Anyone need a nice dog?

I had my first board meeting with the Humane Society yesterday. It was such a nice time and seems to be a great group of people to work with. Their enthusiasm was contagious and you could tell that they had their heart invested in this as well as their time and energy! The first fundraiser that I will be participating in will be Paws On Parade which is going to be in September. I don't have a dog so will have to borrow one for the walk but that won't be any problem, I have lots of friends with dogs.

We had 20 Pekingese dogs come in the day before from a home that had 30 of them. The other ten went to another shelter. They are just adorable now that they have been bathed and the fleas are gone. This was a surrender. The people just couldn't take care of them any more. I'm sure they will go quickly as they are so cute. They look like Gizmo in that movie The Gremlins.

I need to get busy making some small blankets out of all the fleece that I have in my sewing room. I just haven't gotten to it yet this summer. Also I need to ask my neighbors and friends for old pillowcases as they use them in case of a fire to put the cats in, tie it but yet the cats can breathe and be moved without hurting them. Hopefully they will never need to use them but they have to have everything in place in case they do.

We're headed to Boston this weekend to meet up with Hubby's sister and family. We are going to go down Rt. 1 which is the coastal route and hit The Lobster Pound for some lobster stew for lunch OF COURSE. I love taking that route and seeing all the little coastal towns along the way. On Sunday all the men are going to a Red Sox game but SIL and I are doing what every red blooded American woman likes to do, we're going SHOPPING! Yeah!! They have so much more to offer then here in my little corner of the world so I am really looking forward to it!

Funsize is going to stay here while we are gone and take care of the horses and cats. She's here every morning doing chores anyhow so it won't be much of a change for her except she'll have Noodles sleeping with her each night! I must remember to tell her about little stray kitty too and to feed him/her. I still haven't been able to touch him/her yet but it takes time.

Well this is going to be the bionic knees home pretty soon. Hubby had his check up this morning in Boston and needs a partial knee replacement and Mom had her check up here in town and she needs a complete knee replacement! I guess she is going to have hers done in September and Hubby is going to wait till after all our obligations (and vacation!) in October and have his done in November. I D.R.E.A.D driving in Boston, it has to be one of the worst places to get around especially for this country girl! Sigh.......

I made the pumpkin whoopee pies that I talked about in my last post. ( I will post the recipe soon, they are that good!) I was going to take a picture of the finished product but the are ALL GONE! If you like pumpkin you will love these and they have a cream cheese/ confectionery sugar/ butter filling that is just scrumptious! No calories of course........Ahem........ Anyhow, my two favorite little ankle biters came over and noticed the left over filling on the counter and wanted to finish it off. I said that would be fine. Here's what happened before all was said and done..........

They decided they wanted to go over and show their great-grandmother too! Let's just say that none of the filling went to waste!

I won't be able to check in with you all over the weekend but I will get caught up when we get home! Have a wonderful weekend!

Swingsets, swimming and sunshine!

My two little grand kids are here with me this morning keeping the place hopping. Noodles has been a constant companion playing with them but now he's had enough so has gone outside for parts unknown. The surprise of the day was the new swing set and they have already put it to good use. I even had a turn!

The horses didn't quite know what to think about it and kept looking and looking! Buddy kept his eye right on them!

Skipper, who btw had just rolled in the mud, was quite intrigued.


Nick really was interested but stayed close to the barn.

Then he decided to give Skip a run for his money! Skip put the boots right to him!

Finally everyone settled down and got back to the business of grazing. These pictures are rather dark but it's very dark and overcast today, not a great day to take pictures.

I have some annuals that decided to come again this year and not in the place they were planted, but in the veggie garden! They are cleome, purple, pink and white.

Saturday was DIL's Mom's birthday so we all went out to their place on the lake and had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect and the kids had the best time riding on the tube behind Bampie's little boat. D loves it!

Of course the bigger kids have to do some more challenging things while going along on the tube! Look at those smiles!!!

Cousin K is really good at it!

There was a beautiful loon just puttering around seemingly oblivious to all the commotion.

How blessed we are to have such lovely lakes to enjoy and have family times! :o)

Random Friday

We have been having the weirdest weather the last couple of days. Very eerie weather, dark, foreboding and humid. Yesterday we had tornado warnings which is a very rare occurrence in these parts. As the police say there was a 'hinky' feeling in the air. I bet I put the horses in and out four times. I got soaked several times including when I was grilling hamburgers out on the back deck! Nick spent most of the day in the barn even though he could go out other then the times I put them in their box stalls. He's a wimp when it comes to rain but yesterday I had that funny feeling too.

