A Walk in the Woods of Augusta

It's early morning and we're going on a walk behind our house in Augusta. Care to join us?

It's very important for you to dress properly if you walk in the Maine woods in July.

The gear, modeled here by DP (with Cooper), begins with a mosquito net for your head.

A long sleeved shirt (this one is a special mosquito proof shirt), long pants, water proof boots (DP wears Muck Boots) and light weight gloves to cover your hands. Dogs and leashes are optional.

For additional ammo against the 30 odd deer flies and innumerable mosquitoes which will surround you during this adventure, a dabble of Buzz-off ecofriendly insect repellent is a must (okay for dogs, too)!

We'll steer clear of the bogs and swamp areas as much as possible today.

The area was recently logged by the owner (our land lord).

This is my favorite shot from the outing and is now my wallpaper. I love the mix of rich textures and lush greens against the starkness of the fallen tree with a misty background.

That's Buzz in the lower left.

This is where some turkeys slept the night before. 

We didn't see them, but the dogs enjoyed a bit of turkey scat (yuk)!

All sorts or wildflowers sprinkle color here and there (this is where most bloggers will name the flowers in the picture...um, I think there are some clover, hens and chicks, no, butter and eggs...yeah, well never mind that).

 Hey, I know these are daisies and little yellow things!

Anyway, this is our destination, a boardwalk courtesy of Central Maine Power.

They are replacing the power lines and poles. 

The boardwalk makes a temporary road with a lot less destruction to the environment.

Cooper, still on leash, Stanze to the right and Buzz and Rex on point.

 Okay, here is a picture of me...It's okay, I laughed when I saw it too :). This boardwalk is the reason why I'm able to make this trek, as it makes it easy on the ankles. 

See the turkey feather sticking out of my breast pocket?

It's a souvenir for the kitties.

The boardwalk is very simply constructed.

This is a fledgling osprey in his nest, watching us carefully.

...and here is his mommy.

A smidgen of red breaks through the greens.

Oh, look! These are cat-o-nine-tails!

Although not the best looking ones I've ever seen.

Here is the end of the road! 

DP usually keeps going and takes a left into a clearing through the woods and loops around. She makes this trek almost every day.

Today, we'll just turn around and walk back.

Thanks for joining us!

~Lisa

Powerless

Well this is disappointing. My power just went out and now I’m on battery to write this. Just when I think I have nothing to write about…Ping! I have an idea handed to me.

Got to love the power of creativity.

All winter long we got a flicker here, a flicker there and kept our electricity flowing. I think we had one ½ hour outage. Tonight we have a little rain storm and…Ping!

I say “Ping” because that’s the noise the microwave makes when it goes out with the power and also “ping” when it comes back on.

It scares the dogs to no end.

That ping is heard several times a day everyday when we cook stuff in the microwave, but when the power goes out…the ping becomes the boogie monster. When I let Buzz (our female Jack Russell Terrier) out for potty, she went into the woods and planted herself with ears flat and tail tucked. She would not come no matter what treats I promised her. I had to go retrieve her physically…all this in the rain, of course.

Why is it when the power goes out, I immediately feel like I have to go to the bathroom and I get hungry?

Well, luckily we store lots of bottles of tap water for just these occasions, so at least I won’t go thirsty for the next two hours. That’s what Central Maine Power’s recording said when I just called them from my cell phone (digital phones go out with the power). It must have been a big accident or major issue because they listed not only my town and the surrounding towns, but also the city of Augusta. It’s huge!

I managed to swallow a luke warm dinner that was sitting in the microwave. I only got through the first half of the cooking process. Not totally bad, but not recommended for daily consumption. The temperature of it wasn’t the worst, it was just not cooked through and a bit chewy in places it ought not to be.

Well! There now, the power just came back on! That wasn’t even a whole hour. And now I’m done!

I love electricity {big sigh}.

