September 2017 Monthly Weather

'Twas a warm month for September, and it has barely felt like the beginning of Autumn. The trees and their leaf loss and slight changing of color are the only indicators that we are heading into the cooler months of the year!

The monthly average high temp was 74.5F, and the monthly average low temp was 52.7F. So, we are higher than average on both accounts!

The historical monthly average is High = 69F   Low = 51F.

Weekly Maine Foliage Report # 3

Here is a quote from the Maine Dept. of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry:

Augusta, ME (September 27, 2017) - The Fall Foliage Report from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry reports 70 percent color for the upcoming weekend in northern Maine, while the rest of the state is at 30 to 50 percent color change with low leaf drop throughout the state.
Typically, northern Maine (zones 6 and 7) reaches peak conditions the last week of September into the first week of October. The rest of the state’s progression of color will start occurring from north to south in mid-October. Coastal Maine typically reaches peak conditions mid-to-late October.
“To bring about the intensity of the autumn colors, we look forward to the warm days followed by cool nights. As the days begin to get shorter and the nights longer, the dazzle will soon be visible in central, southern, coastal and western mountains of Maine,” according to Gale Ross, fall foliage spokesperson.

Common Ground Fair 2017

Yahoo! Neighbor Shannon, her friend Ellie, and I went to the fair; three former Boulder chicks out for a good time. 

You can't go to the Common Ground Fair without encountering the Fair pilgrimage traffic!

I knew we were nearing the fair grounds upon seeing this sign. My excitement rose exponentially!

I am a sucker for Alpacas!

Check out the babies and their antics;-)

The Fair design for this year was the chicken!

Gee, could that be why I skeedaddled over to the poultry shed first? 

I love looking at the patterns of feathers, and guinea fowl are always so amazingly patterned. But, I must say that the males have rather ugly head dressings, in my opinion. It looks like somebody did a really bad red and white paint job on them! Strange.

Next door to the poultry barn was the border collie exhibition ring. I love watching these dogs work. They are awesome, and this particular farmer does a great job with the dogs. I just took a tiny clip as I couldn't get up to the fence through the crowd. I held the camera up over my head to shoot.

 There was lots to do for children as well as adults. This garden area was a joint effort between the stone masons and the weavers.

Kids could take turns weaving on the Earthloom. Super fun!

I love rocks. There is always a demonstration area where stone masons are working. Here is one nice chunk of granite being turned into something decorative. I had chosen a small rock sculpture of a leaf, to purchase from The Granite Garden Gallery before leaving the fair, but the proprietor was nowhere to be found on two visits to his tent. Bummer. So, I'll have to hope he is there next year. 

I enjoy looking at posters in all forms, and each year we visit the Beehive Design Collective to view various cloth posters about serious global issues. Here is a description of the Beehive Collective:

The Beehive Design Collective is a wildly-motivated, all volunteer, activist-art collective dedicated to “cross-pollinating the grassroots” by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images for use as educational and organizing tools. We work anonymously as word-to-image translators of complex global stories, gathered and shared through first hand conversations with affected communities.  
http://beehivedesigncollective.tumblr.com/about  https://store.beehivecollective.org/#_=_

And then there was the music and dancing. I listened to a few nice songs from this group promoting peace and love...We need more of that these days! And, the end clip was a bit of sweet music by some very talented young people.

Finally, we poked around the Farmer's Market vendors. Mushrooms, veggies, breads, cheeses, and lots more were for sale. Yuuuummmmmeeee!

All in all, we had a great day at the Common Ground Fair.😎

Weekly Weather Update

The hot weather keeps getting hotter! I had a touch of heat exhaustion at the Common Ground Fair as the temp. reached 82F under a clear sky. It was rather brutal, heat-wise. And, now look at how the predicted temps. are even hotter than a few days ago!

Weekly Maine Foliage Report # 2

News from Maine Dept. of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry:

Typically, northern Maine (zones 6 and 7) reaches peak conditions the last week of September into the first week of October. The rest of the state’s progression of color will start occurring from north to south in mid-October. Coastal Maine typically reaches peak conditions mid-to-late October.

