes inventive breed.
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My mother used to say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Or in this case, a leaf blower powered hoverboard.
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Ayup.
Maine winters are long, you might as well have a hobby.
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Yes, the husband bought another tarp in anticipation of another rain storm.
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And yes, he decided to put it on the roof on a windy day.
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What a good idea that was.
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Was I helping?
Yes.
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Was I also laughing my *ss off and photographing the endeavor?
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Of course.
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At least this tarp is heavier and smaller so it doesn’t hang over the side and flap in the breeze like the last one.
Will it stay on the roof during a storm? Doubtful, but not for lack of trying on the husband’s part.
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Required shot of our backyard with the paltry amount of winter snow taken from the top of my ladder.
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Our town has come up with some marvelously creative ways to keep kids active and engaged during the Covid months. This is the latest.
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Businesses and public areas are all displaying clues.
In other news, people are offering free treasures.
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Dirty, smoke stained old cups from a discontinued set? Christ, don’t tell my husband.. he’d be on them like white on rice.
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An icicle contest. Most excellent!
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Our big one had grown to 5 feet so I proudly entered it to take the lead…..
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Until Robert showed up.
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Damn you Robert. You and your massive projectile.
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In Maine, in the winter…. the shrubbery arms itself.
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Come at me with that hedge trimmer now bitch. I dare you.
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Cow on a plow. Take that you flakey little green troll.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten enjoys the morning sun shining through my filthy windows and likes to relax on the back of the sofa.
He’s so relaxed that sometimes he falls sound asleep and lands on the sill.
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And tries to pretend is was on purpose.
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Nice try Dudley, but I know better. I heard the plop.
Next up, Maine wisdom from The Flatlanda in Fairfield.
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And speaking of winter, we’ve had a decided lack of snow this season. Mere inches that melts shortly after it falls. In previous years March looked like this:
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That’s my husband walking the road in front of our house.
This year, we have green soggy grass. No climate change my *ss.
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Maine people have always known how to work around the weather. And though this winter has been mild compared to previous years, Covid restrictions have required businesses to use their imaginations like never before.
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Pineland Farms started life as a state run institution for the “idiotic and feeble minded” in 1907. Many horror stories floated out of those buildings, some from my cousin who worked there with mentally handicapped children in the late 70’s. It was closed in 1996 due to scandal and rumors of unsatisfactory care and has since undergone an amazing transformation.
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Nature trails, event weddings, a farm cooperative and store. They sell the beef they raise and the produce they grow. They make wonderful cheese and have a tasty little restaurant.
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But now?
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They have life sized snow globes as well.
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What’s not to love?
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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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Our resident projectile has melted halfway, split and refrozen.
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47 inches and still anxiously awaiting an unsuspecting red squirrel to wander by.
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In other news…. my husband received his first Covid vaccine shot this week. Yay! No side effects other than a slightly sore arm for a day or two, though we’ve heard most people are experiencing flu like symptoms after the second shot.
Shots.
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Sorry, that’s where my mind went.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten is starting to get used to having his picture taken.
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But that doesn’t mean he enjoys it.
Yikes. If looks could kill…
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I went out to the mailbox the other day, battling a fierce wind and falling snow, and saw paw prints. This isn’t unusual at our house, critters visit on a daily basis. But when I came back in the house and heard a cry outside, I knew.
The lovely stray cat we’d taken in, fallen in love with and then had to return to his owners? Was back.
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He was soaking wet, shivering and skittish…. but I managed to lure him into the barn with a bowl of food.
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The poor little guy. What the hell! Why was he out in the cold again?
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After two full tins of Fancy Feast, he jumped up on the pool table….
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And took a bath with the heat blowing straight on him.
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I left him warm, fed and comfortable…. and headed into the house to call his owner and rip her a new one.
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One not so polite phone call later she showed up with a carrier and swore she made a vet appointment for him to be neutered next week and has done her best to keep him in the house. But she also told me her husband opened the bedroom window a crack and the cat escaped. (Open window, with no screen, in Maine, in February? Not likely) She said he’d only been gone for an hour but our house is over a mile away so I doubt that too.
I swear if we hadn’t adopted Dudley…. I would have just kept him this time.
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We have wild turkeys that visit our backyard bird feeders to scrounge what’s fallen on the ground.
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We’ve had flocks for decades and it’s never been an issue. They’re goofy…. and honestly, I find them quite comical to watch. But this past year, in which my husband has been home 24/7 hogging all the bandwidth teleworking… he’s taken an interest in feeding the birds.
The man who used to complain I bought too much seed and spent too much money on suet nuggets now glares at me if the 50lb pound bag falls below a quarter. And since he gets up at an unfathomable time of the morning ( pre sunrise people… WTF? ) he’s usually the first one out the door to fill the feeders.
If the turkeys visit in the spring, summer or fall? Fine. But in the winter their prodigious piles of poo land on snow and ice which is not nearly as absorbent as dirt and well…. let’s just say Tiny Tim isn’t going to be singing about tiptoeing through that anytime soon.
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Hence the never ending battle my extremely stubborn husband wages on a daily basis.
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This will go on for hours.
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Even when he’s on the phone for work dealing with a man in violation of FAA regulations.
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He chases them, they run to the edge of the property line and wait for him to go back in the house, they return, he chases them…etc, etc, etc.
If you think you’ve never met anyone more stubborn than a retired Marine? You’ve never met a Maine wild turkey.
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The funniest part of his new hobby? As soon as he gives up and goes back in the office….
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The turkeys call in reinforcements and descend en masse. He chased a dozen…. 26 came back.
And so it goes.
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This store has my name written all over it.
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My husband would tell you we don’t need any more sarcasm here, but I beg to differ.
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And maybe that’s what was wrong with this month…. I didn’t make it my bitch.
Snow, rain, freeze, ice, melt, repeat.
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And by repeat…. I mean I keep repeating fix the damn gutter! to my husband so I don’t have to listen to this all day long.
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And in case you’re wondering what kind of weather we have in Maine?
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That sums it up nicely.
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