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The autumn has rapidly advanced. Swamp maples are past their peak, while more upland deciduous trees are drying and dropping. The excessive rain this summer has something to do with it, but I'm not sure exactly how it translates to dull, dry leaves.
Hunting season opened about ten days ago, so most of the waterfowl have already come through. There is something special about being awakened by goose guns going off at sunrise just outside the window. That warm feeling from puddling piss, for instance...
[Sorry about the title, a take-away from the chorus of “The Purple People Eater”]
Life continues apace here in Maine by the lake. Leaves are starting to turn, while the ten days of rain have convinced the super-early swamp maple that turns a month ahead of everything else in the cove to drop its crimson leaves in disgust. The Arctic Snow Geese have been through and got out just ahead of the bad weather when it was still hot, muggy and 90 freaking degrees out the first week of September. That was when our second generator died, preventing parallel operation which translates to no air conditioning. The Canada Geese have been bitching and moaning at night in their little floating rafts out in the middle of the lake while awaiting a return of good flying weather. And of course, yours truly has got itchy feet without the means to go.
Came across these in my memory the other day while standing in six inches of water refueling the Honda e2000i generator. Thought I’d share…
The one thing that the Autumn brings to these parts – most of these are grounded:
As one wag put it, they come with FAA-issued tail numbers, too.
Wicked. No, really.
In a copyrighted story in the Bangor Daily News back in April this year a collection of words that may crop up here on occasion and their meanings. I don’t even think about them, but some may cause shaking of heads and furrowed brows atop wrinkled heads. So be it…
About a month ago, we ran a story on the Dictionary of American Regional English, a collection of the colorful and varied words used in Americans’ everyday lives, across the country, organized by region — including Maine and New England. We included a short but eclectic list of some of words specific to Maine, and asked readers to submit their own suggestions for Maine words.
We received an excellent response, and have since compiled them all and done a little research (to the best of our ability) to weed out the words used elsewhere in the country from the more strictly Maine ones. We’ve come up with our own, revised list of Maine vernacular words and phrases, a little dictionary containing words ranging from the obvious, well-known “dooryard” and “wicked” to lesser-known gems such as “laury” or “sprills.”
See y’all on the flipside.
On Saturday, while I was in town doing the grocery shopping, Dizzy-Dick was expounding upon his favorite foods. I must admit, his description of his favorite boudin sausage and cheese stuffed deep fried jalapenos from Jack-in-the-Box got my mouth to watering, but his waxing poetic over rare to medium-rare grilled beef liver for lunch had me nearly drowning from drool.
I suffer food gladly. There’s damn little I won’t eat or at least try a couple of times before giving up. I’m not overly fond of SWMBO’s beloved raw wieners, but that’s OK – I just brown mine up before dumping in the baked beans and rice that goes with them in this household these days.
Crustaceans are my downfall. I loves me some lobster. Mud bugs be me. Crabs ‘r’ us, too. Mollusks are little hard-shelled jewels. I love the simple pleasure of escargots in garlic butter with a hot, crispy loaf of French bread as an accompaniment . Steamed clams and drawn butter, or mussels ‘ca vin. Heck, deep-fried grasshoppers alongside of fried shrimp would be a delightful contrast, both served up with cocktail sauce and Thai peanut curry sauce. Then there’s oysters. Is there such a thing as a raw oyster too cold on ice in a hot chili cocktail sauce, a slice of lime at my side to spread the glory even farther…
I like meat. Steak, rare and hot off the grill, lightly seasoned with garlic butter, salt and pepper gets my gastric juices just a-flowin’. Roasted venison, braised bear, BBQ pork, chicken, turkey, and other poultry in all the myriad ways it may be prepared – delightful.
I’d probably die of terminal confusion, just trying to pick out a last meal on death row. We haven’t even started on all the cheeses, veggies, breads, soups and stews, salads.
Man, I love to eat and this old body shows the result. I’m not just roly-poly, I’m officially, majorly, obese. The only way I’m ever going to lose weight is to stop eating and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. C’est la vie, eh? There be far worse ways to go, that’s for sure.
So unlike Dizzy-Dick, there’s no picking favorites … it’s all good.
I pulled that same stunt tonight. I picked and liked, read, played alligator, listened to my music with earphones and had a pleasant enough time, if you don't want to be sleeping, that is.
About 5AM I looked out the window and observed that just a month ago the sun would be fully above the horizon at that hour of the morning. Not this morning. It looked like the moon had set, it was so dark.
Fifteen minutes later I went out with Iggy - he to water the trees and I refilled the generator. At that point, dawn was breaking and I discovered the moon was high in the Southwest. Who knew?
.
About 7:15 yesterday morning as SWMBO braves the vagaries of our bilge pump-powered shower, I heard the now infamous words, “Honey, the water isn’t draining…!”
