Spring is always a busy time. In Maine, gardeners have approximately one month—May—to get everything in order. For me, this includes clearing the leaves from my flower beds, no small task when you live on the edge of the woods. Then, there is the adding of compost and fertilizer, and with my creaky knees, it’s a challenge to get this done before sweet June arrives.
Also, I am working hard to finish my next YA fantasy, Darcy Dansereau, and for various reasons, completely separate from creaky knees, the progress is oh so slow. But I still plan to have the book published in fall of 2024. Onward, ho!
All this is a roundabout way of saying that I will be taking an extended blogging break from May well into June. I’m not exactly sure when I will return. When time allows, I will pop in to read other blogs, but this will not be on a regular basis.
Spring is a beautiful time in Maine, and I leave you with these red-tipped branches against a bright blue sky. I took the picture when I was sitting on our patio, one of my favorite places.
Last Thursday, the predicted nor’easter hit Maine, and it was every bit as bad as the meteorologists had anticipated—lots and lots of wet, heavy snow, the kind that breaks branches, which, in turn, fall onto power lines. The storm blew in early Thursday morning, and by 5:00 a.m., our power was knocked out.
Up came the folding table and the camp stove. We might not have had power, but gosh darn it, we did have hot tea, a soothing drink in a cool house. Temperature: 55°F. Clif started a fire in the wood furnace down cellar and brought up a bucket of water for the toilets.
It was chilly, even with the wood furnace, but at least it was up to 60° by midmorning. Settling on the couch, I wrapped up in a blanket and read the delightful A Vicarage Family written by Noel Streatfeild. Published in 1963, A Vicarage Family is a semi-autobiographical novel about, well, growing up in a vicarage in an English village in the early 1900s. Teenage Vicky, a stand-in for the author, is difficult, moody, and intense, a writer in the making, and the episodic novel revolves around the challenges, many of them self-inflicted, that she faces. As the snow fell, I read, glancing up occasionally to stare out the picture window at the white landscape.
Dee, who works from home, is prepared for power outages, which have been all too common this winter. She bought a big battery, which allows her to use her computer for the whole day. In this era of weird weather, those who telecommute must be prepared.
Fortunately, the high winds that came with the nor’easter did not make it inland, but Facebook friends who live on the coast reported that the wind was gusting at 50 mph. Because of the heavy snow, along with the wind at the coast, there were widespread power outages from central Maine to the midcoast to southern Maine. By 1 p.m., half of Central Maine Power Company’s customers were without power—330,000 out of 675,000.
When it came time for lunch, we were all chilly and ready for canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which Clif prepared on the camp stove.
Even though it was canned soup, it tasted pretty darned good as my Yankee husband would say. (A shameless self-promotion photo, I know, featuring a mug advertising my third book.)
Here are more pictures of this snowy April day.
Behold our driveway. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas, don’t you think? We got about twelve inches of snow.
A closeup of the trees.
Now to the backyard.
My poor clothesline took a beating. Clif had already repaired it once, and the way he bolted it now prevents us from being able to fold it down for the winter. Clif feels confident he can repair it again. Fingers crossed.
With such widespread power outages, we were sure we were going to go for days without power, but we were one of the lucky ones. Our power came back on at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, and it stayed on. Oh, were we happy.
Other folks have not been so lucky. Despite the crews working tirelessly since Thursday, there are still 9,000 customers without power this Monday morning on April 8. As the title states, this was one heck of a storm.
All this snow provided Snow-Gauge Clif with opportunities to measure snow. (Was it only a few weeks ago when we foolishly wondered if we were done with snow?)
By Sunday, when the pictures were taken, the weather had become so warm that much of the snow had melted. Snow-Gauge Clif measured three inches of snow.
For readers who live in places where there is little or no snow, here is the giant curl of dirty snow plowed by our kind neighbor next door. When the town’s snowplow goes by, it leaves a wall o’snow at the end of the driveway, a formidable barricade when the snow is deep and heavy, the way it was after this nor’easter.
Now, let’s hope the weather gods are done playing tricks on us. Please, no more snow until next winter.
In honor of the solar eclipse, whose path goes right over Maine today, here is a classic by Cat Stevens. I listened to “Moon Shadow” many, many times when I was a teenager. Somehow, the song seemed appropriate for today.