We lost our power in the morning about 8:30. The outage stretched for miles which included 190,000 customers. We have a huge hulk of a generator out back which came on immediately. I guess lightening had struck a hydro junction. I dislike the generator as it looks like a small apartment out back but when we need it I change my mind quickly. It keeps everything up and running in our house and my parents apartment.

I had several appointments to go to so called ahead to my hairdressers to see if she wanted me to come in or not. I was just having a haircut so she said she could do that, no problem. Hummmmmm....a haircut in the semi dark, that was to be a new experience. Also called the chiropractor and they were signing people in with a flashlight but they also said to come in. Don't need electricity to have an adjustment.

Do need electricity for a pedicure but by the time I got there the power was back on and my toes are now Keys To My Karma Red. Where does OPI come up with the names of their colors??? The salesclerk suggested that they smoked some wacky-tobacco before they started thinking up the names. Hey, you never know. What OPI colors do you all use?????

When OPI first came out I thought it was pronounced Oppie like the kid on the Andy Griffith Show. DUH! Would you have admitted to that?!

The guys are here to put up the new swing set for the grandchildren. It's pouring cats and dogs out so hopefully it will stop before long. This is what the swing set looks like now. I'll put in the finished product next post! :0)


Big news in Maine this week! A lady opened her washing machine and found a snake six feet long in there! She hurriedly put the cover back on and called the police who called animal control who called the exotic pet guy. They are saying this thing came up through the pipes but according to my plumber there is no way under the sun that that could happen. With all the traps and small pipes it's just not possible.

Sooooooooo...........I wonder how it got in there????? I think someone played a joke on her but what do I know. We don't have pythons here in Maine so they think someone had it as a pet, got sick of it and just let it go. Not a very responsible thing to do!

My mother was going through some pictures yesterday and found this one of my grandfather when he was going into World War 1. He was 19 years old at the time. He has been gone for many years but if he were alive he would be 108 as he was born in 1900.

This is my porch swing. I LOVE my porch swing and call it my Walton's Swing after the show the Walton's which is a favorite of mine. I had this swing specially made and it is long enough to take a nap on and wide enough so you don't fall off if you move. I have rocked my grand kids to sleep on this swing many times when they were babies and sat there with them while they napped. They still love the swing and are usually on it about every time they come over. Now they are more adventurous and like to go fast and hit the house if at all possible! Also they like to stand up on it like they are surfing...........I don't like that as I don't want them to fall. We also like to blow bubbles out there and have Noodles chase the bubbles. Another thing I like is to sit out there during a storm and watch the lightening. I used to do that with my son so that he wouldn't be scared of thunder storms and it worked. We get some pretty good lightening as we are right beside the Penobscot River and it seems to follow the river. Everyone should have a swing. We had a swing on our porch when I was growing up and we loved it. That's my advice for the day, if you have a place anywhere on your property put in a swing for you kids or grand kids! :o)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! :o)

Monday/Tuesday Tidbits

Monday again. The weekends fly by faster then the weeks. Yesterday after church we went to the coast to another of our favorite restaurants The Jordan Pond House. It has been there for many many years and serves the best popovers and homemade strawberry jam that you would ever want! It is located in Acadia National Park which is one of the most gorgeous parks in the US right on the Atlantic ocean. We have been there many times but each time we are still are amazed at the beauty of our surroundings.

Bar Harbor is the little town on the fringe of the park. It is a place where old money is abundant and some of the homes are palatial. On the way down FIL was telling about how when he was a youngster of 15 or 16 he would drive the farm truck down there loaded with produce to sell. Being a country boy he was always in awe of the big fancy black cars with the capped drivers taking the ladies in their big hats around for their errands and social gatherings.

It's more of a touristy place now with little shops bursting at the seams with every conceivable trinket to tempt the vacationers to spend their money. There are many cruise ships that stop there so there is no shortage of clientele. We like to browse through the shops occasionally but usually try to get there before the height of the tourist season.

Funsize, FIL, Hubby and I all had yummy lunches. I had the veggie quiche with salad and Funsize had the lobster stew and baked brie. Of course the main reason we went was for the popovers. They didn't disappoint us to say the least. Of course I FORGOT my camera so I can't make you all drool! I know my niece Jo-lynne (Musings Of A Housewife) is drooling as she has been there many times and FIL is already talking about going again when she is here on vacation!

Jay, my grandnephew, you know the one eating the HUGE clams a few posts back, was here last night after church. He usually comes home with us for a couple of hours and then his Dad picks him up. I asked him if he was in the mood for a movie, a clean, no swearing, no sex, no violence type movie and he said he was. We checked through all of the listings and finally decided on The Bucket List. I'm probably the last one on the face of the earth that hadn't seen it yet so I was glad he picked that one. It was good. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are great actors, we enjoyed it very much.

