Chowdah time!

Sorry to be MIA, but hope to master this laptop yet! Yes, we cleaned all the clams and I made a wonderful clam chowdah. Even Jason (from Freeport, yet) was delighted, so it was a winnah!

Dick went from tearing down and rebuilding Cathie's bathroom to installing a ceiling and power to his uncle Fernald's workshop nearby. The man is 88 years old, worked in the woods all his life, raised 7 kids (& sent them all to college) and now he wants a workshop! He stopped raising sheep a few years back but says he misses them so he is going to get, oh, a half-dozen sheep soon.

Meanwhile, I've been staying here at Cathie's old farmhouse, watching her cats chase Sadie Mae! She's never been around cats before, so at least one of them, an old Tom, has swiped her backside to let her know they have claws. She now gives them a WIDE berth.

We've been running into old friends everywhere we go, especially WalMart of course. I attended the Echoes Magazine 20th Anniversary Party at the University of Maine, Presque Isle. They raffled off a copy of my book, When Men Move to the Basement and I traded one copy with my tablemate. The raffle winner is a local therapist who was delighted to win it. She's in Kiwanis (as I was for years) so I plan to go to their next luncheon meeting on Tuesday and take some copies along. I also plan to stop in at the only independent bookstore in town; they wanted me to do a reading when I was last here, so hopefully they will sign me up.

Oh, one last food note: we went out to Governor's Restaurant and I had a home-made roll stuffed with lobstah meat, some fried clams, and a cup of fish chowdah. Lovely!! We may be far away from the ocean, but good seafood has made it up to Aroostook County.

Up in Maine now

Trying to get comfortable with hubby's laptop keyboard. It's HOT up here, and humid, and buggy! Dick has been working day and night tearing out the floor under daughter Cathie's downstairs bathroom, and now installing a new molded shower stall, flush, sink.

During this time, we've been without water periodically, sometimes for hours at a time. Fortunately, Cathie's new friend Jason is as hard a worker as Dick, so the two of them have been putting in many, many hours. Both know how to plumb, build, work with electrical, etc. When you live in rural Maine, you can't just pick up a phone and call someone to fix your well or whatever. You learn early on how to do this kind of work.

We did have a nice family get-together on the 5th of July, and the next day, we scarfed down some huge lobsters and tons of steamed clams brought up to us by Dick's sister Debra and her husband. More melted buttah than you can believe, but wasn't it grand.

G.G.daughter Chloe Nightingale came by with her Mom and her G.Mom for a little visit. What a doll she is! Yes, I got pix. No, I haven't downloaded them yet as I'm still learning about this laptop and Dick is busy tonight, mudding (?) the walls in the bathroom prior to painting them. Cathie's learning to cook gluten-free...she made muffins this morning and baked a loaf of bread this afternoon, since a bit of rain finally brought temps down enough to use the stove. Tonight: GF pizza crust as grandaughter Anna is home from local college Upward Bound program & her friend Anthony loves pizza, too.

Me? Well, I wanted clam chowdah but got outvoted by the teens.

More later. Glad I finally got into my Blog; had a problem at first. My e-mail is coming in fine, although mixed in with Dick's Web e-mail. AND our snail mail? Well, we finally got mail TODAY, a good 16 days after arriving here. Doncha just love the USPS?