HALLOWEEN NIGHT 2016

It’s the night of Halloween. Scary clowns are roaming the streets. BEWARE! Never before has Halloween contained so much scary news. News, going around the world. War in the Middle East, a warmonger strong-man in Russia, a crazy idiot of a would-be business-man and leech who wants to be president in the U.S. and, even worse, almost half of the same country’s population running crazed and blinded into their very downfall, and lastly international politicians warning of WWIII. The scare is out there, let’s celebrate craziness. Let’s celebrate        HALLOWEEN

May I Introduce? His Name Is Gobbin

Gobbin arrived at noon. His “parents” dropped him off in his cage. Gobbin is a Conure Parrot. Conures are not big, but they are exceedingly sweet and nice birds. After only a few hours with us he started communicating in his own conure language. But when I get near him and talk to him he’s coming real close and his beak is grabbing my mustache. But he’s not ripping at it, just exploring that grey hairy stuff. Molly is flabbergasted about the new live-in comrade. She’s jealous too. I get close to Gobbin and Molly is sticking her head right up between us. And the rest of the time Molly is right in front of Gobbin’s cage looking straight up, trying to figure out what this birdy is doing here. Are we having fun here? You bet we have.

Gloomy Morning

The storm had let off over night and the wind had changed direction to NNW. Yet, I was curious enough to have a look at Herring Cove Beach. It was a gloomy morning. Grey skies all around and colours were fading in the distance. A bleak sun tried to get through the thick layer of clouds, a few sea birds – that was all. But the previous high tide had washed across the beach moving a lot of sand into the outlet of Lake Glensevern. Another car had stopped up the road – a man was walking his dog. A gloomy morning in late October.

A Terrible Storm Hit Us Today

I heard the wind blowing even before I got out of bed this morning, but yet I had no idea what was about to come. Winds increased over the morning hours and reached full storm by mid-afternoon/early evening. At the same time the wind was driving the rain across and neither Molly nor I were Happy Campers when we had to go outside. This was gonna be an inside-the-house-day. It didn’t take long until I became bored. I had already checked my email umpteen times, read all the Oh-so-funny Facebook posts and had even made it down the blog list when I ventured into the kitchen. Bea had talked about having cherries in the fridge and it was a awfully long time ago we’d had a Black Forest Cake. So pretty soon I was measuring eggs, flour, cocoa and sugar into the mixer. 49 minutes later that cake was all done. After adding whipped cream, cherries and chocolate flakes on top I could hardly contain myself from cutting off a good size slice. DANG…that cake could become my favorite.  Just delicious. All the while the wind was howling around the house and something banged against the wall. I think the storm tried to move our bench around. Our garbage container toppled and my tarp cover over the firewood was ripped straight off the wall hook and all following. The storm was coming out of the east and that triggered my curiosity to drive over to Herring Cove Beach, where the surf would be tremendous. So I grabbed my smart phone and off I went. I was not disappointed. With a partially open side window towards the beach side I managed to snap a few pics and a short video. The noise…..wow, simply amazing. Video here. The pictures are a bit blurry, as rain was pelting down on the car. But what a show of massive natural power. Amazingly, we had no power outage so far.

Aw Shucks..Almost November

Days are getting colder and the weather forecast is containing more and more of that dreaded news that winter is just lurking outside our door. Not the kind of news I appreciate, but I guess we have to make the best of it. After all we had a pretty amazing fall season. There are still trees with green leaves, but recent strong winds have taken down a lot of the yellow leaves.   maple in May                              …..and in July   …1 week ago                                   …….and now Meanwhile, I have kept busy with my upstairs renovation project which has gone into the finishing phase. Some firewood chopping for next winter is an ongoing occupation for me and and I have taken on food preparation on a daily basis. I love whipping up supper.    Above: Pork Roast in butter dough I also picked pears, cooked them and made dessert of it in jars. While I was carrying in wood from our woodpile I noticed some delicious looking small apples all around. Yes, one apple tree is right in the middle of all the wood stacks. So I tried one of them and it was just great. So quickly I filled up a basket of it. Aren’t they looking great? Another upcoming project will be to make another inner frame (we have 3 from last year) for one of our old historic windows. The frame is made to fit right into the wall opening. It has a foam gasket all around and shrink-plastic is stretched over it. Makes a hell of a difference for the inside room temperature.                      Oh, and then I was called to a neighbour and friend to cut some firewood and put a deadbolt into his front door.  Told ya I was busy. Campobello Sunsets are still spectacular and I can’t but marvel about those colours. I find that a sunset is getting more scenic if clouds are around.  So beautiful and just outside our living room window. Next week we are going to the birds. Well, actually one bird is gonna come to us. We have been asked to do “bird-sitting” for a neighbouring family. The one coming to us is a parrot, and the others we have to care for are chickens. I am looking forward to the parrot-sitting. When I was a boy I had butchies. They are soo entertaining. And maybe we get to pick some chicken eggs…. Had myself a drive to the hardware store in Lubec the other day and here is a part of “The Easternmost Town Of The U.S.”     This is “Small Town USA” as you won’t find it anywhere else.  And right across from Lubec --- Campobello with Mulholland Light

