The 21st Annual International Dog Sled Teams Race In The Fort Kent Can Am Event.
Mush, not the playing with your food kind, the Northern Maine International Dog Sled Race kind in Fort Kent ME.
Head up 1-95, then Rt 1, 1A or 11 to the top of Aroostook County. Sign in for the 21st Annual Can Am Crown Northern Maine dog sled races. Starts Friday March 1, wraps up with awards Tuesday March 5th. There are 250, 60, 30 mile grueling dog sled runs to pick from with different course checkpoints, for this list of 2013 Can-Am mushers.
The Fort Kent “Crown Of Maine” Can Am International Dog Sled Races are consistently run, building in popularity and mushers, supporters become close like family.
Watch the past International CAN AM Maine dog sled team video.
If you’re not busy and want to take in a winter Maine dog sled racing event, head to Aroostook County. All the way to the top of Maine, and meet the warm, friendly, genuine people of Fort Kent. Smack dab on the Canadian – US border.
Winter is not a time of hibernation. Maine is outdoor living, recreation year round.
Watch other videos from past International World Cup Biathlon Maine winter events.
Womens World Cup IBU Biathlon In Presque Isle Maine Video.
Or maybe snow sledding, skiing in Northern Maine is your idea of fun. The best winter recreational way to spend your day outdoors in the fresh air, sunshine.
Big Rock Ski Area, Mars Hill Maine Video
Or hop the US Canadian border and put on the boards.
Point those snow skis down Crabbe Mountain, New Brunswick Canada video.
Maine winter outdoor fun is only limited by your imagination. Bundle up, if you are cold you are not dressed properly. Or you need to move those legs, swing those arms. Put more effort into the Maine winter recreation. Get to Maine, no matter what season. Make her a habit, healthy addiction that you can not break.
The Classic Maine Farm Barn, Slipping To One Knee. Becoming Extinct.
The Maine farm barn was once a thriving, vibrant center stone in the crown jewels of a country acreage land spread.
But square bales of hay not collected from fields, conveyor belted or lifted up overhead for winter storage now. Man power to hay, less farmers, smaller families all led to big round bales that machines can handle, not humans alone. So the big massive storage capacity of a Maine farm barn is under utilized. Everything has to be on the ground floor now on the Maine farm. Like our Maine schools for handicap access.
Nothing excites but bothers me at the same time as spying a big farm barn while exploring around Maine back roads.
The fact the Maine farm barn is still standing is a testament to it’s construction. And to the caretakers, good stewards that kept the roof shingled, weather tight. That replaced sills that were kicking out, windows that needed re-glazing. But getting that high up to use that many shingles, paint or stain that large an area for something that two thirds of it is has no use. Makes it a labor of love, more than a good business exercise on the investment of time, money, resources.
I spied with my little eye a Maine barn this weekend on US Rt 1A in Limestone, in Aroostook County. That definitely had a better side for profile images. Just like you and I. From the south, the need for some paint for the barn doors and trim. The shingled cedar weathered and au natural. The aging asphalt roof fatique apparent. But big metal cupolas stood stately, proud, straight.
Rusting cupolas, a pair of them used to help vent the big barn full of yearly new harvest hay. That heats up if the moisture is not removed in the field before storage. If put away wet. And that’s the source of many a barn fire total loss destruction. Because hay wasn’t left to dry, condition, cure. And heated up to the point of spontaneous combustion. Barn lighting rods in place, purchased during a good potato year. The overall Maine farm barn seemingly straight. Eye candy for a Maine farm boy that never grew up, excites easily.
But on the north side of the Maine farm barn, that gets the weather, especially out of the northwest, watch out.
We have a problem Houston. And the posts, beams, dowels when the roof is peeled back and side barn cavity exposed to the open elements. All that Maine weather means she will bleed out fast. Exposed, unprotected and like someone did not just leave the barn door open and the old gray mare got away. The entire side of the structure is naked, unprotected, vulnerable Getting wet, drying out. Being lifted up jerked, pushed down hard. Bullied sideways by grounding pounding wrestling winds, Maine weather.
Racking the barn frame and trying to make the place lay down for good and die.
As it sinks, which will happen with enough weather, more time and lack of maintenance to save the Maine barn. This barn’s attached machine shed or animal stable pulled away, helping accelerate the tail spin, stall and dive to the bottom of the farm spread ocean. Wind, Rain, The Attached Machine Shed Or Animal Stable Pulling Away, Tearing, Straining The Maine Farm Barn As It Titanics.
The loss of the giant Maine farm barn makes the ones that still roam the Earth, in Maine, elsewhere that much more special, unique, cherished. Insurance companies don’t like them. Know how much they cost to reproduce with six by sixes, eight by eight beams. If there is a fire. There is just so much that goes into a massive Maine farm barn to repair.
Keeping one healthy means find another Maine barn to be an “organ donor”.
