Wonderful Life at the Shire

Maine has been fantastic.  We have decided to stay at Betsy's in Brooks and drive into work. The Shire, AKA Betsy's farm, is a wonderful place. And the drive to work has it's own joys. The 38 miles takes an hour and the GPS has taken me a new way every time.  As a result I have seen some amazing places.

Work has been more then I could have hoped for.  I am totally in love with my job again and I feel like this time around I have truly crafted my job into something that fits me perfectly.  After two brutal days of heavy lifting and reorganization of the classroom space, I got my reward.  Two days of 17th century New England carving!  What a riveting opportunity!  As I watched the instructor lay out and carve I would get goose bumps.  Finally the creamy candy filling, my photos of the weekend were recognized by our marketing director and praised on Facebook.  You should really check them out! They are on Lie-Nielsen's Facebook page, or I put a post with a link on my wall.

As I was driving home the other day I noticed a sign on the side of the road advertising fiddle heads for sale.  I have heard for years about the delisousness of these crazy looking green things, so I stopped and bought some.  We cooked them that night and they prooved to be really very good.  I think I will try cooking them several different ways in the future, I bought 2 lbs.  But the real lesson I learned from this purchase was how the fresh local food of Maine is purchased.  The fiddle heads were in a cooler in the back of a car, parked at the end of a drive way.  I walked up to the house to ask to buy some.  This however is not how this system works.  In the cooler is the product marked with the price and a container for money with some change in it.  The idea is based on the honor system and I am expected to help myself.  On the drive home I realized Betsy had a similar cooler at the end of her drive way.  I looked in, eggs.  This is great, and now that I understand it I will be buying more fresh food items from local producers!  GO Maine!  It is so easy to eat local.

We have been looking for a puppy since we have been in Maine and a perfect scenario has fallen into our laps.  One of Heath's friends has a litter, about a week old, that we can visit and choose from.  This is ideal for us.  We will be able to assess and play with the puppy till we take it home in July. Also on the subject of pets, Softy now ventures outside.  I think she is happy at The Shire to.

Today we will be exploring the town of Belfast, more specifically the Goodwill and the Ocean State Job Lot.  Remind me to let you know about the Job Lots! That's a whole other post!!