Phooey, thinks I, it’s too soon to have to empty the holding tanks – I only did it a week ago. I check the notoriously unreliable electronic gauges and they both indicate ‘Full’ tanks. Damn.
Wrong conclusion, Dawg.
So I quickly hatched the scheme to take off about 25 gallons of grey water into the “blue boy” so my wife can finish her ablutions.
Bad choice #1.
I pull the stinky slinky hose out and make up to the waste tank and pull the valve open. And all Hell breaks loose – the portable tank end of the hose separates from the connection fitting and I have 100 gallons of sewage gushing onto the ground.
Stink – “oh my”, as George Takei would say. So much for driving the boss to work. I’m covered from head to toe in effluent, gagging at the stench, and still have to empty the portable tank into the septic system.
First trip is nothing too exciting. Since I’m already slimed, I decide to take care of the current supply of black waste water, too.
Bad choice #2.
I make up the spare slinky hose to the portable tank and open the valve and wouldn’t you know it, that hose separates from the trailer end fitting and now I have raw sewage all over the ground, the portable tank and me, too. Gag me to the max. George Takai has a clothes pin on his nose and he’s doing the Wave of Shame we all used as kids at me and my predicament. I have no choice but to try to dilute the pollution. Wouldn’t you know it …
Bad choice #3.
The Rule 800 bilge pump chooses that very moment to give up the ghost and stop pumping.
I may be obtuse, but even I know when Murphy has hit a grand slam between my eyeballs with a 2x4. There’s nothing for it but grab some buckets, wade into the lake up to my waist to wash the merde off me and start the dilution* process by manual bucket brigade, with me being the only brigade member to show up for the party.
My wife missed all of this, having found it necessary to take the truck and drive herself to work (she hates doing that, preferring to apply make-up and prepare herself mentally while I negotiate with the vehicle-bound terrorists that pass themselves off as early morning commuters).
An hour or two later, I have all of the various hoses repaired, the area around the trailer where all of this effluvia was discharged has been diluted as much as I dare (didn’t want the trailer sinking out of sight in suddenly saturated ground, now did I) and I have cleaned up enough that I can contemplate drinking my first cup of coffee of the day, take my pills and figure out my next mistake, er, adventure.
Walked the dog, only beating him a half dozen times for trying to roll in the smelly stuff and then bowed to the inevitable – I donned my breathing apparatus and mowed the lawn. It is too bad the mask only filters out pollen, molds and dust, or I’d have used it to keep the sewage stench at bay…
So that was my day. How was yours?
* ”The solution to Pollution is Dilution” was one of those little catch phrases that stuck with me from wastewater management class.
Photo Credit: The Life of Jamie
So, you say you like squirrels? They’re warm and cuddley, fuzzy little phreakers who merely like to eat nuts and chase each other over bole and stem, limb to limb? Well, hold onto your peanuts and avoid camping in Southern California anytime soon … Read this:
Health officials said that as a precaution, visitors were ordered to leave three campgrounds and a recreation area of the Angeles National Forest, which encompasses some 655,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of metropolitan Los Angeles. Plague, known as the "Black Death" when it was blamed for killing some 25 million Europeans during the Middle Ages (emphasis mine), is a bacterial infection that can be transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. A health department spokesman said no people were believed to have been infected. "It is important for the public to know that there have only been four cases of human plague in Los Angeles County residents since 1984, none of which were fatal," the health department chief, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, said in a statement.
Maybe not fatal, but tell that to this gentleman:
Photo Credit: Mama Bird Diaries
Possibly a camper from the Angeles National Forest?
And for those who remember Monty Python:
“I’m not dead, yet…”
Credit to Boing, Boing, where I first saw this story.
Bah Humbug!
I may be getting older but there’s no sign I’m getting any smarter. Cases in point:
The new-to-us fifth wheel trailer is considerably larger than the Airstream. Large enough that it can’t get close enough to the septic tank for periodic pump-offs. Therefore, I went out and acquired a “blue boy” – one of those blue plastic tanks on wheels to transport sewage from an RV to a dump site. So, last night it became evident that it was time to deploy said “blue boy”.
First lesson learned – if I want to avoid crawling around on my hands and knees while being eaten alive by the jaws with wings we call black flies and mosquitoes, I’d better put the kitchen slide-out back in BEFORE attempting to attach to the discharge pipe.
Second, my brand new ‘blue boy” is wondrously airtight. This became evident when I opened the sewage valve, the hose filled and then a small amount of effluent entered the tank. Hardly the slug of wastewater I expected, however. Then, in the light of my flashlight, I observed the tank growing bigger and bigger. Alarmingly so. With visions of the sewage scene from that movie with Robin Williams and Kristin Chenoweth, I reached down with grave trepidation and unscrewed the little cap the level indicator sticks up out of, and WHOOSH! the sewage gods commenced to bestow their bounty upon the interior of the tank. Meanwhile, I was passed out from an overdose of methane and even SWMBO was getting a case of the vapors when the fumes rushed in the open window beside her chair where she was watching Masterchef... Oh, and the little cap with the indicator landed twenty feet away in the grass. Lesson learned – vent the “blue boy” before opening the dump valve on the trailer.