Salvaging, scavenging cupolas, metal door hinges and fasteners of the period. Steel cross cables turn buckled to like a girdle and buttress the spread, squat, sag. To work against gravity in combination with careful, slow, tedious jacking. Adding more hurricane bracing. Trying to keep the box square. Or make it rectangular again. The gambrel barn roofs are more needy, higher maintenance than the simple “A” gable ones. But ah, the gambrel barns hold so much more hay. Offer tremendous, usable storage. To draw from over a long Maine winter in hay storage for rows and rows of critters. Or used that way when the family farm, like my Mom who was a Benn from Hodgdon Maine was the norm. Meant eleven kids in her family all pitched in to help perform daily chores on a bustling dairy and potato farming operation.
Like an old rusted 1959 Cadillac, Square Thunderbird, Lincoln, Corvette or other other classic that comes with a parts car. Or two because you need them for the original labor of love restoration if you are a purest. Or have time to tinker, not just ching ching mail order in genuine imitation expensive parts. That look close to what the original yesteryear ride did when she rolled off the production line in Detroit. Playing some R and B, Motown music from it’s dashboard AM radio. Smelling of new upholstery and rug, rubber, vinyl and chrome trim, fresh paint.
Maine Kids Learn About An Honest Days Work, But Do Any Of Us Make Honest Mistakes Any More?
Back in the early 1980’s I taught a University of Maine adult education class on real estate practices.
At the time you needed the practices class which highlighted the day to day of being a Maine real estate agent. To get your salesman or broker’s ticket. With courses taught by an attorney for the law, and appraiser for the valuation end of listing, peddling property listings part of the three course process.
One night before class started, while folks were filing in to pick their same seat as last session, one older lady had a major melt down. Each week she complained about not needing to be in the class. Looked for sympathy. But had let her real estate license lapse and the state thought differently. Said attend or else cease and desist the desire to be a Maine real estate agent. Find another line of work.
Always putting on the Ritz, dressed to the nines.
Extremely over dressed for class. More dolled up looking like ready to go out on the town and paint it red. This particular night, while wearing a sheer, frilly blouse with way way too many front buttons unemployed, not working. A gentleman from Mapleton accidently bumped, spills his coffee. A few drops land on her dry clean only expensive blouse that did not come from Kmart, Ames (pronounced in Maine AIM-zezzzzz) or Woolco.
Not losing the entire cup or even a tiny fraction when she suddenly turned around and ran in to the gentleman. Who pulled off a remarkable Columbia bean elixir save, recovery. While negotiating up the rows of seats to plant his keester in the one behind her. No No. Just a few drops was the claim if any at all were shed on her clothing in the java bump that she initiated. Foul was whistled shrilly. Wrongful doing air raid sirens sounded. Call in the coffee police. File a report. Put up the yellow do not cross police crime scene tape. Heads are going to roll.
Normally when a mistake is made, and this cup carrying class mate apologized, offered to pay for her blouse to be dry cleaned or replaced, then you expect things to settle down. Not in this case. Miss Snarky proceeded to ask him in the room full of large eyes and stalled midstream conversations how he could be so stupid. What was wrong with him was barked over and over.
You could silently feel the sway of the room when no side was picked in the mishap at the onset.
The boat listing to port. To suddenly the entire class was feeling badly for Mr Coffee. Wearing his hush puppy tie ups. Because it was an honest mistake, if any java, of the cup of Joe was actually spilled. And if it was he had sincerely, emphatically showed he was truly sorry. All apologetic beside himself. With sincerity written all over his face and his words to right a wrong being obvious to the rest in the real estate class room night session. Other classmate intervene to remind “he said he was sorry”, “let it go”. It was an honest mistake.
The powder keg, blown way out of proportion episode made me realize why juries award ridiculously large damage settlements. Sometimes they hate big companies that come out as greedy. Chasing the almighty dollar. If no remorse was shown, if extreme negligence is apparent without a shadow of a doubt. But also why folks get off the hook and not just on technicalities. Because of the way the people in the trial present, handle themselves. What is expected in society and when it is obvious the norms, values and what’s fair is out of whack? We all judge fairness based on what should happen with an honest mistake but what if it was our ox getting gored? Feel the same way? How situations get exploited, heading down a different rabbit trail.
The belle of the ball, over dressed with teetering tall sequined high heels was wet hen upset.
Could not let it go. The pressure cooker was whistling, steaming she’s gonna blow. Her dander up, ears back, teeth bared, showing in a grimace, snarl. You know who was about to be kicked, bitten. The personal attack approach left abandoned “the seeking sympathy from the class” reaction to her plight. This misdeed, tragedy, quandary instead of soliciting the class to join her cause, did the opposite. You could not help but feel sorry for the student just trying to take his seat behind her. The sprinkle spillage could not take on the epic proportions, draw any similarities to the sideways oil tanker one off the coast in Valdez, Alaska. Sorry.
