Maine Caucus

So, Maine is one of the few states that hold a caucus instead of a primary. Today was my first chance to experience this, and let me tell you, I will take a voting booth any day. In addition to being totally non-private, it was unorganized, took forever, and involved standing in line, sitting in a crowded (hot!) gymnasium, and manual counting. It all seems really biased against those who have to work, take care of children, or people like me who just want to vote and be done with it. I'm all for political discussion, but that's what the months before the primaries are for. There were only 2 people who were willing to stand up and say they were undecided, so it seemed more about bashing the other side than convincing your friends and neighbors to join a certain camp. I think the numbers speak for themselves: my town has a population of 10,000 people and around 550 people came to today's Democratic caucus and 32 (!) came to the Republican one held last weekend.

Tin Can Sally

Check out my new kitchen switch plate from local artist Tin Can Sally. She takes vintage tins and creates these switch plates and outlet covers. What a great idea!

Here Moosie, Moosie!

I have yet to see a moose, but I keep hoping. My friend e-mailed me this story and it only happened an hour away from here! I'm not sure where the story and photos originated, but I'm so glad they shared the experience. Read on:

I have never seen a newborn moose. This one was not even a half a mile from our house. The mother picked a small quiet neighborhood and had her baby in the front yard at 5:30 am. We were out bike riding when we came upon the pair. The lady across the street from this house told us she saw it being born. We saw them at 5:30 pm. So the little one was 12 hours old. What an awesome place we live in to see such a site!

South Addison

We spent the 4th of July and the weekend up in South Addison, Maine with friends, friends of friends, and three dogs. You can see that it is quite far up the coast and I overheard someone saying on the phone, "Imagine a place as remote as you can, and we are about 4 hours more remote than that." There were 18 people in total and we had a great time, despite the rain and fog. There were beach fires, lobster, and hilarious games of catch phrase. The house and barn are really old and it was fun just taking pictures of all the items still hanging around like they might get used at any moment. Thanks to Leanne for some of the photos!

Nubble Light

Nubble Light is always on the list of places to take our out-of-town guests. It has a rich history, but my favorite story is that one of the keepers used to reel his children across to the mainland IN THE SUPPLY BUCKET every morning for school. A photo of the boy was published in the paper and the district commander soon put a stop to that. You can see the photo if you click here and scroll down a bit.

Lilacs

I wish you all had smellivision so I could share the delicious lilac scent wafting through my house. I am so lucky to have a whole row of them! These two look like a butterfly, don't you think?

It's fiddlehead season!

I've been keeping my eye out for these tasty veggies and last night I was successful! I sautéed them in olive oil and garlic and then added salt & pepper, lemon juice and a little butter. The man at the local shop says he'll have them for a solid three weeks. I wonder how many times I can eat them in three weeks? Just to prove they are appropriately named, I've done a side-by-side comparison.


[I'm still annoyed about the colors of my photos. Now I realized that there are even huge differences between Safari and Firefox. Safari is much better.]

Forsythia

I wish I could say this was in my yard, but it belongs to my neighbor with the perfect yard. I call him Pick Up Sticks because he goes out every morning and collects even the tiniest twigs. I'm glad I can enjoy his efforts from my living room window. We have some forsythia in the back, but it's more of a ratty, overgrown mess and not so perfect.

Good Huntin'

It was so nice today, we went to nearby Fort McClary to look for sea glass. It was very successful, probably due to all the storms! We found some rare red and pink glass. I'm trying to collect a little bottle full of each color for the small pieces and the big pieces just go in the printer's rack. I just happen to have a picture of the printer's rack from yesterday when an unwanted visitor decided to camp out there. Scroll down to find him! Sorry, I know it's gross, but imagine it in person.