Nubble.

We spent the day in New Hampshire and Maine, first at the lovely sea side city of Portsmouth, one of the few places I'd willingly pack up and move to this evening if I were told to do so. It's a wonderful, small, old city, hip and pretty, and has gorgeous gardens which I'd gleefully walk around and volunteer my time to help grow. Doug brought three cases of books to the book seller, she took a total of 1 and he go 35 clams in store credit. So he shopped for books while we walked around Prescott Park and the gardens. Geoff harassed a few pigeons, who seemed to just flutter up and land again a few yards away, barely perturbed. We then went up to Kittery to geocache at Ft. McClary. Ft. McClary is similar to the wonderful Ft. Knox in northern Maine where we've been several times with Aaron and Michelle, only it is much smaller, and there is a cool wooden house like building that you can go around in. There's a geocache up at Ft. Knox, which we must do when we go up next.

The geocache was fairly easy, and we spent a great deal of time goofing off around the fort. Geoff was in super whiney mode, so he got a couple timeouts. We hoped after a good cry he'd have it out of his system and be better, but he didn't improve.

We went to Cape Neddick, to see the Nubble light, my mom is heavy into lighthouses. This one looks a lot like the lighthouse her father was keeper of back in the 50s down on the Cape at Nobska. We thought she'd like it.

We came home, grilled dinner, and that's about it.

Oh, but then there was this incident. We were at Nubble, and I wanted my mom to take the above featured picture of Douglas and me. I turned around to show her how to use the camera, and looked into the LCD to see this lovely sight featured at left.

Now, you know, it's been a really long time since I've had a wicked, nasty, good laugh. I mean, a laugh that makes me almost pee.

This one didn't. I wish it had. I think I was more stunned than anything. Like a deer in the headlights.

This guy had no IDEA his back door had an opening, and I snapped the picture right before the lady in the orange shirt (presumably his wife/girlfriend/his baby's momma, sporting nasty prison tattoos and carrying said baby) let him know to pull up the drawers to stop the draft.

I laughed. I know. I'm cruel. I'm a cruel bitch.

But YOU are laughing too.

I know you are. Stop it. Now you're making ME laugh again. Aw man.

My mother and I laughed and laughed, and Doug was very curious as to what was so damn funny, so I showed him the digital image. He pretended to be aghast that I'd take such a picture. Snarf. Yeah.

Like I'd pass this opportunity up.

Right.

Here are some pictures of our day. More ass free pictures are over at the geocache site for the Ft. McClary Cache. Go and check 'em out, remember to scroll down to the comments and look for the entry by "Team Screamapillar." In the mean time, that's about it.

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A view through the window at Fort McClary at York Harbor	Going up the steps into the fort. Nice blue sky
Grandma sticks out her head to say hi!	Monkey See, Monkey Do
Spoooky tunnnnnnellllll.....	Aaaaah!! It's the ghost of Fort McClary!
This was weird... looks like a picture or painting on a wall, but it's another shot of the view out a window. This was on a little boat in Portsmouth Harbor that was open for tours today.	Grandma with the Nubble light house. The 350 in the background to the right of the light is the amount of years York Maine has been an incorporated town.

hey, you look much closer than i thought...

Herb. The voice of the National Weather Service Radio Warning System

In my entry the other day recapping the MDI extravaganza, I neglected to tell you something about how incredibly stupid I sometimes am. The National Weather Service announcements on the NPR radio stations would come on periodically when a thunderstorm was approaching, and would say, for example:

"The National Weather Service out of Caribou has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Southern Hancock County and Southern Washington County including cities of Bar Harbor, Machias and Calais. A severe thunderstorm is categorized by frequent lightning, possible hail and and high winds. The storm is moving North East at 9 miles an hour and will be over Ellsworth at 9:29 p.m. Residents are encouraged to seek shelter.

Repeating...

The National Weather Service out of Caribou has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Southern Hancock County and Southern Washington County including cities of Bar Harbor, Machias and Calais. A severe thunderstorm is categorized by frequent lightning, possible hail and and high winds. The storm is moving North East at 9 miles an hour and will be over Ellsworth at 9:29 p.m. Residents are encouraged to seek shelter."

or something along those lines. You get the drift.

The voice sounded to me like an older man, one who took the job of reading these ominous announcements very seriously. His pronunciations of "Caribou" and "Calais" and "Aroostook" were stinted and not comfortable. The way he'd say "Repeating" at the end of the first statement was so official, so strong. His accent was unique. To me, he sounded like a French Canadian Mainer, perhaps... probably lived west of Caribou out on a lake.

