Looking For Maine

Now Playing -
Ain't Got So Far To Go
By David Byrne

Life - 

When we moved to Maine, I had an image of Maine in my head. Compiled largely of  sourceless assumption and a chapter in a Bill Bryson book, I'd pictured a rugged country with rocky shores and simple people, eking out a living by plucking skittery crustaceans from the sea while wearing a yellow slicker. Maybe relaxing in the evenings on the windswept porch with a pipe and some maple syrup drenched pancakes, grooming their white beard that lines their rugged jawline.. 

Instead, we found a fairly modern Eastern state, with tons of chain stores and modern amenities. Slowly, the image in my head has started to coalesce. We live in an area where a generator and a huge vat of heating oil is standard equipment and I've had the pleasure of meeting some legitimate fishermen and lobstermen, with thick calluses and windburnt faces. I still feel like Southern Maine especially is more modern than my tastes would prefer, but the North is looking pretty promising. Clearly, what I had been looking for was not a jet out here, but a time machine.  

So we've gradually been coming around to things. Making the trailer a bit more homey, screening in the porch and finding a couch has been huge, as has exploring our area more.

Yesterday, we found the Brunswick Farmer's Market. And I do mean found.It was miles from town, out amongst farmers fields and rolling hills, which somehow seemed both perfect and totally wrong for a farmer's market. Missoula Montana had a pretty great Market. Blocks of art and veggies, plopped right in the middle of the downtown, we loved that place. (Though they've since changed things and locations and I was pretty unimpressed the last times we visited.) But this market was what you picture when someone says Farmer's Market. A nice mix of  craftsmen, bakers, farmers, woodworkers butchers and candlemakers, with the light sounds of guitars, banjos and fiddles drifting from the tent in the middle.

We'd actually left the house that afternoon hoping to find a table or couch for the porch, but we came home with fresh potatoes (which we actually bought at a farm stand further down the road), beets, carrots, fresh maple candy, a pumpkin whoopie pie with cream cheese filling, a popover (a fluffy, eggy, air filled muffin of sorts that reminded me of the oven pancakes my mom used to make )and some small, sweet cucumbers. We also found some fresh wild blueberries, sampled some phenomenal lemonade, sweetened with maple syrup, bought a chunk of homemade summer sausage and a thick, dark, bitter brownie, flavored with semi-sweet chocolate and Guinness. 

Afterwards, we spent a half hour or so cruising through the forests and back roads before heading home for a nap before work.

I could get used to this kind of Maine adventure.

 Also, here's a picture of Ludo and Clover, because Pooka has been getting so much face time lately. I think it's funny how my hundred pound dog can manage to look so tiny when he's curled up on the couch like that. His head is really about the same size as the cat...