As if Murphy wasn’t yet satisfied with tormenting me, this morning I was in the middle of chores when I pulled a boneheaded mistake that almost cost my best friend his life. I speak of my dog, Iggy. Without thinking clearly, I brought him outside with me off-lead. A squirrel took it upon himself to sound the alarm. Like a shot from a cannon, the furry little phugger was off into the woods chasing the rodent and that was the last we saw of him for over eight hours. Thunderstorm, torrential rains, mosquitoes as big as eagles, eagles the size of pteradactyls, and dump trucks on the camp road, in addition to multiple neighbors in motorized vehicles.
I spent most of the day looking for my missing companion but no luck. Some kids on dirt bikes and four wheelers saw him, but they were in terrorist mode at the time, so the pooch lit out into the woods as the bikes bore down upon him breathing fire and brimstone.
So imagine my surprise when I returned from a McDonald’s run (searching is hungry work, plus I needed a Dunkin Donuts De-Caff Iced Coffee) to find the errant canine firmly ensconced in his crate in the living room, looking contrite and remorseful. I’d just trolled the subdivisions within two miles of here and accosted a woman at the head of our road walking her dogs in vain hope of obtaining a sighting of the fuzzbutt. So the lesson reinforced once again, the Schipperke Escape Artist stays on-lead at all times, regardless of how inconvenient it is to me.
I do hope your day wasn’t quite so educational.
Rick wrote this morning about the horrendous tragedy that occurred in the southern Quebec resort town of Lac-Megantic when an idling freight train mysteriously released all brakes and rolled down upon the center of the unsuspecting town. Neither the engineer nor the conductor were on the train, as it is common practice to hand the controls over to the operators of the west-bound train and then ride home to Montreal as the other crew does the same by going back to the east.
It has been big news here since Saturday morning. About 60 Maine firefighters in some 20 vehicles responded upwards of 100 miles to aid in the battle against the inferno. While the news has been calling it “crude oil,” the fact is it was residual crude recovered by “fracking”, which means it was mixed with water, kerosene and other highly volatile petroleum distillates, heated to the boiling point of water and contained within a pressurized vessel, not at normal atmospheric temperature and pressure as is common practice with crude. So what rolled down the tracks in the wee small hours of Friday night were essentially very large IED’s, highly effective ones at that. And that’s how you simply vaporize an entire club full of people. Merde!
The transport of fracked oil and drilling fluids from the oil fields in Nebraska and the Dakotas to refineries in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has resulted in the usual brouhaha of Earth First!, Sierra Club, and other militant “protectors of the environment” in this bastion of fruits and nuts. Unspoken in the media, but in the forefront of cynical old farts like me, is the very real possibility this was an intentional strike by one of these lug nut groups with too little grasp upon reality. Similar activities have occurred out West and in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I will be terribly saddened if these folks have had their lives stolen to make some dubious ‘point’ in the seemingly never-ending crusade to put trees and chipmunks needs ahead of those of hard working North Americans.
We have a “new” home. New to us, that is. It’s a 2003 Mobile Suites fifth wheel trailer, a 36’ with three slideouts. Impossible to fathom doubling our living space in one fell swoop, but it is true. Photos to come, but friends borrowed (and never returned) our camera and the iphone is suffering from a moribund battery.
Here’s a public Google+ album (https://plus.google.com/photos/102712343152807198578/albums/5898514990209270017) with all of my photos of our new home. There’ll be more in the future, but this will have to do for now.
SWMBO is now a much happier camper. My serenity is gaining, too, with a move to the lake for the summer. A little hectic this first week, what with the Fourth of July holiday and all, but worth it.
Being the consummate procrastinator, as well as under the weather, I failed to make a trip to town Saturday to acquire a pair of flags to place at my parent's grave site. First thing this morning upon dropping SWMBO at work, I made a bee line to Wally World. Sad to say, there was no joy for the personal patriots division to be had in that big box store. None of the other stores around the Mall open before ten, so I was suspecting the the P' s were going to be SOL in the flag department this year. But, what do I spy but activity in the parking lot of Lowes! Upon investigation, flags of the requisite colors, stripes and stars, of a size to go next to a (flat) headstone were immediately procured and the trek north to the grave yard was undertaken. I am the only family member left. My memory isn't what it once was. So, picture me in our one-ton dualie, driving the cart paths in this 200 years plus old cemetery, driving up and down the same few lanes my memory insists is where the family plot is located, swear softly at myself under my breath, unable to "find" the surname stone. Seems someone cut the bushes that flanked said stone. It hasn't moved -- I just didn't recognize the naked granite marker. Stupid memory.