As I mentioned in my previous piece, I had planned to start posting on Wednesdays rather than Mondays in 2024. But guess what? Another nasty storm is forecasted to blow into Maine on Tuesday night and into Wednesday. Along with a storm watch that will bring wet, heavy snow, we have received a flood warning and a high wind watch, with expected power outages. To borrow from the excellent crime show Fargo: Oh, for Pete’s sake. (Fargo is set in Minnesota and North Dakota.)
So instead of posting on Wednesday, I am posting today.
Tomorrow, I’ll be making a big batch of black bean soup, which we can heat up on the camp stove should the power go out. Also, because treats are important during a power outage, I’ll be baking oatmeal bars with chocolate chips.
What makes this storm so particularly galling is that on Sunday, we had the most perfect snow storm with six to eight inches of light fluffy snow. Clif and our daughter Dee were able to easily take care of the cleanup, and it was a pleasure to watch the falling snow while chickpea soup bubbled in the slow cooker.
Here is a picture from my dining room window taken during the storm. If you look carefully at the feeder, you might notice the falling snow along with a little bird feeding. I think the bird is a gold finch.
Here is another picture taken from my dining room window this morning after the storm.
I must admit to feeling a little discouraged at the thought of having another power outage and all the work it entails.
But on a more cheerful note, I have received gifts from some of my lovely blogging friends.
Oranges and lemons from Betsy and picked in her own backyard.
As many of you know, in September my daughter Shannon, her husband Mike, their two dogs—Holly and Somara—and their cat Penny moved in with us. One phase of their life had ended, and they were starting a new phase with different jobs. Staying with us allowed them to take their time to find a place that was exactly right for them as well as for the dogs and cat.
This Shannon and Mike did, with a lovely new apartment overlooking the water. In late December, dogs, kit, and kids left, leaving the three of us—Clif, our daughter Dee, and me. The house is now very quiet. While I miss the hubbub, it feels great to return to my old schedule, which not only includes blogging but also working on my upcoming book, Darcy Dansereau, a slice-of-life fantasy set in Maine in the 1970s.
Along with Christmas, December included a challenge courtesy of Mother Nature—a rain and wind storm with gusts up to 70 miles per hour. This storm whipped through central Maine with the expected results—widespread power outages in the days leading to Christmas. We were without power for four days, and it was even longer for some people in central Maine.
The storm also brought about an unexpected result—flooding for communities by a river. While flooding is common in the spring, it is pretty much unheard of in December. As I am fond of saying, in these times of climate change, weird is the new normal. These floods were as bad as I’ve ever seen them, but as we don’t live near a river, we stayed dry.
Because we have a wood furnace, we were warm and cozy during the power outage. In addition, we have a camp stove, and in town there is a business with an outside spigot where we could get water. So we were all right during our time without power.
During the power outage, we were still taking care of the dogs and cat while Mike and Shannon were getting settled in their new apartment. Here is the expression on Holly’s face as the storm blew and raged outside.
Because the light was low, the focus isn’t the best. Still, I think it captures her mood, which was pretty much the same as ours: none of us liked the storm one bit.
But through it all we did have a light to shine with an old lamp that belonged to Clif’s parents.
The Thursday before Christmas, early in the morning, the lights came on, and we all rejoiced.
The dogs and the cat settled back into their comfortable routines.
My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came over to celebrate Christmas Eve with us, and what a jolly time we had. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken of the event.
I did, however, take pictures of Christmas morning, and our first ever Crustmas feast. The idea for Crustmas came from a delightful podcast called Strong Sense of Place: The Library of Lost Time. The hosts, Dave and Mel, explained how they celebrate the holiday with Crustmas, which revolves around their love of toast. (I, too, love toast, and as soon as I heard their idea, I was all in.) They buy a number of nice loaves of bread and provide a bunch of yummy toppings: Nutella, jam, cream cheese, butter. They also have a charcuterie board, which we did not do this year but might next year. However, the genius idea is to bring the toaster right to the table so that there is no running back and forth to the kitchen to make toast. At the table, out pops the toast, hot and fresh for eager eaters.
Here is the table on Christmas morning all set up for Crustmas.
Crustmas was a smashing success, and we will do this again next Christmas. However, as Dave and Mel reminded listeners, there is no need to confine Crustmas to Christmas. The glories of toast can be celebrated all through the year, and that’s exactly what we plan to do.
A very happy New Year to all my wonderful blogging friends. I will be posting once a week, on Wednesday, unless something special comes up that deserves my attention.
