When in Main...

Do like the Mainers or is it Maine-ites? Not really sure, so what do you call them??

We had our yearly trip out to Maine this week and it was just lovely. We drove up on Sunday and got in well after dark, wow has it really been a year since we had made that trek?

Source: Google Maps

Source: Google Maps

2009

We stay at the home of Jared's parents, Margaret and Dad H. One of my favorite parts of the trip is getting to spend time with them. The scenery is also fantastic, their pier has such great photo opps.

2009

We also like to bring veggies from the garden, unfortunately our harvest to date has been sparse so we also brought up what came in our CSA box.

Our Garden

                              CSA

Sunday
Our trip down on Sunday was fairly uneventful - though we did have a coyote sighting on the Garden State Parkway which was pretty neat. The poor thing was very scraggly and wet, I would have never guessed it was a coyote.

We stopped for dinner at Don Amigos which happens to be in one of our favorite New England cities, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Portsmouth is sickeningly quaint and proved even more so when we stumbled upon the Strawberry Banke Museum. We absolutely loved it.

It's a compound of old historic homes that have been preserved, they even have the street and lane names. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera so the photos I took were with my phone.


 
The houses looked like they were in decent condition, one had very nice lattice work on the windows. They also had some really nice gardens too, not sure how historically accurate they were, definitely a wonderful addition.
























Monday
On Monday since it was a rainy day we took it slowly, lunch was a bean salad that I made in a pinch. We got out at about 3pm and headed to the Harrison Meeting House where Dad H is a docent.

It's always great to see the historical items that have been preserved. A walk through the cemetery provided us with some insight of the longevity of these hardy New Englanders. We surmised that if you made it past your 20s you had a very good chance of living well into your 80s and 90s. I would venture to guess that about 30% of the people buried in the old section lived well past 70.


After our visit to the meeting house we went to the local Farmer's Market in Damariscotta. The best part was that the farmer's market was in the parking lot of the Rising Tide Community Market, the local co-op, so I was able to load up on my normal staples of organic greens, berries and some coconut milk. OK I lied, the best part was seeing  a real vintage MINI! 

 


And parking right next to it!

Tuesday

On Tuesday we took a ride out to Boothbay on the next peninsula.

The sites were those typical of Maine.

We checked out the used book store in Boothbay Harbor and Jared made a b-line to his favorite apple turnover bakery on the Eastern Seaboard, Baker's Way - they also serve Vietnamese food - go figure... Eventually we made our way to hike the short Oven's Mouth trail that is part of the Boothbay Region Land Trust 

The trail we were on was super easy, nice for a short scenic walk.







The trail itself had views of the salt marshes. This is a photo of the dam that can only be seen during low tide.



The evening was topped off with a lovely Indian dinner that Margaret made - must get those recipes!!

Wednesday

Since it was a rainy day we stayed in and watched Doctor Who episodes on our Roku  box. We brought it from home and set it up quite easily.

Then we watched my favorite Indian hottie - Ranbir Kapoor in Bachna ae Haseeno (Lucky Boy) - yippee! The songs were nice and one I particularly liked was Khuda Jaane, the Bhangra beats were pretty good too. Great movie for a rainy day

After that we watched Pyaar Impossible - Love Impossible. That was your typical beauty and the geek movie. It was very cute and a nice finish to our day.

Thursday
On Thursday we took a ride to Belfast, it's about 30 - 40 min north of Camden. Belfast is a small town on the water. 
 


It's main street is lined with little shops, galleries and eateries. 







We stopped off at the Three Tides Brew Pub for a beer sampler and snacks.






After Belfast we stopped off in Camden for a little while.

Back in Pemaquid we were able to wrangle up one more fun Indian movie - Dostana, with my new favorite Indian hottie John Abraham

Friday
On Friday we went for a local hike with Dad H at the Laverna Preserve, it is maintained by the Pemaquid Watershed Association. It was a very nice walk with lovely and interesting sights

 and of course the requisite view of the Maine coast

Afterward we went to the Salt Bay Cafe for a lovely dinner. 

Saturday 

Well, it was time to go, I got a few pictures from the pier at Heron Cove

And finally one of the two of us that we both liked

A trip to Maine is never complete without a trip to the outlets at Freeport or at least the DeLorme map store to see the world's largest globe!

We got back to Jersey at about 2am, yikes! So a few to-dos for next year's trip...

• A trip to Bar Harbor
• Boothbay Botanical Gardens
• The Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve
• A ride into Wiscasset
• A boat ride into Monhegan

We are getting results!

We are finally seeing some of the fruits of our labor - yippee!! And discovering the Macro setting on my camera I am also able to document our beauties a lot better, double yippee!!!


Last night we tried a couple of radishes, yow-we they were spicy!


Unfortunately, I don't remember what variety they were as we have two in the garden. Note for next year, keep a better garden plan...



We also are starting to see some of our round zucchini. Speaking of squashes we got a beautifull array from yesterday's CSA pick-up




Our squash patch is looking pretty good too.



We also have a variety of tomatoes coming in, considering we have about 12 tomato plants I'm looking forward to the end of the summer when we won't have to buy them, local and organic can get pricey! Hmmmm I wonder of the CSA will have tomatoes...




Here are the Brandywines, they are still tiny.








When I bought the 3 Lemon Boys one plants already had a tomato, this is it I haven't noticed any more, but the plants are a bit of a jumble...











Our Patio Tomato, while still tiny has a nice piece of fruit on it's way.






We also have 3 Romas that are doing pretty well. It looks like all of them are starting to bear fruit,




and our Acid Free Yellow is also starting to bear fruit






We also have peas that are podding, now I don't like peas but tasting these I may have to change my mind. Our Spinach never does well, grows too fast and flowers to quickly on us. I think next year I will be planting a few rows of peas instead of spinach


The rest of the garden is doing well, our herbs are looking good:

Cilantro

Basil

Mint

Parsley

and Oregano

We have green beans that I think are going to be really nice

We also have a few rogues!

Butternuts in the compost


Tomatoes in the greens



A Zinnia in the tomatoes




and a Sunflower between the asparagus and zucchini


Speaking of Sunflowers, some of my more established ones are starting to bloom, shame they didn't make it to 7 - 8 feet like last year, however, it's nice to see the flowers and their friends