FIMBY

Today I'm tired, very tired. But I'm also thankful for the sun finally shining on our little corner of the world. The first day nice enough this month, August 13th for pete's sake, to go to the beach.

So, I'm sitting at the beach with one eye on my fish and the other on this notebook*. In the warm sunshine, listening to the splashing and laughter I'm able to forget the mess I left behind at home.

We've just had an intense 2 nights and one day visit with three Appalachian Trail thru hikers. A visit that included a potluck supper last night opened up to coworkers, homeschoolers, friends and pretty much any ol' stranger that wanted to come.

This morning Damien drove our new friends back to the trail in the mountains about 1.5 hours from our home. I was left to face my own "mountain" of clean up. Three disheveled guest beds (I'd like to point out we don't actually have a guest room so these beds are located here, there and everywhere in the house), a front porch full of trail debris left behind by smelly backpacks and mounds of dishes and food littered floors from hosting 20 people, half of them rugrats 9 & under, for supper last night. Faced with this daunting reality I did the only sensible thing to do. Left it all and came to the beach.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have hosted and met the three hikers who left this morning, they had trail names (an AT thru hikers tradition) so this is what I'll use to describe them.

(Sm)ellie, the quiet, well prepared and easy going woman from Georgia. On her way to grad school (2nd time around) to further her studies in the interconnectedness of anthropology, bio-medicine and computer science(!). Philly, the storytelling cartoonist from Virginia and Kentucky. Also on his way back to school to pursue a playwright and acting career. And of course Vagabond, also known as Daren Wendell, the man walking around the world on the Earth Expedition to raise awareness and funds for the Blood:Water Mission in Africa. A guy who literally owns only the what he is carrying on his back (Myke you would of loved meeting this guy).

What an awesome experience and privilege to host these folks in our home. If you ever have a chance to put up AT thru hikers in your home - do it! I'd do it again in an instant once the fridge was re-stocked and the sheets washed. People who have been hiking 15-20 miles a day for months, sleeping in the rainy woods and eating ramen noodles and potato flakes for days are pleased as punch with whatever hospitality you have to offer. Just make sure to have lots of food on hand. Hot water and laundry soap doesn't hurt either.

Someday when our family is trekking through North American mountains, backpacking across Europe or doing mission work in Costa Rica, carrying our beds and shelter on our backs I hope we'll be able to crash on someone's floor and get a fresh meal. Afterall, as our guests told us "on the trail, hikers take care of hikers". We're all on a journey, a trek through life. Too bad more people don't live by the creed "travelers on this journey of life take care of fellow travelers". What a nicer world that would be.

Show hospitality, share your table and your garden veggies, make up a bed on your floor. Although you'll be providing rest to the weary you'll be the one enriched. Let's take care of fellow pilgrims on this journey of life.

*post written yesterday in my notebook while at the beach.

Ack! I haven't blogged for 3 days. I'm starting to twitch.

It's been a busy weekend. The sun shone (hallelujah!) and once the flood waters in the backyard receded I tried to rescue the beans and staked leggy perennials. We had a supper around the firepit with friends and watched an outdoor movie at a riverfront park in our community. Ah... summer.

But mainly we started to pack and plan for camping later this month. My contribution was to spend 5 hours yesterday, our anniversary, at the laundromat washing and drying our down sleeping bags. Which take like, forever to dry. But are oh so warm, fluffy and light so I guess are worth the extra time and expense of cleaning them.

At least I didn't just sit there mindlessly watching the tube. In between swiping my "laundromat debit card" a gazallion times (coin-less technology but alas no wi-fi) I finished putting together the kid's portfolios for their yearly homeschool review which takes place this week.

An evening out with friends at our favorite restaurant in the Old Port redeemed "the anniversary" aspect of the day. Wonderful Japanese food, with lots of laughs and these lovely gladiolus given as an anniversary gift.

As if that wasn't enough activity for the weekend we also prepared to host Daren Wendell of Earth Expedition, for a couple days this week.

My best friend Damien (my date yesterday night) has been following this guy's trek for months and invited him to stay at our house on his way through Maine. We weren't exactly sure when he'd be here, sometime in August. When you're walking around the world it's kind of hard to pinpoint these things exactly.

Well, we now know exactly when he will be here. In a couple hours. Damien's picking Daren up right now, along with 2 extras. Apparently, when you find friends on the trail you stick together.