The clocks have been set back an hour, and the dark now comes at 4:30 p.m. Most of the yard work has been done, and we are finishing up the last of it this week. Our son-in-law Mike has been a wonderful help, accomplishing in two days what it would take us a month to do.
Our hearts are still heavy because of the mass shooting in Lewiston. Winthrop was hit particularly hard—three dead and two wounded. The support has been tremendous. Very heartening. However, it hardly needs to be said that it would have been far better for everyone if the support was not needed. Sigh.
As the title of this post indicates, I’m going to be taking an extended break from blogging. Nothing serious is going on, thank goodness, and it may it stay that way. Rather, it’s because of holiday and family hubbub, and the older I get, the more time it takes me to accomplish tasks that I once would have zipped through. Also, I’m halfway through writing book number 5—Darcy Dansereau, an expansion of The Dog Angel, which some of you might have read. I’ve begun referring to the novel as a “slice-of-life fantasy.” Darcy is entirely set in Waterville in the late 1970s, and while there is fantasy and mystery in the story, much of it focuses on Darcy’s everyday life, her sorrows and her triumphs.
I’ll leave you with a photo I took at Absolem Cider Company when we were there the end of October to celebrate Dee’s birthday. It was a beautiful day, warm enough to sit outside with our drinks and watch dusk settle over the countryside.
A very happy November and December to all. See you in January 2024.
Last night, at around 7:45, the body of Robert Card, the mass shooting suspect, was found by the Androscoggin River in Lisbon Falls, the town next to Lewiston, where the murders took place. According to the Portland Press Herald, “Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck… confirmed Card died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
So it is over. But what a long three days it was as we waited. Each day seemed like a week. Winthrop, the town where I live, is close enough to Lewiston for the town police to have recommended a shelter-in-place. Town offices and functions were closed. We found out that a Winthrop High School student and his father had been killed at the bowling alley.
For three days we wondered, where was the suspect? Was he hiding in the woods? Had he left the state? Had he killed himself and was his body yet to be found?
The last question turned out to be the answer, and as soon as I heard the news last night, I felt a strange combination of relief and numbness.
Central Maine is small enough—Lewiston’s population is 37,000—so that most people had some connection to the mass shooting. As I mentioned in my last post, a woman I have known since she was a child narrowly missed being killed at the bowling alley. She was just about to go in when her boyfriend, who was inside, messaged her to stay outside, that there was an active shooter in the bowling alley. Fortunately, the boyfriend was neither killed nor injured.
And while I don’t know the Winthrop student who was killed, my children went to Winthrop High School, and I can only imagine how they would have felt if something like this had happened when they were students. We are grieving for the family.
Now it is time to heal and recover, and it won’t happen overnight. I am emotionally worn out and be will taking a week or so off from blogging to rest and reflect.
Thank you, thank you to the many blogging friends who sent words of comfort and sympathy in response to the last post where I wrote about the mass shooting. I was so touched by all the kind words. It really does make a difference.
It finally happened in Maine in the small city of Lewiston, about 25 miles away from our home. A man with a gun killed people in a bowling alley and in a sports bar, so far 18 in all with 13 others injured.
A heartbreaking and sickening event. A woman I’ve known since she was a little girl narrowly escaped being killed.
The suspect is still at large, and much of southern and central Maine—where I live—is shut down.
I hope that this man is soon captured and put where he can’t hurt anyone else.
I’ll write more later, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are all right.
On Thursday, the electricians came, and after spending most of the day here, they replaced the damaged boxes and got the electricity back to the way it was before the lightning strike. Hello, washing machine, dryer, vacuum cleaner, oven. So nice to have you all back. Goodbye, microwave. Thank you for the many long years of service. Your replacement will be arriving soon, and I certainly hope the new one is as sturdy and reliable as you were.
In theory, all should be well. In reality, we discovered our water heater was another causality of the lightning strike and surge. For the past week, it had been heating erratically, and yesterday it stopped working entirely. This means no hot water unless we heat it on the stovetop. The water heater will soon be checked to see whether it can be repaired or needs to be replaced. Yet again, thank goodness for our homeowners insurance.
Despite being a bang of a month, September has brought some pleasures.
Item: Most evenings, the weather has been mild enough for drinks on the patio. This time is soon coming to an end, and we are trying to squeeze as much time on the patio as we can.
Item: Because of the excessive rain, most of the nasturtium seeds I planted didn’t germinate, but the ones that did are oh so pretty.
