You know, I live on forty ocean front acres (at least half of it is wi-fi), own over 100 picnic tables and at least 50 park benches and lounge chairs…but where am I sitting to write you this note? On Clifford, the big red truck’s tailgate in the driveway…this is not a moment worthy of Martha Stewart!
But the sun is shining, the bay is sparkling in the distance (there’s a man kayaking by…but those waves still look pretty cold!) and the colt’s foot is blooming in every sheltered corner of the beach. I’m waiting for Dean from the State Health Bureau to come and inspect the grounds. Taking over all of the licenses from Dad has been a little lesson in bureaucracy I hope that I don’t need to practice again soon…oops, he’s here, be back in 20 minutes…
I’m back and all went well. The nice thing about doing business in Maine is that the State’s people are very nice and easy to work with as a general rule. Dean is a pleasant man whose been inspecting restaurants, B&B’s, campgrounds and the like for 22 years. When he has advice it’s always well tested and usually makes things easier for us in the long run. We talked about the angora goats we will be getting in May (did you know they love to eat poison ivy weed?…yeah, that’s one less chemical we’ll need to use this year), and we lamented the constant name changes that all of the departments seem to go through every year…and now the phone directory and the website don’t match up either. This causes considerable complications when we’re trying to comply with the rules…Dean says it’s a continual effort to align with Federal office names…that lead us to G.W. Bush and we quickly dropped the subject.
Spring has definitely arrived here on Penobscot Bay. The crocus are happily blooming in the woods, along the stream and in the pocket gardens all over the park. Yesterday we walked the beach in a t-shirt and I’m planning an early picnic dinner by the shore tonight…just burgers and chips but they always taste better when we grill them over a fire. Steven will be surprised because he’s headed to a local farm after school for composted manure and I hope to have everything set up before he drives into the yard…nothing like a cold beer after a compost run 😉 Last night we had spelt tabbouleh with fresh herbs from the garden…already we’re having a nice harvest of chives, onion tops, parsely, lemon mint and oregano…I think they must have been growing under the snow last week.
Reservations are coming in nicely…in case you’re reading this and were thinking of coming up July 4th week…I just had an oceanfront site for a pop-up open up (pun intended)…call and I’ll make the reservation for you. I’ve joined the current phone world now so most of the time when I’m out of the office (that’s this little area here), I’ve forwarded the office phone to the cell phone. I’m telling you this so if I sound a little confused when I answer, it’s because I’m probably knee deep in the gardens or at the beach while we’re talking…the whole concept looks good in the ads but in real life it takes some getting used to.
Thank you to everyone who wrote comments to the blog in the past week…you can’t know how happy it makes me to think we’re staying in touch…even a little bit!