Monday, May 26, 2014

First Weekend at Camp 2014

After work Thursday night Rick and I went to look at a house in Hayford Heights in Farmingdale.  Nice house, good price, but zero room to park a camper so just doesn’t really work for us.  I then went to KLFI to pick up my order of locally grown and raised food: crabcakes from Hallowell Sea Food, some chicken, sausage, greens, chives, granola, and a few other things.  Had to stop by Hannaford to supplement my local food with a few bottles of wine and some beer as well as the usual staples, and got to camp and rushed to put away my groceries as I’d planned to meet Betty in Hallowell for music by Chris Paulson at Hatties.  However, just as I put on my jacket and walked out the door I realized how much I really just wanted to stay at camp and listen to the peeper, bullfrogs, and loons, so turned around and came back in.  I texted Betty to let her know I wasn’t going to make it and invited her out to hang me with at camp and she accepted.  We had a wonderful evening; drank almost two bottles of wine and had a great chat.  Fortunately she’d brought her overnight necessities so we realized after the first bottle that she wasn’t driving anyplace. 

Friday afternoon Rick came out and we had plans to go out that night but again, the loons and peepers were calling and we decided at the last minute to stay in. Fortunately we had the crab cakes and veggies from KLFI so was able to make a delicious meal and open a bottle of wine.  Lovely night. 

Saturday I had three houses to look at while Rick went to Belgrade Lakes to talk with a guy about our cottage whose foundation appeared to be collapsing.  Thirty grand to fix it perfect and now we need to get an estimate to demolish it.  Both will be presented to any prospective buyers but it’s gonna be the cottage “as is.”  A couple of houses on the Kennebec River in Randolph were pretty sweet but one was well within the flood zone and I just don’t want to have to deal with that and the other was gorgeous with a delightful enclosed porch overlooking the river from high out of the flood plain but would take a major amount of yard work to keep it up and I don’t think Rick wants that kind of commitment in our retirement home.  We also looked at a ranch with a two car attached garage in a nice Augusta neighborhood but it was just a tad too small inside, plus it needed all the aromatic carpet replaced.  Another pass.  We figured out that was house #15 we’d looked at.  The search continues.

So we came home had a late lunch and I think we both read and napped, waking up about 7 pm to wonderment about what might be for dinner.  I had bought the makings for English muffin pizza Thursday night at Hannaford so that along with some leftover salad from last night and some nice Mountain Ale brewed in Stowe, VT made a delicious meal. 

Sunday Justin came out and helped clean up the yard and everything is looking great. 
  

He left and Rick headed home to mow the Belgrade Lakes house and I decided to spend my first solo night at camp.  I finished most of my book and puttered around outside for a while.  Put another crab cake in the toaster oven and tossed together some more salad and enjoyed another delicious meal. 




Friday, May 16, 2014

Friday in Pleasantville

Got woken up by a text this morning about 9:30 (yup, 9:30) from my lovely neighbor, Christine, to meet at the point for a chat. I brought a couple cups of coffee and we sat on the rocks and caught up with each other.  She had her two sweet little four legged friends. It was a little blustery but the morning sun kept us warm.  Chris had to move on with her agenda for the day but I came back home and grabbed some more coffee and my Kindle and read and watched all the activity in our usual quiet little corner.  The town maintenance crew came and did their spring cleaning of the beach and I had to appreciate how fortunate we are to have such close proximity to the waterfront without having to pay waterfront taxes or to maintain the area.  The town does a good job on the public beach, though I have to say our shared private access point is currently pretty littered and junky from our neighbor who just doesn't know how to respect a piece of property and clean up after himself.  He's got too many toys to properly care for so his winter's ice shack is sitting out there along with the summer's 50 feet of docks, so it's a little hard to reach the rocky shoreline.  He's got a huge pile of trash and pallets stacked up and obviously plans a substantial bonfire though hopefully on a less blustery day than today.

They did a nice job cleaning up the public beach area.
Headed back across the street to our house(s).


Across the cute little bridge Rick made for us.

To hang out on the deck.

reading my Kindle and watching the ubiquitous and vocal goldfinch, cardinals, and all the other usual suspects.