I'm so excited. Finally we're having some strangers stay, something I've wanted for years. To host travelers and pilgrims, practicing real Christian hospitality.

We're also planning a potluck supper for tomorrow night. If you're reading this you're invited. Daren's not just hiking the world for fun. He's doing it to help raise awareness for Blood:Water Mission. And we're hosting a potluck, hopefully the RSVP list will outgrow our home, to help him spread the Blood:Water Mission message, "to build clean wells in Africa, to support medical facilities caring for the sick, to make a lasting impact in the fight against poverty, injustice and oppression in Africa".

So, we're all really jazzed around here. To have someone stay in our home who's hiked the Appalachian Trail (something my crazy family aspires to), who's walking around the world, and who's raising awareness for something we believe but haven't done much about. Lets face it, "life" easily gets in the way of all our convictions to fight poverty, injustice and oppression..

Woo-Wee. There is some serious fun happening in my back yard...

PS. If you want to come to the potluck you have to RSVP for directions and such. Contact me here.

Ugh... the first week of August, the pinnacle of summer, has been a wash out, literally. It's rained, rained and rained some more. Those beautiful beet juice pictures were taken on the one sunny day this week. Crops are rotting in the fields at the farm, my bean plants were floating this morning in my yard and my beautiful tomato plants that I've mulched, staked and lovingly pruned are all ravaged by blight - AH!! It's been a frustrating gardening week.

The artistic prompt today at Shutter Sisters is abundance. Specifically, "where is the too much, too little, never enough showing up in your camera lens". That's easy to answer today.

Too much green (or should I say purple) beans. I don't like canning but I had no choice when we got our 5 lb bag of beans yesterday from the farm. With last week's 5 lb bag I blanched and froze, gave away and of course ate. With yesterday's bag I made 7 jars of dilly beans this morning, and I still have beans left over!

Canning beans takes forever. All that rinsing, washing, boiling, and stuffing each individual bean by hand into the jars. So not my thing... but neither is wasting food I've paid for and I know on a snowy January day the kids and I will appreciate those dilly beans with our lunch.

We also have too much rain. Way to much rain. This morning we tramped through the swamp, also known as our back yard, rescuing drowning slugs and arthropods of various sorts. So I guess you could say we have too little sun.

Too much rain, too much beans (a blessing I suppose), too little sun and never enough fresh tomatoes. That about sums up the first week of August.

As you know I'm taking a break from writing long philosophical rants and soap-box posts. But I have so much to say about local and organic foods being for everyone, not only those who can afford to shop at Whole Foods (we certainly can't), that sticking to this writing break is killing me...

Oh well, the photos will have to speak for me. The kids and I attended the Local Foods Festival at our farmer's market this week, organized by our favorite community organization, Lots To Gardens,

That pretty much says it folks. Oh, and my kids learned their first parade slogan this week "We want local foods. When do we want it? NOW!" My children are community activists and I'm darn proud of it!

Picked pounds of blueberries (hadn't planned to but how could we resist all those berries) on a hike with friends up Bald Mountain this weekend. Read Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey tonight to the kids. I love Maine.

Yesterday we lived summer, under a bright blue sky. Hiking up and through a rushing brook, wading in a mountain top pond, picnicing and snoozing on the rocks, eating handfuls of wild blueberries.

Tumbledown Brook Waterfall

East Corner of Tumbledown Pond

Webb Lake, Mount Blue State Park

Wild Blueberries on Tumbledown

Ok, so Friday was a tough day. I guess looking back it wasn't quite so bad. All I had to do was hike uphill (both ways it seemed) 5 miles through bug infested forest and muddy bogs. I take that back, it was nasty.

Saturday however, was a gift from God. A late breakfast. Gorgeous blue sky and sunshine, mind you Friday was the same but my head was in the trees and eyes on the trail so I didn't pay much attention. The highlight of the day was water, especially after hot sweaty Friday.

Albany Mountain reflected in Crocker Pond

First, we headed to Angevine Park in Bethel to play in the mountain fed creek. The kids also splashed a bit in the pond but I'm more of a creek gal myself. Oh, and Angevine Park had the most beautiful public restrooms, seriously. You really notice those things when you've been using outhouses. After a picnic lunch at the park we headed into the village of Bethel for an outdoor art show and pit-stop at a cafe.