Anyway, today the forecasters claim we will see the sun for the first time in ten days. The grass is over a foot high and the weed wacker won't start. Oh joy. No money in the kitty for a new one, either.
And So It Goes... Hope y'all have a safe and fun holiday.
SWMBO* and I tied the knot on a sunny, balmy noon fourteen years ago today. She was just shaking off the flu, I was coming down with it. By mid-afternoon, we were both sound asleep in our sick bed…
Ten and four years later, the morning dawned gray and wet, slushy snow flakes interspersed with rain while temps never left the thirties all day. SWMBO gave me a hat pin which reads “Excellence In Service” with a tiny bit of bling and the number “14” in the center. All attempts at photographing it with my phone have failed to resolve focus issues. I am such a Neanderthal – I prefer manual focus like my old SLR to these digital screen devices with AF.
We have managed to survive the March of 2013. For most intents, winter is over. We have had almost 79 inches of snow this year, about three inches more than our 30 year average during my tenure here.
Ice is now gray on the lake. The evening news is replete with tales of ice fishermen and others falling through the rotten ice with four wheel drive vehicles, ATVs, snowmobiles and Snow Cats. Those who haven’t gotten their ice houses off the lakes and rivers by now are doomed to lose them AND receive a fine from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (each shanty must have a permanent placard with name, address and phone number of the owner). The dooryard has a large hole, once a puddle, which a year of turning with dual rear-tired axle has dug. The mud is about six inches deep where the sun has melted the frost while early morning is reminiscent of traveling the old “corduroy road” of my childhood.
Most of the snow is gone from the fields and woods. Iggy has been ranging much farther afield, out “covering” his territorial markers in the never-ending battle with the coyotes and foxes. Speaking of coyotes, a rare, white coyote came out of the woods down in West Kennebunk, crawled under a family’s porch and up and died moments later. It did not appear to be starving, so the COD will have to await toxicology tests.
I hope all of you who commemorate the Ascension had a good one. For the pagans amongst my friends and readers, hope you had all the Peeps(TM), hard-boiled eggs and chocolate bunnies, gum drops and other sweets you can stand.
*SWMBO – She Who Must Be Obeyed – my wife.
Addendum: I composed the above on the 1st but ran out of juice for the laptop before I could post the entry to Blogger. So now I’m once again up against the battery limit after reading other’s blogs this morning, so time to hit the SEND button.
In any event, the calendar says the Vernal Equinox is upon us, so I guess I will go get my sunburn cream and lie out in the blizzard in the morning to get some color. Pink and gray are colors, aren't they?
Yes, Punxsutawney Phil, there IS six more weeks of winter to come. Damn it.
Iggy is confused by all of the extreme temperature swings, so he is blowing coat. EVERYWHERE. I haven't had a bite of food, cup of coffee nor brushed my teeth without plucking a long, black Iggy hair from my mouth. Trust me when I say it isn't an improvement to my oatmeal. He is freezing when outside and covering the interior of the trailer in a cast off fur coat.
Nothing else new to report. Just another day in paradise.
And So It Goes.
From Evernote: |
Motorcycle camping in the blizzard – Bennett There Done That - BDN Maine Blogs |
"Snow flakes keep fallin' on my head..."
Mother Nature be messing with my head and I don't like it. Can't really see them in this photo but the ugly little white balls are coming down. It really is that gray out there, though.
I hope y'all have a great day. While the available choices are dismal, I know, get out and vote tomorrow.
Time was, a dip in the 68* lake on a warm day in mid-September was a pleasure. This afternoon, it was simply bloody cold. Ten minutes as a Pops-cicle and I had to sit in the sun for an hour!
Sent from my Kindle Fire
We are still in Maine (August at the lake is wonderful) but the first intimation of things to come will be roaring down from Hudson Bay any day now. Thoughts of winter are starting to crowd the brain. There is an old saying up here that posits ... " We have nine months of winter here. And three months of hard sledding."
I know it is hard for many of my acquaintance to understand this fixation with all things frigid. Winter is not some fluffy scene of cottages snug under the shelter of towering pines, smoke curling lazily from a chimney in a romantic Currier & Ives' Christmas card tableau. No, it is a time of death and privation, curtains standing straight out from the pressure of the wind on the pane, temperatures so low that hitting the seat of the truck to answer a neighbor's call for help is like sitting on a frozen stack of 2x4's, only with less give. All things mechanical not coddled and warmed electrically simply refuse to move. Cold so severe that unprotected skin freezes that hard, dirty grey of death you know will never come back. You know, the kind of weather so awful that -10 F. Is celebrated as a "thaw".
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