Long Johns Day

Today we are “celebrating” Long Johns Day”. It’s the day when my Long Johns re-emerge from the lower drawer to start a new circle of life through an ever cooling period of late fall and winter. It’s not that we got snow on the ground, but we got some pretty stiff cold winds coming off the water.  Just opening our entry door to let out Molly was enough to make me hurry upstairs looking for warmer clothing. Our wood burning stove has had early bouts of spreading warmth throughout the house, but so far they were limited to a few morning hours. Not anymore! Got to keep that thing going all day long. Our living room had cooled off overnight to a bizarre 13C (55F) and it took a while until I started to feel the temperature rise. The weekend has been marked with a lot of wind and a bit of rain, but that can be expected when Christmas is only 2 months away. (Shudder) A few weeks back I mentioned that our sightseeing van was producing some vibrations when driving at certain speeds. The shop had replaced 2 U-joints but the vibrations were still there. The method of replacing stuff without knowing what’s really going on is not a good one. I have been studying the case on the Internet and some smarter guys than me have pointed out the Torque Converter as a possible culprit. The symptoms could very well point into that direction but we have to get a few tests done to be sure, before more money is spend on costly replacements.

Sad News From Fellow RVers

Today we received the sad news from Betty Graffis that her husband Joe has passed on. Joe and Betty have been keen RVers and enjoyed warm winters in the south-west, where we were lucky enough to meet them in February 2014 at “The Palms at Indian Head” Borrego Springs, CA. R.I.P. Joe

Super Tide On A Late Summer Day

We have reached the middle of October. It’s been snowing in the west causing lots of traffic accidents. At the same time the east coast is experiencing record high day temps, reaching 21C (70F) yesterday. Can you stay indoors when the weather is THAT nice on a day in October? I can’t! When Bea was back from work and I had done my chores, like doing the breakfast dishes and…OH mudding my drywall, I HAD to get outside. So I suggested an excursion into the park. See, fall colours are nice and this temperature wouldn’t last. So after loading both Bea and Molly up we were heading out. Went to “Cranberry Point” and got a surprise.                         Left: High tide and right 40 Minutes later   On any normal day you can walk along the beach there. Not so yesterday. We had a super tide, which means the tide reaches 30ft. With that, the waves were just splashing over the lower two steps of the wooden staircase. Not a single inch of the beach visible. Roses were still blooming, and Bea had to take a good sniff of it. So we walked down the gravel road which kinda runs in a loop returning to starting point. But about a bit down that road a small, almost invisible trail runs down to the water’s edge. A bench invites to sit down and enjoy the look-out across a few small islands. So nice, so quiet, just the lapping of the water over the rocks. I was just sorry I hadn’t put on my shorts and a T-shirt, so I enjoyed to get into the shade of the forest on our continuing walk. Molly was following us, sniffing here and there and obviously enjoying the whole thing. She is such a darling. But then we noticed she was getting thirsty…and so was I. So we returned home and had ourselves a good portion of Banana-Split ice cream. Those golden days are gonna stand in our memory when we, in a couple of month, look outside and the snow is flying sideways. It’s a bit hard to imagine right now, but it will happen.

