Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
The weather station is a little wonky (something interfering with its signal, and the rain gauge may be clogged, too — have to check) but we got at least 3/4 of an inch of rain this week and probably more on Sunday that the weather station didn’t record, with some rain falling on six of the seven days. High temperatures averaged 66.7°F, ranging from 77.7°F (on Tuesday, when we were away on a trip and missed it) to 57.4°F, and lows averaged 45.4°F, ranging from 38.3°F to 52.2°F. Next week looks very wet and cool.
- Beginnings/Firsts
The shelling peas emerged by 1 May, eight days after I planted the seeds!
The neighbours put their sheep out — it’s really really spring!
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
In Maine — there were SO many willets!
In NH —
- Wandering
We took a trip to Kennebunk/Wells, Maine, this week from Monday to Wednesday and got in a lot of walking at Laudholm Farm and Beach, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Parson’s Beach, the Franciscan Monastery, and in Kennebunkport. After we returned home I walked in town every day, including a longer walk on Sunday. I’ll do a separate post about our trip eventually but here are a few pics from that, besides the birds above —
And Merlin heard these almost-40-species of birds in Maine — we also saw many ring-billed gulls, herring gulls, a black-throated blue warbler, black ducks, and others that Merlin did not hear. Merlin has a lot of trouble with ocean waves and wind.
Here are some photos from in-town walks after returning home.
And some birds Merlin (and we) heard here in NH on Sat. & Sunday — including a merlin both days!
- Curiosity & Discoveries
This was fun to see, at Pedro’s Mexican restaurant in Kennebunk on Tuesday evening.
We were a bit surprised to see mallards enjoying the ocean surf at Parson’s Beach in Kennebunk on Tues. morning.
This was just slightly unusual, and lovely — a planter filled with bleeding hearts, on the deck at The Boathouse in Kennebunkport on Monday evening.
- Creating
Have I mentioned that creating collages takes a lot of thought, effort, and time, if not a lot of imagination?
- Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)
Body/Mind: I worked out only twice (2 hours) this week, what with our travels, and got in more than 9,000 steps every day, including more than 11,000 steps on five days and more than 18,000 steps on all three days in Maine.
Vehicles: My husband took the little sports car to be inspected on Friday and it passed (and the garage waived the fee!). This is the last year it has to undergo inspection as it will turn 60 next year!
- Gardening/Yard
Because we were away and had rain most days when we returned, I didn’t spend much time in the garden this week, just 2-3 hours, planting one parsley and six romaine lettuce seedlings (one two of which is are already being nibbled to pieces by insects) + eight annual seedlings (4 white alyssum, 4 purple salvia), watering as needed, doing a little weeding. My husband put up the fence around the veg garden (using nylon string between the supports) on Thursday, which was the day I planted the lettuce and parsley and noticed that the peas are up! The garlic is looking good.
Blooming this week: the two fritillaria meleagris bulbs still left from a past planting, spring bush peas, an epimedium of unknown variety that I bought at a plant sale four years ago, wild Canadian ginger, the first forget-me-nots, blue cohosh (an exquisite flower), a bleeding heart, brunnera (Siberian bugloss) …. as well as those still blooming from previous weeks, such as violets, drumstick primrose, hellebore, daffs (more of them), the andromeda shrub (Pieris japonica). And the yellow trillium is in bud.
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: My husband made the dump run on Thursday. I did clothes laundry on Thursday. That might be it.
Supplies: Picked up a couple of small flavoured balsamic vinegars at Mainely Drizzle while in Kennebunkport on Monday early evening (waiting for our outside table in the warm sun at The Boathouse), as the few I bought years ago are almost used up. And on the way home stopped in York at Stonewall Kitchen to stock up on their Lake House hand soap I like. Big grocery trips planned for Monday.
Financial/Admin: I guess this falls under administrative, sorta: After five months, Facebook accepted my appeal and restored my account on Friday, according to their email which read, in its entirety, “Hello, After reviewing your appeal, your Page Gret Wms has been published. This means it can now be viewed publicly. The Facebook Team.” I doubted this was even real but I checked it out Saturday and lo and behold, there it was. I poked around for about 10 minutes, changed my banner, and haven’t been back on it since. I got used to living without it after about a week.
Food: We ate well while away, and on return I made cacio e pepe with artichoke hearts for dinner Wednesday night, to which we added shrimp on Thursday night. Veggie burger with arugula, corn, and rice pilaf on Friday, then I made an herbed cheese tortellini with artichokes but because I didn’t have marinated artichokes as the recipe calls for I added some Girard’s Champagne dressing we had around. I also added capers, because we like them and it seemed they would work well with the flavour profile, subbed kalamata olives for black ripe olives, and added a can of small white beans for more fiber since it had very little fiber in its original form. It was very tasty, the best version of it I’ve made so far. We had it on Sunday for dinner, too.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I got an average of 7-1/2 hours of sleep per night this week, with a high of 8 hours 14 mins and a low of 6 hours 51 mins. Fitbit sleep score was 84.7. REM sleep accounted for 12 hours 45 minutes, deep sleep for 9 hours 10 mins.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS
I finished reading Orbital (2023), a novel by Samantha Harvey about six people living on the International Space Station, four men and two women, from Seattle, Osaka, London, Bologna, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. The ISS makes 16 orbits of the earth every day and the book’s chapters are divided in this way, set during their ascending and descending orbits, often describing the views of Earth the crew has from their windows. We’re privy to the crew’s inner lives, their experience of being in space, their thoughts on home, their dreams which are vivid, We learn how space, even only 250 miles up, affects the body. We learn about their experiments and the timetables of their days. The writing is poetic, lush, detailed in the best way especially in her writing about the contours and colours of places on Earth. Recommended.
OTHER
From Axios:
Watching
Yep, more “Vera” on BritBox (though nothing while away in Maine).
Listening
Shazam’d this week —
- Connections & Community
Local Support: Bought plants (perennials, annuals, one herb, veggies) and some produce at the farmstand on Thursday. Bought vinegars from Mainely Drizzle on Monday — we ran in 15 mins before closing and the shop attendant could not have been more friendly or helpful than he was, giving us multiple samples and understanding exactly what I was looking for. Ate out at The Boathouse (outside), Old Vines Wine Bar, and Mornings in Paris (twice, outside) while away, all local independent eateries. Had lunch with a friend outside at a local bakery/café on Thursday here at home.
Relationships: Visited a local art gallery and had lunch with a friend (RL) on Thursday. A friend (RVN) sent a catch-up email on Tuesday. My husband chatted for a bit with our neighbour (JL) on Friday. I sent an email to a friend (CF) on her birthday. I hosted our permaculture group on Thursday morning on Zoom (7 of us). Salon met in person on Friday, with 4 of us, for 2.5 hours, including visiting the senior center to pick out a loaner wheelchair for a spouse to use at an upcoming wedding — that was a hoot, testing them all out with each other on uneven terrain, trying to find and install the correct foot holders, debating the pros and cons of each. The woman helping us was very patient and really entered into the spirit of the thing.
- Endings
A favourite spot of ours in Kennebunk, Old Vines, closed for good on Saturday, 3 May. We were glad to get there one last time before that.
- All This Useless Beauty
blue cohosh – swoon
beach/ocean
✨✨✨
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