“We have had summer-like weather leading up to the beginning of the fall foliage season; however, we’re still on track for a typical season. As our weather takes a more seasonal turn, colors will start moving toward peak conditions in early to mid-October,” according to Gale Ross, fall foliage spokesperson.

Common Ground Fair

Gonna go to the Common Ground Fair this weekend. But, I am already dreading the heat as it will be at least 84 F in Unity, Maine, under a cloudless sky. I start to wilt when the outdoor temp. rises above 72F.

Too Hot!

This is definitely not the kind of weather we should be seeing in late September! We went apple picking last weekend and the apples were still green (although with 1/2 cup of sugar they made great applesauce.) We need some cooler days and nights for the apples to put some more sugar on;-) Needless to say, we won't go apple picking for another couple of weeks...

It's an Apple Pickin' kind of day!

I went to the annual Maine Project Learning Tree fundraiser on Thursday night. The silent auction item that I coveted, and won, was the McIntosh Apple Tree U-Pick at Hazel Hill Orchard.

Today, we hightailed it to Hazel Hill Orchard to pick our first bushel of McIntosh apples. Gee... who knew how big a bushel was? Tony weighed them and this bushel is about 38 pounds!

Luckily, we brought neighbor Carla along so that she could partake in our apple frenzy;-)

Drew came up with the idea of playing William Tell, so I had to balance an apple on my head so that it could be shot off; luckily Drew forgot his dart gun;-)

Do you know the difference between Cortland and McIntosh apples by sight? Both are shown above. Which is which?

Cortland apples are striped and are more squat than Macintosh apples. They tend to ripen from late-September to mid-October.

McIntosh apples do not have stripes and sit more spherically than Cortlands. They tend to ripen from mid-September to mid-October.

And, here is Drew's first batch of applesauce. He left the peels on and followed Tony's suggestion of putting a couple of inches of water into the bottom of the pot. Then, Drew cut up 4 pounds of apples and added a few pounds at first. Then, he cooked it down, stirring occasionally. Over time, he added the next two pounds and continued to cook the apples until they were sauce-like. There are still some chunks in the sauce along with the skins. After the cooking was complete we found that the applesauce was a bit too tart, so he had to add about 1/2 cup of sugar to it. Finally, Drew added 1/2 tsp. apple pie spice. Yumster!  Canning seems like too much trouble so we are going to freeze the applesauce in one gallon ziploc bags.

Now, all we have to do is cook the other 21 pounds of apples (5 more batches of applesauce) before we go back to the orchard to pick the next 3/4 bushel or so that is left on the tree. In about 3 weeks, we'll go back for the apples on the Cortland tree that we also adopted. It will be fun to compare the flavor of the two apples. 

Geez... I think we are going to have to buy a chest freezer for all the applesauce!

Tony still has a few more trees for adoption. Visit his Facebook page. His address is Hazel Hill Orchard, 59 S. Livermore Rd., Turner, ME.

Click this link for the Maine State Pomological Society to see when different varieties of apples ripen.

Weekly Maine Foliage Report # 1

Oh, say it ain't so! We are heading slowly toward the winter season. Leaves are changing on maple trees which are being dappled with red patches here and there. I saw one tree this morning that had red leaves toward the trunk and green leaves on the most distal parts of branches. The Maine Foliage Reports occur each Wednesday, and I will update you as they occur. Here is the first one for this season.

Higgins Corner Community Solar Farm

There are 171 solar panels in this community solar farm, which is located about 4 miles away from us on Fisher Rd. Awesome! There are 9 families who have invested in this for their electricity. Here is a Revision Energy article about Community Solar Farms. There are lots of people whose location is just not right for putting solar on their rooftops, so investing in these solar farms is a perfect solution for becoming less dependent on oil and gas.

This is a Revision Energy installation. They are a local Maine company and very progressive. Check out their article on the Higgins Corner Community Solar Farm.

Camp Connor on Lower Range Pond

Yesterday, my team of students went to Camp Connor for some team building on our 2nd day of school. It was such a beautiful location on Lower Range Pond, in Poland, Maine. The temp. rose to 63F with a stiff breeze. 

While our students played all kinds of games, I decided to try my hand at a bit of hula hooping before the energetic game of tic-tac-toe began. Fun! Make sure you get outside and enjoy the nature of Maine this weekend!