I grew to imagine the man behind this voice, see him in my mind, listen to the series of beeps and squaks that came before his official, very serious announcements...

I said something to Doug and Aaron and they just about laughed me out of the campground.

Aaron told me, "That's a computer generated voice!" and laughed hysterically at me. Imagine my sadness, if you will. A computer was saying Calais and Aroostook. It wasn't the voice some old salt from the hills of "The County" who has worked for the NWS since retiring from the Army, has a wife and three kids, and bow hunts in the fall for food rather than schlep to the market all winter long.

Michelle laughed at me. Everyone laughed at me. And rightly so.

I'm so used to thinking that there is a human behind everything. Rampant automation of things such as emergency announcements is something that isn't part of my world view.

He sounded friendly enough though... and over the few days we were, even though I knew he wasn't human, I continued to build a mental picture of "Herb," as I called him. And this is his story.

Herb
Herbert Xavier St. Germaine was born in 1935 in St. John's NB, Canada on a dark and stormy night. Ever since then, weather has been a life long obsession. Herb is pictured here with his father Francois JeanLuc St. Germaine in August of 1935 when he was four months of age.

As a child, he would run through the hills chasing clouds, watching them transform as afternoon thunderstorms began to cook up in the summer heat. In the winter, he was in his glory with all the deep snow, ice and freezing rain the region would receive. He'd forecast how much they were expecting, set up a weather station to monitor wind speeds and temperatures, and would track snowfall in a notebook each year, running annual averages and tracking trends.

Herbert, who prefers to be called "Herb," speaks fluent French because his French Canadian parents relocated to central Maine to work in a paper mill in Mexico Maine when Herb was a very young boy, along with many other French Canadians of that period.

When Herb was a young man, he became the first ever in his family to graduate high school and go to college. In 1953, he went to UMaine Ft. Kent on full scholarship, majored in Meteorology and dreamed of being a Television Weather Reporter, TV being a hot new commodity.

After his graduation in only three years, 1956, with honors I might add, he packed up his car and drove to New York City to seek employment with the CBS-TV. He auditioned, and was brilliant, but the news director could not hire him with as thick of a Maine accent as he had.

A kind hearted receptionist at CBS referred him to a speech therapist who worked with celebrities. It was her cousin, and she put in a call to ask for his help because she thought Herb was cute and had made such an effort. Thankful to the receptionist for all her effort, he made and appointment and ended up staying with the speech therapist in his Brooklyn apartment. He received elocution training and worked for a local newspaper writing weather information articles for a little while to get rid of his thick accent.

After four months, he headed back to re-audition for the job. CBS execs were impressed with his efforts, but whenever he spoke of local Maine towns or counties, the accent would creep right back out. Reluctantly, the news director sent him packing. A crushing blow for Herb.

It was something he never could get over. His dreams of being chief meteorologist for Bangor's Powerhouse TV conglomerate WABI (A CBS Affiliate) or any other TV station in America were dashed. Herb had grown close with the receptionist, her name being Myrna Williams, and when he informed her that he was going on home to Mexico, Maine, she was crestfallen. She'd grown to be madly in love with this sweet northern prince. He couldn't leave without her, and asked for her hand in marriage in 1957. They moved back to Maine together, back to his parents' home. But they didn't stay long.

Herb enlisted in the Army, quickly proving himself not just a fabulous soldier but a great asset for his weather knowledge. He was promoted to the Weather Forecasting Division, and stayed in the army from 1958 to 1976.

His proudest days were when he served in Viet Nam helping the United States Armed Forces know when tropical weather was going to cause problems. He felt he was preparing the troops prepare for the worst by giving them a heads up when a thunderstorm was churning up, or when a nasty cold front was moving down from Central Asia.

Herb was well liked, received many awards and commendations and was shipped all over the world where weather needed tracked and forecasted. Sometimes the kids and Myrna would come with him, and they had many adventures and saw exotic locations! Myrna is pictured here waterskiing off the Baja California coast in 1964, when Herb was on Hurricane Tracking patrol.

Eventually, in the mid-70s, Herb retired from the Army and decided the family should settle back in Maine, his heartland and his home.

Myrna and the kids were happy to do so, and they found a lovely little place west of Caribou. Herb's retirement was restless though. He returned to bow hunting, the way his father had taught him, and greatly enjoyed fishing on Aroostook County's many rivers and lakes. He even joined his oldest son in hiking to the top of Mt. Khatadin one beautiful summer day and fell in love with back packing and hiking. A view of the weather from on high was something that called to his heart, and he returned to mountain tops many times over the next year.

