The Leaves They Are A Changing

Back in August when we had the cold snap, a few trees got fooled into thinking autumn had started. Most notably those early changers, the sumacs. But then we had the heat wave. (90 degree weather in Maine is a heat wave.) In our yard, one branch of one maple tree turned a lovely red. It still is, but a few other trees are now starting their color show as well. Nothing in our yard is as spectacular as that one maple branch yet, but yesterday we took a walk down the street and I took a few pictures. The new header is one of them. Nice time of year to be in Maine, eh?

Open Lighthouse Day

The second annual Maine Open Lighthouse Day saw us travelling up to Owls Head (see picture to the left) and Rockland (top photo). We, of course, stopped at yard sales and post offices along the way. We'd been to see both of these lighthouses before, but Owls Head is not normally open to the public to actually go inside (with its stunning views) and the Rockland Breakwater Light was too dangerous to travel to, walking over the looooong walkway during a storm. We saw the lightning that day, we weren't planning on feeling it.

Chim-needy

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The previous owner of the house had the woodstove hooked up into the single chimney. Since it was already carrying two outputs (furnace and hot water heater) that was a bad idea. Since it was hooked up to the furnace, any creosote leaking down to the furnace would be an extra bad thing. We opted not to use the woodstove until we had a separate chimney for it. Now we do. It has a slight crook it it because it was otherwise a choice of moving the stove too close to the rug or cutting through the roof rafters. So a curve in the pipe was acceptable.

Festival Weekend

Saturday we had two festivals to go to. The first was Greene Village Day. Just something for local organizations and vendors to set up booths with a few displays of this and that, and a bunch of things mainly geared towards kids. There was also a parade, but we started out too late to see that. I did pick up a Greene t-shirt. Showing support for the locals through participation and purchase. We also gave some money to a cat group.

Next we went over next door to Lewiston and found the Greek Festival. The live music and dancing are only in the evenings, so we were disappointed about that. Carrie got some lamb kebob for lunch and a loaf of apricot almond bread for later. I enjoyed going into the church and reading their comics. The image to the left (note the word balloons) came off their pocket calendar.

In between, we did stop at a few yard sales. I got a hutch to put on the second computer desk. Our puppet population has been booming and now there is more storage/display space for them. Unfortunately, Neil the Horse's spot on the wall is now covered. I did some rearranging of pictures, but he still can't fit in the computer room any more. Now he's in the bedroom. Moving him also prompted us to do some more picture hanging and we have the bedroom now mostly covered along with a couple of things in Kemmer's room and a few other places around the house.

But that was on Sunday. After the two festivals on Saturday we still had plenty of time so did a little more exploring of the area. Carrie brought me to an antique store she'd found earlier. We're going back with trade items for sure. And we also tried out a couple of parks. The riverside one, with an old converted to pedestrian use railroad bridge was best. We'll be going back to that also.

Folk in the Eyes

Last Weekend we went to the annual Bangor Folk Festival and listened to lots of music. An oud player, a Korean drumming group, a couple of Celtic groups. The Quebecois style of Vent du Nord appealed to us enough that Carrie bought one of their cds. Note in the clip above that the guy in the middle is doing the percussion.

Spam I Am

Several months back we heard that Spamalot was coming to Maine and we were determined we would go see it. Well before it was to play I went to the theater's website to check what the prices for tickets were. I quickly realized that it was already close to being sold out, so with Carrie at hand I reserved a couple of seats for us. Good thing, too. That weekend they were sold out.

First thing I thought as I was watching the theater fill up was how old the audience seemed to be. Aren't Monty Python fans younger, college or high school age like I was when they first were shown in the US lo, these many years ago? Oh. They'd be my age now. Right. Nevermind.

The show itself was fun. We both are glad we went, but have no desire to see it again. Carrie thought it didn't bring enough from the movie and deviated from the movie too much. I thought it drew too much from the movie and didn't have enough original material.

Fence Sitting (part 3)

The fence did get finally set up, a few days longer than expected. It even has 2 gates. The next step is to put up the wire on the inside to keep Pandora from roaming. We're hoping to have most of it done during this long weekend.