And The Winner Is:

The Republicans tried to sink Obama. Instead, the party imploded by Richard Wolffe It may seem too early to call, but we already have a winner in the 2016 election. He’s someone the pundits wrote off long ago. An improbable outsider who rode an insurgent wave to snatch the nomination from the establishment. An unconventional politician whose raucous rallies underscored his appeal to voters far outside his party base. His name is Barack Obama. And he can thank the freak show that is Donald Trump’s Republican party for restoring his stature as a unifying, national leader with a moderated and mature approach to a complex and unstable world. Eight years ago, Obama represented an existential threat to the Republican party, and not just because he was going to lead the Democratic party to win the White House and Congress by large margins. No, Obama’s biggest threat was that he could realign American politics, shifting it fundamentally towards progressives for a generation. He and his campaign aides talked privately of being the Reagan of the left: a transformative figure who would leave an indelible legislative mark at home and restore America’s position on the world stage. With his appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, Obama could break the Republican party as a national force. With his appeal to minority voters – a rapidly emerging majority across the country – he could lock in the fastest growing demographics that could turn red states blue. So the GOP leadership chose to make Obama unacceptable, unpalatable and un-American. On the night of his first inauguration, House Republican leaders met at a Washington steakhouse to plot their path back to power. They would not reform their policies or consider the root cause of their defeat. Instead, they would oppose Obama on everything, well before he tried to pass a giant stimulus bill or healthcare reform. They needed to deny him a reputation for bipartisanship and mainstream politics, and they succeeded. He wasn’t reasonable; he was an ideologue. His vision of healthcare reform wasn’t a free-market system based on Republican plans; it was a socialist takeover that would destroy the American way of life. He was inviting terrorist attacks on the homeland, not hunting down Osama bin Laden. He was acting in unconstitutional ways because he wasn’t really American at all. The party of Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Roger Ailes had turned him into their own kind of freak. Before he finished his second year in office, Obama was such an object of Republican loathing that the Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell could say – with impunity – that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” If your political priorities are the total defeat of a single politician – not the advancement of your own policies through debate or legislation – then you are already in pretty desperate shape. You render it impossible to compromise with your opponents, and you fan the flames of extremism that will burn anyone in the center. You also look weak and foolish when you lose, surrendering the stage to someone who can vilify his opponents better than you. So don’t look dazed and confused at Donald Trump when he runs your playbook more convincingly than your own team. It’s too late to fret about endorsing his kooky positions – like deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, treating all Muslims as enemies and blowing up the deficit – when they are only logical extensions of your own. After eight years of conservative caricature, you may be forgiven for thinking that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist with terrorist sympathies and job-destroying policies on healthcare and bank regulation. Of course, if you live inside the echo chamber of Fox News and rightwing talk radio, you have to ignore the pesky fact that unemployment now stands at 4.9%. That’s lower than when Reagan left office in 1988, and it’s lower than when Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996. The rate stood at 8.3% in Obama’s first full month in office, and not much below that when he won re-election. For a president with a job-killing economic plan, that’s not a shabby performance. Sure enough, Obama’s approval ratings (52%) are almost identical to Reagan’s in August 1988 (53%) and a dramatic contrast to those of George W Bush (32%) in 2008. One of these Republican presidents was succeeded by his own vice-president; the other was succeeded by Barack Obama. Trump Super Pac chair: Donald Trump needs 'a miracle' to win – as it happened This should lead to some serious soul-searching inside the Republican party. Not a post-mortem about how to reach out to Latino voters, but a dismantling of the politics of personal destruction, and the creation of a new, hopeful agenda that can appeal to the mainstream. Instead, the only point of unity inside the GOP is its gleeful hatred of Hillary Clinton, and its thinly veiled disdain for a nominee who has yet to find a politician he can’t insult. The Republican party did not entirely fail to destroy Barack Obama. For a few years, aided by the great recession, they almost succeeded. But then they contrived to revive him by nominating a man who would destroy everything Obama stood for, along with much of the free world as we know it. The rise of Trump has led, perversely, to the revival of Obama. Republican candidates are saying they will not vote for their presidential nominee, and the party’s national security officials are lining up to condemn Trump as a reckless danger to the Republic. How could the incumbent not look like a statesman compared to a man who apparently can’t be trusted with the elevator button, never mind a nuclear one? Inside the White House, Obama’s aides talk about a president liberated from previous constraint. On the trail, and at the podium, he seems to love campaigning against his orange nemesis. His party’s candidates can’t get enough of him, and his potential successor – instead of putting distance between them – believes Obama doesn’t get enough credit for his economic achievements. This one-term president is having an unusually successful end to his second term, and for that he can thank the Republicans who were so determined to destroy him.

