Pound, pound, hammer, hammer, saw, saw…..

 

 

It’s very noisy here today.  That means progress! Yay!  Should go to the lake but there are always questions to be answered so I need to stay around home as much as possible.  They are putting in the insulation today so that we will be warm and toasty and working on the plumbing.

Speaking of warm and toasty:

It is getting hotter again.  Not as humid this time which is nice just blue skies with puffy clouds and temps in the mid 80’s. Perfect.

We headed to the coast again this past weekend.  We never tire of the scenery and of course the seafood.  Burp.  Sorry about that……

We met up with the Hubs sister, BIL and the triplets.  It doesn’t seem possible that they are 18 years old.  I remember perfectly the day they came into the world three months early.  They were tiny, weighing in around a couple of pounds each.  We drove to Boston to see them and SIL who was doing amazingly well.

Now they are college bound this fall and other then Charlie the dog it’s going to be a very empty nest for SIL and BIL.  (I may have to send Noodles down to keep things hopping.) They turned out to be the nicest kids you could ever want to meet.

Brett-----Lauren-----Neal 

Lauren is a chip off the ole’ block like her Mom and me in the horse department.  She is an excellent rider and does lots of things that I am afraid to do like JUMPING!  I always enjoyed watching her lessons when we got a chance to go visit them in Massachusetts. She is a sweetie.

Brett is going into Christian Ministries at college and hopes to be a youth pastor when he graduates.  He has a wonderful sense of humor and writes like a pro.  I always thought he might go into sports journalism as he knows more about sports than just about anyone I know!

Neal is a runner and is headed to the Midwest to college. He takes lots of ribbing from his uncle the Hubs and can give it right back.  We never got to see any of his meets in Boston unfortunately but kept up through e-mail and pictures.  We are proud of them all!!

Here they are with Grampa.  Sure wish my MIL could have been around to watch them grow up but she passed away a few months before they were born.

 

This is Charlie.  He will now be the king of the roost.  He is a super dog and has curly hair on his back!

Here is the whole family with Grampa, even Charlie down in the right hand corner.  :o)

The Hubs with his bib on getting ready to chow down on that lobster!

The ferry was just coming in while we were there.

The tide was out.

When the tide comes in this is completely covered.

This is on the way home, part of the bay that runs into the ocean.

A lot of the granite used for counter tops comes from this area.

Got up the next morning and found these sleeping critters on my deck. They had pulled the cushions off the chairs and were nice and cozy!

Even Mom raccoon was there with them, that’s her in the background hoping for some peanuts or marshmallows.  They aren’t going to know what to think when the old deck is torn off!

On Saturday we were at the lake and it was beautiful there. Friends dropped in and we were all sitting out by the water watching three boys having a ball jumping off the dock next door.  All of a sudden they threw their swim suits out in the lake and proceeded to swim nekkid.  The rest of the afternoon.  In full daylight. With people all around.  Good grief they weren’t toddlers either, they must have been around 10, 8 and 6.  Too old to be swimming a-la- nu*de!!!  The Mom came down and we all thought that would be the end of that but she was laughing and snapping pictures of them.  I guess I am an old fuddy duddy but I don’t think that was appropriate.  In this day and age with things being put on the Internet I wouldn’t want to take a chance that my kids would show up on there.  You never know who is lurking around.  There, rant finished. 

Not to say that there wasn’t any skin*ny dipping back in the day, but never during daylight hours with an audience!! Good grief!

Heat Wave!

 

 

Do you know how unusual this is for us up here in Tundra Country?  We are setting all kinds of records for heat with no real relief in sight.  Thank goodness for air conditioning!  I know for a lot of you this is just a normal part of summer but for those of us who like temps in the 70’s it’s a bit daunting.

It’s been way too hot to ride the horses, they have been sweating just standing under the fans.  Scooter is doing well.  Funsize and I rode together one day and he was much calmer being out with Lil’ Bud rather then with Miss T racing and tearing around on Kipper.  He wanted to run too but I’m not really into that much any more especially where he is so big and strong and my balance just ‘ain’t’ what it used to be.

