sam left for CT again
I made dinner
potato green beans cauliflower and tomato
in a curry simmer sauce
bought a broom and dustpan
soaps and other household supplies
decided not to go to Scotland
Month: August 2016
local dinner
Sam worked in the workshop
and mowed the lawn
I moved boxes
we moved all our stuff out of Jeff’s basement
had to wipe mildew off some furniture
Picked mussels at Jeff’s
harvested cauliflower, green beans and tomatoes
move out of camp, go to AFF
Sam and I get up very early and start working. I’m putting away kitchenware and pantry goods, trying to make some reasonable decisions about the best place to put things. Sam is working on the front door, which doesn’t close properly. We can see that there is some distortion in the sheet rock above the doorway. Sam doesn’t think there is enough support across that area for the second floor.
Sam makes a trip to the Hancock Grocery to get tea and dishwashing soap, two items that we can’t go forward without having immediately. Moving in caught me by surprise and I didn’t think ahead about immediate necessities.
Sam is trying to figure out the weatherstripping and takes it out of some of the windows. We install screens in two of the windows because it can get hot in the house. We can’t identify who makes the windows.
About noon, we go out to camp taking the van and the car. We pretty much clear out the camp taking all the food, the road bikes, the bed and bedding, and all of my daily stuff that I used while I lived there for a few weeks. We deflate the kayak and clean it out, putting it over our heads to swipe the debris out of it. Ants had built a nest in it quite quickly when it was out in the yard. Lorna is super helpful getting the camp cleared out. She and I drive back, while she holds the kombucha up in the air the whole way to prevent sloshing. Gypsy kombucha now has a home.
There’s no shower curtain in the bathroom. Lorna and I both take showers and get water on the floor. Lorna gives me a bar of soap because somehow I don’t have any and I borrow her shampoo. I also can’t find our regular bath towels, but I find two thin beach towels that will work for now.
Sam comes back from camp and we head out to the Folk Festival on the waterfront in Bangor. We had a great time. We ran into Patrick there. Hakim and the Chamberlains were serving Stone Fox Farm Creamery ice cream. We saw two performances The East Pointers and the Tuvan Throat Singers. Also a bit of the Treme brass band.
walkthrough, closing, celebration
Friday. We have a walkthrough at 8:30 am, before breakfast, with Tara. The house looks very clean. Tara and Jake, her little boy, are loading the last of their wood into a trailer. We are not sure what needs to be done at a walkthrough. But Sam asks a lot of questions about the solar water heater. Tara gives us the contact information for the guy that installed the system. We decide to keep on the space at the community garden. Tara explains the wiring – there’s one glitch, the outlet in the stairwell is controlled by a switch. She planned the wiring herself and they used 12-gauge wire.
We walked the property line and she showed us the pins and the sight lines. Surveyors mark the trees by taking an axe to the bark. The wound heals over as a vertical scar which they can use in the future to locate the boundary lines. “Trees don’t move” unless of course they are cut down or blown over.
We go get breakfast after the walkthrough at the Village Cafe and then go to Jeff’s. While waiting for the closing, we are distracted by a trip to the Rocking Chair Goat Farm with a short hike out to Todd’s Point with Jeff and Roberta. We see lots of mushrooms, which Roberta thinks are jack o’lanterns, not good to eat.
At the bank, we are ushered in to the “Red Room” which is decorated like a sitting room in a fancy mansion. Tara and Jesse are already there, and so in Donna. But the woman from the closing company is not there yet. She arrives about 20 minutes late. While waiting, Sam entertains everyone with stories about bees. And we find out the well is about x feet deep and flows x gallons per minute. And the septic was pumped out May XXXX and should be done about every 5 years. Tara gives me an assortment of keys, some work and some don’t.
The woman arrives and we start signing papers. We sign a lot of them. The only complication is that they have us as getting our own title insurance, which Sam had already told them we’re not getting. They have to amend the paper work and amend the final amount due at closing, but they’re able to take care of that easily enough.
We leave the bank at 3:30 and go right to Airline Brewing to have a celebratory beer. We’re having people over the house to celebrate at 4:00 but we can’t think straight for quite awhile. Then we go to Edwards for snack foods, then to Hannaford for salmon and scallops, then back to Edwards for champagne. All this takes time and we probably arrive at the house around 5pm. Lorna and Greg Allen are already there. Jeff and Roberta arrive a little later, with necessities like a small grill, champagne glasses, some silverware. Also pasta and caprese salad. It’s a hectic time because the house is completely empty and we try to figure out how to prepare dinner. We do manage to find a folding table and some dishware among the boxes in the barn. Jeff takes care of the grilling. Everything tastes great. We toast our move to Maine.
At bedtime, Lorna loans us her air pump and we pump up two air mattresses that Sam bought at Kmart for our first night. Unfortunately, neither one of them holds air, so we both wake up at night on hard ground. Not easy sleeping for us. Lorna is our first house guest, cozy in her camper.
last night at camp
Thursday.
Final details of timing for tomorrow are worked out. Walkthrough will be at 8:30 tomorrow morning with Tara and the closing will be at 2:30 at the bank. I get back from work late because I have a 7 pm call with Australia. I have bread and cheese for dinner. Sam gets in a little after I do, having been over at Jeff’s. Obama has declared a new national monument, Roxanne Quimby’s land east of Baxter. It is called Katahdin Woods and Waters.
the bees move in
Sam left camp just before sunrise to get the bees outdoors. He set up the beehive on a stump. Rolled the stump out of the woods and shaved it level with the electric chain saw. The bees started collecting pollen after a few orientation flights. Yellow, dark golden, and white pollen. Goldenrod and tansy are plentiful, as well as asters. The bees are moved in before we are.
the bees arrive at night
Sam arrives in Maine late at night with the bees and puts them in the barn. He gets to camp about 1:30 am and catches a few hours’ sleep.