The Continuing Project

Customs called at a quarter past nine. The truck with my ordered materials had arrived, so I had to get myself down to the border to pay the dues which were quickly calculated to $5.25. Oh well…I can live with that. Just the free delivery to our home is worth that. While I got busy someone else took a second nap… So no excuse to remain on the couch for me today. No Sir, I started right away by cutting the cross members for the wall. Next was the extra insulation, which I had to haul up from the basement. Vapor barrier and then the dry-walling, which I really hate. Cutting and working drywall is one heck of a messy job.  But by 4pm everything was done. But I still had to get all the tools back in to my shop. Here are the stages of progress: And here are some pics I took yesterday. Herring Cove – dream-beach on Campobello.

What Happens If The Monster Doesn’t Win?

Watching “the monster’s” supporters  (the Mob) and knowing how split the American people currently are, I predict that we will witness a wave of domestic violence born of anger and a whipped-up mood over the course of recent election campaigning. Add to that the numerous “militias” operating in the U.S. and you have the perfect scenario for a wide-spread civil war. Across America, the number of local militias has exploded since 2008, when there were only 42 such groups. Now there are almost seven times that number. And there is a reason for that development. Most militias are extreme right-wing groups who hate everybody who is different from themselves. Muslims, all kind of colored people, Jews, Mexicans, gays…all potential targets. And common for all militias is they love their guns. The current danger of domestic violence is far greater than any terrorist attack rooted in radical Islamist groups. Some of the anti-government groups and local citizens’ councils emphasize white, Christian roots. Many vehemently oppose federal environmental restrictions and seek to uphold the Constitution by force. Most oppose what they call the new world order and often fuel Sept. 11 conspiracy theories. It is no co-incidence that domestic violence and the spread of militias are on the rise.  The hate against coloured people has been smoldering ever since civil war, but when the US got a president with African roots, hate exploded. It certainly didn’t get any better after “The Monster” appeared on stage playing the race and hate card whipping up even more anger.  Inciting violence through hate speech is a criminal offence is some countries. The recent example of planned militia violence was discovered in time to avert a bloodbath.  Citation:“The only f—— way this country’s ever going to get turned around is it will be a bloodbath and it will be a nasty, messy motherf—–,”  If the monster does not win the election more hate groups will spring up planning vicious attacks to “turn around the country” by force. Once militias are getting violent against society the federal government will have to use the military to protect and quash riots. That’s when civil war has become a reality. So, should the monster win the election? Certainly not, but the future doesn’t appear in a rosy light.

Oh Boy..I Got Myself Into A Dusty Mess

There have been hints about this from Bea and I knew she was right. It is all about that small yellow-painted bedroom we have been using as a storage room. Cartons, boxes and bundles have been heaped up there ever since we moved into this house. At times it was difficult to even ENTER that room. Now, this summer I put in a new window. When I did that the old plaster got lose and parts of it had fallen down. Since the room isn’t insulated, I had been planning to remove all plaster off that wall, get the wall insulated and dry-walled. The next step will be to build shelves  for stacking totes. I mean it DOES make sense to clean up this room. With the tourist season being over I feel I have time to start on this before the winter. So today I entered the room armed with a hammer and a crowbar. I removed a lot of boxes from that wall, so I had some room to work. That means now we have 2 bedrooms serving as storage…  The good thing is really that the plaster comes off quite  easily. When this house was build, cement must have been very expensive while sand was free. I am sure you understand my drift here. That plaster was simply no good.  The bad thing about this is that I was enveloped in dust from top to bottom. When all plaster was off, the stuff needed to be scooped up into a pail and carried downstairs to be emptied outside.  Yes, I did about umpteen turns, but finally I got it all out. Then the lath was coming off. More dust. Last step today was putting fiberglass insulation between the studs. My plan calls for cross-insulation, but for that I need to wait until Tuesday when I get a material delivery from EBS-Building Supplies in Machias, ME. Until then I can take a break from this dusty project. Had a great moon-rise today. Just as the sun went behind the horizon in the west, the almost full moon rose above our house. The 2 pictures below have been taken at the same time. Weather has been clear and nice though a cold northern wind has blown all day. It can’t be denied that we are getting closer and closer to winter.