The project continues on the sunroom.  They put the radiant heat tubes down one day this week and then covered them with some kind of stuff that looks like soupy cement.  I think they called it Jipcreek.  I will be sooooooooooo glad when it is done and the crews are gone.

We are working on Paws On Parade now at the humane society.  I do most of my work from home making calls to get sponsors.  Noodles is such a good helper holding all of my paperwork in place!  He knows how much we love all of our animals at BHS and wants to raise lots of money to take good care of them. :o)

He also likes to help me in the barn.  Scooter is rather curious about him.  I’m glad he knows enough to hide under the Gator when the boys are around!

Scoot is a big boy, he must be close to 16 hands.  He is so good with T and D, they just love him and he will put his head right down so that they can scratch his head.  The vet says that he is too chunky but so am too I so we make a good pair!  :o)

The raspberries are ripe now.  I love to just stand there and eat them.  I have to walk right by them when I go to the barn so I keep them pretty well picked.  This one was gone two seconds after I took the picture……..

We are going to the lake today and tomorrow after church we are headed to The Lobster Pound with family that is in town for the week.  Son, DIL and the grands are going to Boston today to see a Red Sox game tonight. I hope it cools off as it was about 120* on the field this week!!!  I’d rather be at the lake!!!  :o)

Coastal Maine

 

What a great weekend we had at the coast and the lake.  It was glorious weather with temps near 90* inland but much cooler near the water. Mom and Dad stayed home and took care of the boys.  Scoot continues to settle in and the grands LUV him!  They came in the other day and said they found his itchy spot and it’s on his forehead.  He puts his head right down so that they can scratch it with their fingernails.  :o)  Funsize and I tried to get some good pictures of him but he was pooped from our ride and the ole’ ears were just not going to go up for us.

We took a ride to the Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park for lobster stew and popovers which is always a treat.  I’ll meet you there in a few weeks Jo-Lynne!  Yum!  There is a very interesting pergola outside of the entrance and it is covered with wisteria early in the season.  It makes for lovely cool shade while waiting in line to get into the restaurant.

After we ate the we rode around a small part of the park and got some pictures.  I love all the stone over passes.  These were put in during the Depression by John D Rockefeller to create jobs for folks in the area.

The rocky coast of Maine.  We do have beaches but mostly the shoreline is like this.

Always lots of boats.

I would like to have walked out on this little peninsula and just soaked up the view.

Something caught my eye and it was mom duck with two ducklings.

 

Here is the very patient Hubs waiting in the car for me.  xoxox

 

There are lots of wonderful Inns to stay in.

Mountains surround the park.

The next day we stayed at the lake with lots of friends and family joining us.  Again it was gorgeous lake weather.  We decided to make some ice cream with the grands sooooooooooo with direction book in hand and the ice cream maker we started the process which according to the book would take about 20 minutes once we got all the ingredients in.

Miss T breaking the eggs.  Yep, six.

DIL reading the directions and of course I was putting my two cents worth in.

Mixing things up.

Who had that camera!!!

See that little arm around me?  Oh how I love those grand kids!

Stirring up the ice and rock salt.

I wish I could show you yummy ice cream being consumed by all but after letting it churn for two hours it still wasn’t thickening.  We finally put it in the freezer where it remains………..

Six cups of heavy cream----$9.54

three cups milk-------------$1.00

Six eggs-------------------$1.30

Sugar----------------------$1.00

Rock salt-------------------$1.79

Fun of the experience with the kids----------PRICELESS!

(Remember that ad?)

The construction continues here at the house.  I am VERY WEARY of it all to be honest.  Having people in and out from 6 AM till 4 PM every day is exhausting, plus all the sawing, hammering etc… It wasn’t so bad until they took out the big doors and windows and covered them with plastic, that doesn’t cut the sound at all now….. I keep telling myself that it will be well worth it when it’s all done.  :o)

It’s going to be a scorcher today.  My sis and husband are staying at the lake this week so I may go down and sit with them a while.  They are predicting heavy rain and thunder storms this afternoon so I’m keeping an eye on the sky, don’t want the boys out if there is a storm!