Cooling off in mountain creek at Angevine park in Bethel, ME

We spent the latter part of the afternoon and suppertime at Screw Auger Falls in Grafton Notch State Park. Lovely, lovely, lovely. More cold refreshing water. The kids and Damien explored the rock formations in Bear River past the main section of the falls. My job was to take photos. We plan to return to this less visited area of the park sometime after a hot hike and actually swim in the pools beyond the main falls (behind the rock Damien and kids are climbing on).

Rock Climbing in Bear River at Screw Auger Falls

Damien prepared supper on the rocks of the upper falls, complete with freshly baked wild blueberry pie. Ok, he didn't bake the pie, we bought it on our way to Grafton Notch at Puzzle Mountain Bakery, a roadside shack (literally) on Route 26. The pies are actually baked on-site in a cabin set back aways from the road. Speaking of food did I mention yet that Damien plans and prepares all our camping meals. What a great guy! Seems he really wants me to enjoy myself.

Happier Camper at Screw Auger Falls

And I did, once I got over Friday's frustrations. On the drive home we wrestled with a couple questions.
How does a family:

• pursue a life of adventure with a beach bum mommy?
• keep true to their non-chem, non-toxic products policy and still enjoy the Maine woods without being eaten alive?

Any ideas or kick-insect-butt repellent recipes welcome.

Taking this picture of our backyard red and white berries was the closest I got to observing Canada Day. We moved to the United States 8 years ago this month. The first few years we celebrated Canada Day, special suppers and the like. But these days July 1st means July 4th and a stat holiday are just around the corner.

If I was a good homeschooler I'd seize the opportunity of July 1st to teach Canadian history, unfortunately I don't remember any! And it's just too summery to think much about history. Anyway, we're too busy eating strawberries.

Yesterday was family day. We were supposed to go hiking but a check on the weather forecast the night before kiboshed those plans.

Instead we all slept in and after a 10:30 breakfast (preceded by a fantastic thunderstorm), we all sat around and asked the "so what are we going to do today?" question. We hemmed, hawed, made no decisions and each went our own ways for a bit.

Celine started machine sewing a quilt for her doll, Brienne played farm with her playmobiles and Laurent chiseled sketches into wood. I... can't remember what I did (no surprise) but at some point I left the house with the younger 2 to visit a local nursery and to look for Japanese anemone for the shady perennial bed next to the driveway.

While there kids enjoyed the landscaped pond and I had a brain wave - Pineland Farms in New Gloucester has a pond, woodland trails and even lots of pavement for longboarding. The day was drying out and it was still early enough to "get out of town" and enjoy nature.

As the weather got nicer we kicked ourselves a bit for not heading to the mountains but what can you do? Regardless, Pineland was great way to spend the afternoon.

The big surprise for me was the the garden which the girls and I explored a long time while the boys boarded on all the smooth, car free pavement.

Other than the garden and longboarding we explored the pond for most of the time. Laurent was in his element and the girls got right into the fun of catching frogs only to have them immediately hop away. There were literally hundreds, most likely thousands if you included the pollywogs, of those critters.

Rana catesbeiana (American Bullfrog)

Pineland itself is hard to describe. From what I understand its an educational farm complete with equestrian center, cows and creamery. And new this year, a Maine-foods market in the visitor's center.

But it is also a campus with office buildings, conference center and athletic center. Not to mention the outdoor center and woodland trails for hiking that are groomed in winter for cross-country skiing. Who knows what else. Interesting place.

Not quite what I would call a farm though. I guess farming is done there but the whole scene is a bit too neat, tidy and touristy. Kind of like farming for show - maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, it was a great afternoon and I recommend it as a Maine destination.

My family went to see WALL-E tonight. Since it was a pay-your-own-way family outing I opted out. I have better things to do with my time and money (we all get a little allowance each week).

Like treat myself to a forbidden fluffy-white-bun toasted veggie Italian from the corner pizza shop (with cheese), followed by a butter crunch ice cream cone, at least that was a child's size serving. And because that wasn't enough I'm finishing with a bottle of beer and a bowl of popcorn shared with the cat, yes he eats popcorn.

I'm munching and drinking right now as I type this. Listening to the thunderstorm outside enjoying my evening of solitary indulgences. If we had a tv that works for more than DVDs, I might of even watched that.