Tuesday

Today was Date Day. Hubby and I headed to the coast late this morning to go to our favorite seafood restaurant. It's about an hour and 15 minute drive and we never tire of the sights along the way. Penobscot Bay is just beautiful as it flows out into the Atlantic.

The food was great as always. I had a bowl of lobster stew that was to die for and Hubby had lobster. I let him break one of my ultimate rules and he brought his Blackberry in with him and answered a couple of e-mails while I was perusing the gift shop. Don't you just love the bib? Do you think people know it's a blogger when they take pictures of their food? heehee!

Our Bird Seed Bandits were here again the other night. Mom and her three babies that are living in my hayloft came out for a snack. They are so cute and have grown so much over the summer. I don't know how long they stay with the mother but they are getting to be almost as big as she is. They don't cause any problems so we don't mind having them around, in fact we enjoy watching them and giving them treats. They LOVE marshmallows!

Tammy over at Family Doin's has given me a nice award. She had this to say about my site and I am so glad to hear that she can visualize how lovely it is here out in the country in Maine!

2) Midlife Mom from Home on the Range. Visiting her, you can almost smell the country air as she tells about her life on her beautiful acreage, complete with horses!

Thank you Tammy so much, it is such a treat to receive an award! In my next post I am supposed to pass this on to seven more people so I will try to do this although it is soooooo hard as I enjoy each and every site that I regularly read. I already have the Award Police after me so I guess this time I will try to pick only seven!

If you haven't met Tammy yet go on over and say howdy. She has a wonderful site and tackles some really good subjects in her Marriage Monday series. They recently got back from an eventful road trip to Dis*ney Land and it was complete with some escapades that reminded me of something out of the movies!

Guess that's it for tonight. Hope you all are having a good week. We finally got some rain so we are all doing the Happy Dance and so is the lawn!!

Random Friday

Well the weekend is almost here again. Friday night is a good night to have pizza so Hubby is stopping at our favorite pizza place for this evenings dinner. The best thing is that it tastes soooooo good and the other best thing is that I don't have to clean up other then to throw the empty boxes in the trash. How good is that? I know you are all nodding and agreeing with me right at this moment! :o)

Our second clutch of babies in the barn are learning how to fly so I figured I'd better get some pictures quickly before they all leave the nest. I'm wondering if Mom will have a third clutch as it's still pretty early. They were in a rather awkward place to get a shot but here is what I got. I don't know what kind they are, they aren't really as big as these pictures make them look, probably some kind of sparrow.

We had a full moon a couple nights ago. It was so pretty out back with the shadows of the barn and trees showing in the glow of the moon. The second picture is one I took with a different shutter speed and it came out rather eerie looking, I think I must have moved a bit.

We've been having a little visitor lately. I hope she has a home and is just stopping by for playtime with Munchie and Noodles. She doesn't come every day but when she does she eats up a storm. She looks enough like Munchie to be a sister! I can't get up to her yet but she doesn't run when I come out the back door, just keeps her distance.

Sarah over at Genesis Moments gave me a lovely award this week! Thank you so much Sarah, it's so much fun to get awards!!! Now I am supposed to pass it on to 5 more people and I just tried to do that and I can't pick just 5! I made a list and then I kept thinking of some others that I thought should have it and then I thought of some more and it was driving me crazy trying to decide and not wanting to leave anyone out! From the length of that sentence you can see that I am stressing over this! Soooooooo I want to pass it on to all of my regular readers. I know that's against the rules and I hope the Award Police don't come knocking on my door but each and every one of my regular readers have sites that fit the criteria and I enjoy them ALL so much! So if you want to be a better person then me and follow the rules here they are:

You have to pick 5 blogs that you think deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given
her or him the award itself.
The award-winner and the one who has given the prize must show the link of the “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award. http://arteypico.blogspot.com/

Janera over at My Garden Hat is having a nice give away! She sells Gold Canyon candles and the one she is giving is the Sweet Pea fragrance, how yummy is that??? Hop on over and throw your hat in the ring and tell her I sent you then I will get lots of extra points and will probably win! heehee! You see there's a reason I am being so nice and telling you about this yummy give away......ahem....confession is good for the soul and bad for the reputation! ( I can't get this to link so just try her addy which is: mygardenhat.blogspot.com )

On the way back in from the barn taking the pictures of the baby birds Buddy came sauntering over looking for a carrot so I snapped about 10 pictures of him. I'll only put in two so that your eyes don't glaze over! I think by the looks he has gained some weight over the summer!

People know that I like animals so they send me the cutest pictures. Here are a few of my favorites! Enjoy!

I am just SO tired!

Sharing dinner?

What do YOU want?

I think they are singing the Hallelujah Chorus!

I think I had this haircut in the 70's!

Guess that's it for this Random Friday. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!! :o)