Then, a friend informed him that the local NWS was looking for someone like Herb to do weather announcements when inclement weather was approaching. Herb's attention was piqued. The job was based in Caribou, and would require him monitoring weather movement on Radar and Satellite Technology.

Because of his extensive and decorated Army resume, Herb was more than qualified. He was hired immediately. And ever since then, Herb has been the voice of the NWS out of Caribou, telling North Eastern Maine when to duck and cover, and how hard the wind may blow, and to watch out for dangerous lightning and hail. Herb is now a proud grandfather. He and Myrna have seen their share of hard times, but the kids have grown up good and all live in Maine still, all within a four hour drive.

Thank you, Herb. Thank you for all the work you do. Without your voice, your accent, your experience and history, Down East Maine would be in weather hell. You are a true American Hero. Bless your soul.

(The Army picture is Al Gore and I couldn't resist. Please don't tattle on me. I think it fits nicely. The waterskiier is Ann-Margaret, the famous actress, and the older man at the bottom is philosopher/anthropologist Gregory Bateson. I thought he looked like Herb).

In other news, we've got drywall getting delivered today. The dogs both are going to the vet, Kinger is getting some shots updated and Jack needs a distemper booster. The kids are playing Sonic, the dogs and Doug are napping, and it isn't even noon.

I agreed to work for cateringman tomorrow morning and am rethinking it now that I know we're getting the drywall this afternoon. Shit. What was I thinking??!!! I'm thinking of a way to get rid of both kids at a friend's house or something tomorrow afternoon so Doug and I can both do this work and not have either of them under us. We shall see.

Well. I'm off to fold laundry. Take a shower. Pay bills. Mail mail. Funny how that is both a verb and a noun, eh?

Have a great day.

The Full Bar Harbor Recap

Alright. My last entry was rather pimpy (to steal from Shelley) so here is the run down of the events leading up to and during our camping trip.

On Tuesday morning, I woke at 9, and finished the last of the laundry, packed stuff up, Doug ran some errands, and we figured we'd be ready by noon and out on the road.

HA!

Noon rolls around, laundry is still drying, stuff is still getting packed. We make it to 2pm. Ready to go, 90%, and the phone rings. It's Ivy, our friend Clay's sister. And I've been playing phone tag with her for a while. We still have Clay's car in our driveway, and I was hoping she had some news from her lawyer on settling his estate so we know what to DO with the car. So I took the call. An hour later, finishing up with her, Doug drops a great big one gallon glass beer jar filled with coins on the kitchen floor and yells "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" at top volume.

"Uh, Ivy, I gotta go. Doug just broke a great big glass jar and there is glass and money everywhere so I gotta help him... bye!"

Finished that call up abruptly, eh? I hate doing that to people. I'll be on the phone with someone and one of the kids gets hurt or something breaks or whatever, and I end up cutting people off screaming -- "Gottagogeoffgotbitbythedoghe'sbleedingcallyabacklater bye!"

So we cleaned up all the glass, 3pm is here... we tell the kids to use the bathroom and we head out to the car. Doug does another lap through the front of the house and discovers that Geoff had clogged Jessica's bathroom drain up, turned the water on, and flooded the bathroom before turning the water off.

Why does this ONLY happen to us when we're trying to get out the door? Why does hell's little box of catastrophe only get opened when Doug and Chris are on vacation? Why? Someone. Please tell me.

So we made him clean it up (wetting up a million towels in the process, all of which I just threw in her bathtub to sit for a week. At that rate, who the fuck cares, right?) and we got in the car.

We got to ... oh, York, Maine, and I turn to Doug and say "Did you turn off the air conditioner?"

We argued about that for quite a while... I was the last one out of the house, but I didn't check the AC because Doug always does the last run through, lights check, toilet not running, windows locked, appliances off, fish fed thing. So I had presumed he had. He told me he didn't recall turning it off.

Great. So... We're 90 minutes from home, do we back track, go back and turn it off, or do we keep going and maybe call someone to break into the house and turn it off.

We kept going, and I ended up not calling anyone. From now on -- I'm Checklist Woman. It seems that later in life here I'm getting more and more forgetful... and screwing more and more things up. And I'm SO letting the machine get it next time we're on our way out the door. Even if it is someone I'd been hoping to hear from for some time.

