Queen Anne's Lace

 

Things quiet down in September and October

Everything stills in November

Tall grasses sway

They whisper about flowers that will fade and fall away

Flashes of amber light up the field, the trees, the sky

One flower stays

Once light, white, and delicate

Now, transformed

Bound together, sturdy, and secure

Preparing for the inevitable

It towers over the meadow

Standing alone

Striking, solid, and tall

It is Queen Anne's lace in the fall

 

 



 A week or so ago I went with Evan to one of his trainings in Bangor. I sat in the truck for the majority of the time but eventually got bored. I grabbed my camera and started walking. While walking near a field I noticed this cool cage looking thing and had no idea what it was but knew that I wanted to take pictures of it! I came home and found out that it is actually Queen Anne's Lace. Such a cool transformation.....

 

State O'Maine

 

Behind Dunkin Donuts in Machias. Hunter's Moon.

View from the walking trails on the Machias river.

I am in love with my state. I always have been. During the past two months, I have visited many parts of central and northern Maine for the first time. There is one specific view that catches me off guard every time. While driving through Patten there is a spot where you can stop and take in miles of open fields, rolling hills with changing maples and oaks, dark outlines of evergreen trees, and Mount Katahdin in the distance, ALL in the same picture. It takes my breath away.

One day I will stop and take a picture of this gorgeous view. I haven't yet because I'm usually in such a desperate state trying to keep the boys calm during the 5 1/2 hour drive. I also tend to get very discouraged by these landscapes...I see them as being too big and too beautiful to try to capture them in one shot. It would never do it justice.

Where the sights of northern Maine are gorgeous, I am quite partial to downeast Maine.
It has always been my home, and I'm proud to be a "downeastah". Happy to say that I've always appreciated what it has to offer...the ocean, the lakes, the woods, the blueberries, the people. Now that I have moved away from it....going back takes me to a tourist state of mind. Places that I've always known to be beautiful, now pop out at me like never before.


Roque Bluffs



View of the hunter's moon in Machias, early morning.



Fall blueberry fields in Northfield

 






I am a sucker for dew drops on anything!

View from Washington Bald Mountain, Wesley













View of third Machias lake from Washington Bald Mountain, Wesley

Sunrise on Machias river from the view at Inn at Schoppee Farm

I just started reading Louise Dickinson Rich's State O'Maine. It isn't very often that I get excited about a book by it's introduction, but this one did just that! The first page of the book made me smile...she captures being a Mainer, perfectly.

To Mainiacs, Maine is not merely a place. It is a spiritual home and shelter as perfectly fitting and comfortable and natural as its shell is to a snail; which, like snails, they carry with them wherever they may go. To them, Maine is a state of mind and a way of life inseparable from the geography and topography of the area and from their own bones and blood and thoughts and dreams.

  I feel that this is so true. Since I was 13, every summer has been spent working at Helen's in Machias. I grew up being asked tourist questions like,

"What on earth do you do for fun around here?"
"What do you mean the nearest Walmart is one hour away?"
"Are you serious? You have to drive 2 hours to go shopping at a mall?"

Unfortunately, for the tourists who ask me these questions, just like the snail that Louise Dickinson Rich describes...carrying the shell wherever we go...I get very defensive. I feel the need to protect my home. I get angry when people can't appreciate the simplicity of things. First of all....I hate shopping. I loathe Walmart. Every time I enter the place I end up wanting to hurt myself 20 minutes in. I hate it simply because my brain cannot handle such overload. Hannaford in Machias is my place to shop. I love the simplicity of being able to walk into a store and knowing exactly where to find what I need. I like knowing the names of the employees. Are the prices higher than Walmart? Some of them, sure. But I know that when I walk in a Walmart....I'm going to purchase more than what's on my list...just because my brain loses all control and sensory overload destroys all rationale.

It is impossible to convey a frame of mind, to explain why I love my state, and why I love Machias to someone who has already decided to hate it and pity me for being stuck in such a desolate hole. Of course not every tourist asks these questions with the same horrified look on their face. There are plenty of tourists who return every summer to soak up everything good our area has to offer. It is their opportunity to unwind, to get away from it all, and to recharge. Come early September, they're shipping out to carry on their busy city lives.