Item: There were enough tomatoes for a final harvest, which means more tomato sandwiches for lunch this week. Although the tomato yield was way down from previous years, Juliette—the variety I planted—performed valiantly in the face of too much rain and not enough sun. But, Juliette’s time is over, and after harvesting the tomatoes, I pulled the plants.
Item: Our new whole house power surge protector has the Whovian name “Bad Wolf.” Protect us from future power surges, Bad Wolf!
Odds and Ends: We found a new place to play trivia on Monday nights, which is a great way to start the week. On Saturday, we will be meeting friends at Absolem’s, and on Sunday, we’ll be heading to Freeport to a brewery to celebrate Clif’s birthday.
Will we have running hot water by then? Who knows? But we’ll be following Bill & Ted’s excellent advice: Party on, dudes.
Note: This is an old trailer. The movie didn’t play this summer. But the trailer was a short and snappy way to feature the excellent Bill & Ted.
As it turned out, Hurricane Lee only glanced the Winthrop area, with gusty winds that weren’t strong enough to knock out power on a large scale. (There were some power outages, of course, and the midcoast area got hit harder, with extensive outages.)
We were all very grateful to keep the limited power we have. The old adage “some is better than none” certainly applies in this case. Yes, we would love to be able to use our oven, our washer, our dryer, and our dishwasher. We would love to turn on our computers with no worries about using too much power, But, we have lights and water and a working refrigerator and freezer. We can use our stove top and toaster.
On Thursday, the electrician will be coming to set things right. We are counting the days.
This week, I am hoping to get back to reading blogs and commenting. I certainly have missed keeping up with all of you.
My birthday was on Friday, the eve of the hurricane. To celebrate, we went to Absolem Cider Company, one of my favorite places that I’ve written about in previous posts.
We had delicious drinks and Thai food. There were cupcakes for dessert. The place was packed, and we had so much fun.
At Absolem, the sky at dusk, before the storm, was glorious.
I am now 66, and I love being an age with repeating numbers. My birthday came on the eve of a hurricane whose winds proved to be mild. A week before, there was a lightning strike.
September has been quite the month, so eventful that I had to postpone my return to blogging. Originally I had planned to return to blogging the second week of September. But Mother Nature intervened last Friday with a lightning strike on our road’s power line. The strike caused a huge surge, which in turn fried part of our breaker box down cellar. We still have electricity but only if we use it sparingly—no dishwasher, oven, dryer, washing machine, or vacuum cleaner. Period. But, we have lights, computers, water, our stove top, refrigerator, and freezer. To borrow from my Yankee husband, things could be worse.
An electrician came in, assessed the damage, and presented us with a $3,500 estimate, which includes a whole-house surge protector. Gulp! Fortunately, our home owners insurance will cover much of the cost.
So onward ho with that.
And presenting…Hurricane Lee
We had more or less settled down from the lightning incident only to be faced with Hurricane Lee blasting up the East Coast, with the prediction for Maine and the Canadian Maritimes to get the brunt of the storm. Visions of power outages and no water danced before my eyes. Being completely without electricity is no small thing in a household that now includes five adults, two dogs, and one cat. However, the latest forecast indicates that Lee is turning west, and while coastal Maine will get hit with high winds, it shouldn’t be too bad for inland Maine, where we live.
Still, we are prepared with bread, peanut butter, and plenty of water stashed away in buckets in our cellar.
But, it wasn’t all doom and gloom
Last Friday, the evening of the lightning strike, Clif, our daughter Shannon, our son-in-law Mike, and I went to Van der Brews—a local brewery—for trivia night hosted by the fabulous Nick Perry of Androscoggin Trivia Company.
And readers, we won! With only four on our team, we were definitely the underdogs, surprising everyone with our victory, including ourselves.
But even though we are small team, we are mighty, with a good spread of knowledge among the four of us.
Here is a picture of us as we celebrated our victory. In the middle of our table are the winnings—a Van der Brew glass, a car blanket, and a sticker.
Be back soon, I hope
I probably won’t return to blogging until the breaker box is fixed. With Dee and Shannon both working from home, we are being very careful about electricity usage.
So until then…
Addendum: On Thursday, September 14 at around 4:00, “Governor Mills today declared a State of Emergency and requested that President Biden issue a preemptive Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration for Maine.” (Taken from Maine.gov)
We shall see!
A blog about nature, home, community, books, writing, the environment, food, and rural life.
Notes From the Hinterland 