Suffice to say, by the time we made it up there, we were beer ready and hungry. Michelle cheffed up some chicken legs on the BBQ, and we feasted old school. Pitched tents, and hit the hay. The cabin is awesome, here's a shot of the interior. And I've already showed you pictures of the shithouse out back! Finally. Let the relaxation begin!

---

On Wednesday, both A&M had to work so we went on two geocaches. Stairway to Heaven, and Worth the Walk.

Stairway to heaven was at Schoodic Point, where we spent Memorial Day weekend with A&M on our last visit to Maine, and parts of it were hard and vertical.

Jessica cried and cried because we made her hike up a hill. Seriously. We were all suffering -- it was record high heat, not good air quality. But she wept like an infant.

We brought along the Dog Tags Travel Bug which we found in our very first Geocache, and put it in this one. We added Missy's dog tag from 2000 to the collection.

(By the way, in case you are wondering... a travel bug is a cache item that the owner tracks with an ID code, and this was a string of about 10 dog tags, none of which had left Massachusetts. Now, it's in Maine... goodness knows where it goes next. Missy so would have loved geocaching, so in this way I get to share her with the activity, since I can't share the activity with her).

We found the cache, spent time checking out the view, which was lovely, and climbed down. Got everyone Gatorade and snack, and headed out to an easier one.

The finding of the Worth the Walk geocache was wicked easy, it was right near the parking lot, 10 feet from our car. But the trail went all the way down to the bay, and the area was protected as seal habitat.

Unfortunately, no dogs were allowed on that property, just human walkers, so we didn't get to take the walk.

We went to Echo Lake so the kids could swim, they were begging to go... and they earned it with what we put them through. It was late in the day. The pond was crowded, the dogs weren't welcome, so I spent about 1/2 hour in the pond with them while Doug took them for walkies and sat in the car listening to the radio.

We headed back to the cabin and met A&M who were on their way out to swim... both of them were dead beat tired from working that day in the sweltering heat and desperately needed to swim. He'd told us about an excellent swimming hole on Long Pond, but we couldn't find it when we went down to go swimming. Where we had ended up was posted as a no swimming allowed zone, so that's why we ended up at dog unfriendly Echo lake.

They took us to the swimming hole, and damned if it wasn't the bomb. We had a couple beers in our bag, and dogs willing to swim... and the place was mobbed with kids rock jumping into the 30 foot deep lake. It was wonderful. What a great spot!

The lake depth was pretty drastic immediately, so I spent most of the time on the low rocks feeling panicky about Geoff... Several years ago I almost lost Jessica in 2 feet of water, I couldn't imagine losing Geoff in 30 feet! I'm very anxious with him around water. Aaron played with him and swam him around, but I was still shitting bricks with nervousness about the water's depth... so I was no fun.

But... I loved being there! Aaron had a can of beer out in the pond with him, and this kid who had just jumped off the rocks noted "Woooo! PBR in a can IN the pond! You're hardcore! Drinkin' a PBR IN the water! I thought I was cool drinkin' a Bud on the high rocks!" And we laughed. Aaron IS hardcore.

We did dinner at the cabin, built a huge fire. The day was so hot and humid, thunderstorms had been cooking up all day. Aaron and Michelle keep their radio on NPR and we would get these emergency broadcast announcements periodically stating that a severe thunderstorm warning was in effect for... whatever county it was for at that time.

Lightning raged to our west and north, right behind our heads, but the sky south and east was full of stars. And we sat directly on the bottom edge the storm edge for hours, with the celestial light show going on above us and no rain.

Eventually the storm got close enough to us, and the National Weather Service announcements covered southern Hancock and Washington Counties, with cities including Bar Harbor and Machais, which meant it was time to seek shelter. In about 10 minutes, the storm hit us. Our tent was warm and dry, and that great huge thunderstorm raged on for the longest time... it was amazing.

Thursday dawned, fourth of July. Another amazingly hot day. Aaron had the wonderful idea of spending the day at Pretty Marsh in the only covered picnic site on the island... but it was HOT, and we decided it'd be more fun to do stuff, go places.

Here's Geoff showing you his shirt and his attitude after living on the hippie organic farm for a couple days! Actually, that's what Sonic the Hedgehog does after he gets through a zone... so it isn't really a hippie peace sign thing... yet.

So we did stuff, and went places.

Aaron, Doug and the kids ended up doing a geocache up on Elliot Mountain, which they found with no difficulty. Michelle and I went to the showers over by Blackwoods, and did some shopping. We met up and went swimming again after a quick trip to WalMart to get a swim vest for Geoff. I wanted him to have a PFD in the deep water, so I could enjoy being there. We swam until it started to sound thunderstormy, decided we should get home and do dinner before another storm hit.

