Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Maine Musings

We’ve been here three weeks and it has been a blur of work. Luckily, the weather has been a little off, so we are not feeling too abused, i.e., having to work inside the house when the gulls are all calling us to come out and play. But today is a picture perfect - 72 and a soft breeze off the ocean. It’s heaven!!

A few numbers for your amusement:

22 trips to Home Depot, mostly for paint
18 trips to Lowes
12 trips to the grocery store, liquor store, drug store (lots of Advil!)
10 trips to Owls Head Market for take out lunch
8 to the post office for arriving packages and boxes
6 to Walmart
4 trips to the transfer station for recycling and garbage - no home pick up here.
3 Amy’s of Cushing, Maine pies down the hatch
2 trips to the town dump We have a town dump! That is soooooo 1950‘s!
1 set of houseguests
0 lobster dinners - how can this be???? Too exhausted to go out!

Everything is in a state of Almost Done. The living room, one bedroom and the bathroom are almost there; the two other bedrooms are not started yet. I will get one done by Tuesday night for the next house guest - I hope! We chip away at it every day and we would not be this far if not for Craig and Melitta and Helen and Howard. Good friends who jumped in to paint, spackle, polish, clean, line shelves, advise, comfort, feed us (and help us drink) and generally make our lives so much easier. The house would be no where near this ready without their generous and willing help. We are blessed!

And if that was not enough, Craig added a beautiful stone chimney cap for us…getting rid of an ugly metal vent. We have amazing friends.




I have just spent an hour watching a young osprey hunt for his fish supper. Hanging over the narrow channel between our end of the land and Ash Island, he made several dive bombs into the water to come up empty. Around he would circle, ruffling his feathers in flight to fling off the water, to hover above the waves, watching, watching…

A small sign for Organic Vegetables caught my eye yesterday on my way home from some errand or another. I turned down the gravel lane and around the first curve found a beautiful white Maine farm house with a small stand by the road. The owner/gardener came out and we started chatting. I am very curious about gardening here in Maine…when can I plant, what survives the winter well and what doesn’t, where does she find compost, mulch, etc. Lovely, willowy Catherine shared all her secrets and I came home with beautiful salad greens, haricot vert beans, basil, gorgeous beets and the last jar of her 3 Red Berries Jam. She is so pleased with it, she is saving the rest of her supply for Christmas gifts. Yes, it really is that good…and I wish I was a friend!

The full moon was breathtaking the other night. A perfect naval orange glowing in the night sky.

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