Simply stated, ours is a different way of life. It is not for everyone, that is for sure. But for me, it's the way life should be! :)

  

From Forest to Table

There were so many things that fell into place when we were getting ready to move to Clayton Lake. When Evan's name was drawn for the 2013 Maine Moose Lottery, we were ecstatic. When we checked the zone and saw that he would be hunting out of Clayton Lake, it was almost laughable. Call it luck? He has ridiculous luck. A little story about his luck....our first week here in Clayton Lake we went fishing at Bissonnette bridge. His line ended up breaking and he lost his good lure. A week later we went back...and he CAUGHT the line he had lost and saved the lure. Only Evan. 

Exciting moment for our little family! He was 712 lb 42 1/4 inch spread



I hope both of my boys will  get lucky enough to have the opportunity to shoot their own someday!

Evan and his brother Michael. He came in to help call in the moose.

 

 Now is the part where I come in. I have been cooking Evan's wild game for years. He is a natural born killer. Seriously, through and through. Before he became a game warden...his fall seasons were spent AWAY. So it was a pretty easy transition into warden life, he is still going to be gone all fall seasons. He'll just be getting paid now!

 

 

 

That basically says it all. I grew up in a hunting friendly family. But nothing could prepare me for this man's obsession. I always had a major crush on Davy Crockett so really, it all worked out perfectly!!!

 

This might sound so so silly...but there is nothing I love more than seeing the look on my husband's face when I have taken an animal that he has killed and turned it into an awesome meal. There's something so awesome about knowing that the meat you're about to eat came from a gorgeous animal who lived just down the road. The animal lived a natural life, living off the land with no human intervention. When it was killed, it was in it's own habitat. It felt no fear or panic while walking up a ramp at a slaughterhouse awaiting the stun gun. Evan met the butcher face to face. The meat was put in one freezer before it was put in ours. It wasn't transported to a store and put on a shelf. It is the purest way to consume an animal. The only thing shameful about the situation was how the bull looked on the back of the truck riding out to meet the butchers. He should've had a glorious ride fit for a king on his drive out the Reality road. But instead.....he got this.



We didn't have a trailer so things got a little crammed. Baha

We never ate a lot of wild game in my house growing up. I still have a lot of learning left to do, but I've been able to figure out what I can do with it to mask whatever game flavor is left. Some people may enjoy that wild flavor, but I do not. This is the first moose we have ever had and in my opinon, it certainly has the most mild game flavor when compared with bear and deer. Very exciting. :)

 

For our first meal with the moose meat, I decided to make a stir fry. I got the recipe for the marinade and the sauce here:

http://www.bakeatmidnite.com/2013/08/beef-broccoli.html

 

I asked Evan to take some meat out of the freezer for stir fry. He grabbed the tenderloin that the butcher cut off for him the day after he killed the moose....and he wrapped it up in saran wrap himself. Aaaaaand I came out to the kitchen to a bloody countertop. So lovely.



Snow peas, onions, peppers, carrots, broccoli, water chesnuts, fresno pepper, and grated ginger. Helpful tip that I learned last year....FREEZE YOUR GINGER!!! When you're ready to use it...you can just take it out, peel it, and grate it!!! It's SO much easier than having to deal with all the veiny stringy parts when it isn't frozen.



Finished product!!! It was delish.

 

Now, Evan is a complete and total leftover snob. He simply will not eat them. It's so annoying. I've had to learn how to be so careful here in the woods, to figure out how to not waste anything. We don't have the option to go to the store to buy an extra ingredient that has been forgotten...we really have to use everything. So the day after I made the stir fry...I made egg rolls out of the mixture.

 

I chopped everything up from the stir fry and added green cabbage, raw shredded carrot, rice noodles and a little extra ginger. Warmed it all up in a frying pan and filled the egg roll wrappers. Then it was on to the dutch oven to fry! They passed the Evan taste test, and I was able to freeze them so he can take them out and heat at 300 whenever he wants a snack. He might be spoiled rotten. 

 

 



Love this guy!