We decided to skip the viewing of fireworks, mostly because of the weather and threat of storms. And built yet another good fire. The storm hit right as we expected to, around 8pm, and we all turned in early.

Friday A&M had to work a while for Farmer Matt, so we went out adventuring. We went to Schooner Point, to the cool cave. We climbed all down and in it... it was a good climb, but very dangerous if your sandals or sneakers got wet. Geoff slipped and fell, and then I went to retrieve him and help him up and slipped and hyperextended my knee a bit. Damn that hurt! Doug slipped coming out of the cave and almost took a header. So we walked softly and carefully until our shoe bottoms dried.

Jack the rock climbing boy dog! He did great, and that grey mass right behind his left ear is a HOUSE! A house 15 times the size of our house.	The cave in all it's spooky glory
Climbing up carefully	... mom and girl turn around for a quick picture

Friday afternoon, Michelle needed to do laundry to wash her uniforms, and Aaron had to pick up the keg he'd reserved for his birthday party. Essentially, he had called to order a 1/4 keg, and the woman told him it was one price, when in reality she was WAY off.

He insisted he was paying the original quoted price, and eventually got his way, especially after the jerks didn't even HAVE A TAP for him when he'd reserved it. They ended up giving him ice for free.

All told, by the time he ended up paying for the tap and deposit, the store was paying us to drink their beer. Essentially, each cup of beer was about 11 cents. Happy Birthday To Aaron. Happy Birthday indeed. So the keg was tapped, and Doug and I bought them lobster for their shared birthdays (Michelle is June 29, Aaron July 6) and we also grilled chicken. The other residents of the farm came to the party, bringing their grillables and willingness to drink beer with us. We met some pretty cool people, including Tom here who liked Jack a lot.

Tom bow hunts his own food, and brought venison to grill. He was there with his girlfriend, Nicki. And there was Jacob and Asha, also living on the farm and working for Matt. Jessie and her boyfriend Jay came, and soon the party was in full swing. The kids crashed out, and the older dogs like Kinger, Gonzo and Peanut got to run and chase and play. It was chaos. But it was a total blast. We stayed up until well past 1, and slept the sleep of drunken fools.

Jessica and Farmer Matt's awesome dog Peanut. She could be Kinger's sister!	Cheers! Here's to Aaron!
"Yes indeediedoooo! I believe I will have another beer!"	Aaron and Gonzo mellowing out
Michelle and me being weird	Michelle and me getting ready to insert lobsters into pot for our men.

Saturday we were pretty mellow. Gonzo got into the chickens and killed one... which sucked. Farmer Matt was understanding, and said that Dogs Kill Chickens and that's part of life... so he was pretty understanding. But Geoff got in trouble for taking Gonzo for a walk. It was a kind of a bummer day. Michelle was at work, and Doug ended up taking the kids to town, I took a nap, and Aaron went frisbee golfing. When Aaron got home, we took him out for pizza for his actual real birthday.

Sunday we went to the top of Cadillac Mountain with Aaron and walked. Jackie was a chick/guy/kid/man/woman magnet... we got tons of attention, to the point where walking was an impossibility.

I taught Geoff the fine art of rock balancing.

The view from the top of Cadillac, with my family in the distance

We did another Geocache, this was called Cache with a View. And what a view. Going with Aaron was a lot of fun. This is something I KNEW he would totally love doing... but initially, he was somewhat skeptical about the hobby. He thought it was environmentally irresponsible to put some plastic or metal container out in the woods. And it was irresponsible of people to go hiking off trail, it could be dangerous and could cost a lot of money when people needed rescuing.

The fact that people have a GPS so they KNOW where they are didn't seem to phase him. He had a National Parks Service Uniform in his wardrobe, and had talked to a lot of people IN the parks service who are dead the hell set against this hobby... but we took him to show him how innocuous it is.

When we found this cache, I asked him what he now thought of geocaching. He smiled a big shit eating smile... "Dude, I am SO getting a GPs!" he replied. Excellent! We took another travel bug with us. His name is LARS, and LARS stands for Like A Rolling Stone. He was only in the box for a couple hours, and we are his very first pick up. How cool is that! This is so damn fun.

Gaze upon the face of a girl whose parents FORCE her to go out and walk. "I hate geocaching!!!!!"