Leaving the County

As we were driving down Route 1A from Fort Fairfield into Mars Hill, the wind turbines whirled most productively atop the hill in the distance. It was only overcast up there and we did not hit rain until passed Houlton. The brown snow patched fields and endless evergreens were cast even grayer than the day before without benefit of sun, and I got thinking that I may have been harsh on the County in my previous post.

What were some of the good things I saw and felt the day before? On our way up (before we got off the interstate and into the towns) I saw three pairs of “birds of prey” in separate nests built on power line poles. In two cases one bird was sitting in the nest while the other perched beside it. In one sighting, both birds were in the nest. I could not tell which were hawks, ospreys or eagles. But I most definitely saw an American bald eagle soaring over I-95 North. When the sun shone through the brilliant white tail feathers and head as we drove under him, there was no question what type of bird he was. Now that was a gift.

Where ever we stopped, the Dead River gas station, a restaurant, our hotel, our clients, the people we talked to were very friendly and went out of their way to be helpful. I thought to myself, they are the employed ones up here in the County. They are the best at what they do and are grateful to have a job. When I was packing up to leave the hotel in the morning, I got a knock on the door and a woman’s voice said “housekeeping.” When I opened the door, I must confess I was shocked to see a young white woman with red hair and a big smile. She is a Mainer and not an immigrant. Looking around I noticed the whole housekeeping staff were cheerful, laughing young American women. I wondered if this was a sign of how bad the economy is…that Americans are choosing to work the usually less desirable (lower paying) jobs.

We were there in the County to deliver bad news. That’s our job. We tell our clients, “Guess what? You are going to pay more for your health insurance than you did last year, and you are going to get less coverage. Okay? Sign here.”  In one meeting of a small group of just two people, I was getting punchy by this time of day when I said, “It’s simple. The insurance carrier says ‘You-pay-more. You-get-less.’” Then we all laughed at the truth. My boss and I try to make it fun and friendly to pay more and get less. That’s our job too - as health insurance brokers.

Observations in The County

Once in the County, to stay in Maine, you must turn off Interstate 95 before you hit Canada. There isn’t much to see along the Interstate so by this time the town of Houlton looks like a vibrant happening town. In a way, it is because as we continue on Route 1 and continue to the following towns there is one unkempt house after another. Yards filled with debris, some that have obviously spilled out of the house, right out of the front door, filling the porch and down the steps onto the lawn. At 50 mph, it’s hard to decipher just what’s in the jumble of stuff, refrigerators, barbeque grills, mattresses stand out. There are very few houses that are painted, and those just have a layer of vinyl siding coming unglued. This agricultural area is clearly struggling and was before our economy crashed.

Every few miles along Route 1 there is a small clearing with a park bench, a plaque and a large ball mounted on a pole. It’s a planet. Each one you drive by represents another of the planets in our solar system. Saturn was my favorite, but even these “sculptures” are dilapidated and crumbing with disrepair.  I guess it was someone’s project they got a grant for to brighten the drive along the route. It probably worked great, but now the planets have gotten lost amid the depression.

A striking stand out feature smacks your line of vision when you spot the first windmill. And that is truly an old word for it because these are not windmills in that old romantic sense for certain, these are wind turbines.  They look like crisp, clean, kinetic sculptures with some alien conspirator’s purpose. The first one looks out of place, a mile or so in the distance, but as we drive on and get closer we see there are actually several wind turbines aligning the top of the hill. They are built on Mars Hill, in fact. It’s a marvel, a wonder, a spectacle that is slightly frightening in its highly unnatural appearance. On this very windy day they were all turning at the same slow and deliberate speed, but not in unison.

As we pull into the truly vibrant town of Presque Isle (by-the-way, it is not an island in any way, nor is it near the water), there is one lonely wind turbine off to our left on the campus of the university.  It looms large because it is much closer to the road than the others on Mars Hill. It really creeped me out when I looked at it because on this very windy day it wasn’t moving at all.