Again, Jessica whined and cried. Aaron got pretty irritated with her for being a wuss. We let her whine but don't let her quit... so we're used to the bitching and moaning. Aaron though couldn't believe the amount of whining she was doing.

But, unlike the first cache we did when we got there, the one that kicked all our asses, we weren't sympathetic this time. She finished the 2.2 mile hike in and out (total, not each way) and earned an ice cream, and did have a good time. Aaron said he wouldn't put up with that from his 10 year old. I told him to wait until he HAD a 10 year old... and that I'd said the same thing when she was one year old.

She did the hike, earned her stripes. I'm proud of her. The more we do this, the less whiny she'll be. End of conversation. And here is Team Screamapillar at the site of Cache with a View! Thanks for taking the picture Aaron.

Sunday night we had another great huge fire, roasted weenies on sticks at the fire side. It was lots of fun. Michelle got home from work at 11, and we spent a little time with her before all turning in. Aaron was up and out first thing Monday morning, and we got to say bye to Michelle because she didn't have to be to work until later. We packed it in, hit the road by about 11am. Stopped at the Big Chicken Barn Antique and Bookstore on the way out of Ellsworth, because we've driven by it so many times that we just had to stop... The rest of the ride home was painless.

I was happy to come home to a dry bathroom and no broken glass on the floor. And the Air Conditioner was indeed turned off before we left. It was nice to get home...

Yesterday I worked at the college and had lunch with the guys. We played UNO, the way we always used to do, and all of us singled out McCue and kicked his ass. It was so much fun. And today I worked for catering man, breaded 200 chicken breasts for a dinner, sautéed them too. Got out of having to make scallops in bacon because by 2pm the seafood delivery hadn't arrived so Chris let me go. Now I'm home and have spent the last 3 hours writing this entry, checking email, and working on other stuff. So I'm posting this and will try and write more this week. I have a lot of work stuff to do, so my frivolous time wasting journal hobby thing may have to wait! I'm sure you'll miss me.

Beer, Birthday, Geocaching, Return

I'm about to go out to the car to pack out all the laundry, the pillow cases on the pillows, and anything else that smells like ass, and drag it down to the basement. Before I do I just thought I'd say hi, because some of you have hit the journal 10 times today looking for an update. Damn, you are so cute and loyal! My readership averaged 10 hits a day during my time off, and today it is already up to 48 hits, not including my own two. So thanks for checking in to see if we are back.

In short, it was a great time. Team Screamapillar did four Geocache trips, one of which I skipped to spend time with Michelle doing Girl Things like grocery shopping and showering at the hot showers near the Blackwoods Camp grounds. All four geocaches were successful. One was hard, basically because it was 95 degrees and unhealthy air and uphill the whole way. We earned that one.

Aaron turned 28 on Saturday and we had a 1/4 keg with a great acquisition story behind it, which I will regale you with later (is it regale? is that how to spell that shit?).

We met many wicked cool dogs... Peanut, Sophie and Harvey at the camp, Zeus at the swimmin' hole.

Gonzo, A&M's dog got out and killed one of Farmer Matt's chickens... the blame squarely on all our shoulders for lots of reasons but Geoff bore the punishment for thinking it'd be a good idea and lots of fun to walk Gonz up there to visit the chickens. Never trust the five year old to watch the chicken chasing hound. Many lessons learned.

Farmer Matt was forgiving. Good Karma all around. I still feel sad though. But I digress.

farmer matt raises the foamy fifth cup of beer from the Sam Adams fountain,
the night before the "chicken incident"....

We drank lots of beer, roasted weenies, grilled chicken and sausage, met hippie farm kids who were all really cool, sat in front of a fire which raged wonderfully while a thunderstorm raged behind us about a mile away. It was amazing. Stars on one side of the sky, lightning on the other.

All told -- great trip. Very tired. More later. Glad to be home. I have a meeting tomorrow with the college professor, and am working for catering man on Wednesday. And, we have to get this ceiling project done between now and a week from today. So all told, life should be busy the next couple days. But I'll be sure to fill you in on good details, and show you lots of pictures. In the meantime, here's one for ya. Aaron built an outhouse behind the cabin, way back... worked his literal, metaphorical and proverbial asses ALL off totally to get it done. He finished right before we got there.

Here's Aaron and Michelle raising their PBRs in a can at the ribbon cutting ceremony outside the door to the shithouse. Notice Geoff in the middle there. He is getting ready to drop trou and break the thing in. Waste ye no time Geoff! Get the party started! Great job Aaron. We enjoyed stinking up your poophouse.

Alright. Gotta get to work, feed family. More later.