Public opinion, is there an honest mistake made any more?
An honest mistake is unintentional, one not made with malice or any forethought.
You are being honest when you say I am sorry. It was a mistake admitted. And you don’t hide from any other intentional agenda or sheer reckless malice. Ah, and that leads us to the topic of forgiveness, situational ethics. Easier said than done it seems. Made any honest mistakes lately? How about everyone around you? Do they still happen in a world that has shifted, thinks more about me now than others?
Maine, big state, lots of special spaces, places to figure things out. Hear yourself think.
Maine is a great state for retreats, private times in beautiful places without all the wall to wall people.
To spend memorable moments reflecting with just you, yourself and I. Removing all the distractions, crutches, conversations and deadlines. Stripping away the old comfortable ways that have gotten you this far. Putting the “fun” in dysfunction. But limiting anything that has kept you from living up to your full potential.
In my job the common theme from out of state Maine real estate buyers is something is missing. Not happy but not sure why. Thinking it must be others, can’t possibly be just me. And a change of geography, a whole new natural backdrop, a slower natural place like Maine has got to help find what is lacking. Some are running away from skeletons of the past. Many are living fast forwarded way into tomorrow. Anxious to fulfill future dreams put on hold for too long. And time’s a wastin’. Better chop chop hop to it.
Others are trying to strip away what has robbed their peace, inner joy, kept them from experiencing a fuller, deeper life.
To tighten the focus on just deal with today. Living in today. Johnny Cash sang about needing to “Get A Rhythm” when you got the blues. To get back on your feet. To walk the line when there’s a burning ring of fire. And you feel like you’re in Folsom Prison. Oh yeah, that comes in future songs he penned. To get the suffering, frustration, confusion out. Sang to help ease the pain. To make room in the over crowded heart that was wore black to free up space so understanding could hang it’s hat. Come home to roost.
Hello, I’m Johnny Cash, Remind You To Get A Rhythm In Song Video.
How to feel comfortable in your own skin. Starts with no longer trying to meet the expectations of everyone around you. That for some reason want, need to define you when they should be working on their own short comings. To keep their eyes on their own laundry list of faults, struggles. Some say loved ones are hard on each other because they just want to help improve you. But we are our own worst, harshest critics. Without rhythm in the song we sing, the notes just don’t arrange themselves so sweetly. But we have to write our own sheet music. Or play it by ear as the measures roll on. You are the best star to be considered for the role of “This Is Your Life”. No one else.
When you have kept yourself pretty much round the clock busy, time alone to hear yourself think is not allowed to happen. And when you are not confident without approval, validation of others around you, spending time alone can be awkward. Fish out of water uncomfortable. But what you don’t enjoy is often the bitter tasting medicine you need to swallow. The old adage about what does not kill you makes you stronger rings true. You don’t always get what you wanted but always what you needed happens.
The bottom line of the pitch from many advertisements we are bombarded with these days is it’s time to change you.
Become the new you with this product, service, book, set of CD’s with three easy payments. Maybe the old you has just been slammed into park. Not allowed to be started up, taken for a spin. As the Guess Who sand “I got got got no time.”.
Obligations in life put off the self analysis. Raising a family, holding down a job to make a living, working on the many relationships around us through out life. Not a lot of time left for just how are you doing questions. Posed eye to eye with the guy or gal you share the mirror with brushing teeth, combing hair each morning.
Slowly, as kids leave the nest, the learning curve of a career planes out, many find Maine is the place with the space. To really start to learn about yourself. The things that make you happy. Make you tick. And you find that inner rhythm. By taking better care of you first. Not just pulled like the scarecrow apart at the seams default pattern to end all make everyone around you happy.
It can sound selfish but you are not thumbing your nose at the world when you put your foot down.
It’s just when you reach a point in life where a shift happens. A conscious adjustment causes the factoring in of more alone time. Me quality time. To not just get your satisfaction externally any more. But adding the most important element of joy. Built from within, deep inside. To places not many are allowed. No fly zones. To areas even you have to open up the Delorme Gazateer to explore, find your way around. The way back out.
You know the expression that you can tell what is happening within a person by what’s written all over their face? Not the staged smile that they hide behind when people are looking. The contenance, way they project, what radiates from deep down can not be kept a secret. Even though the world is your stage and we are but mere actors playing out our roles in quiet desperation.
Maine, explore, discover, relax. Whew. You made it. No hurry to leave, no reason to stay away.
With each shade, intensity and the pattern contributing like an orchestra to the experience out in the audience. The sunshine that fuels the backdrop provides a different sensation than a set of spotlights trying to do the same job artificially.
Not just found in Maine churches these days but still has a certain sanctity, sacredness because of the events you were exposed to growing up around stained glass.
When a small child with feet that did not quite reach the floor. In a church wedding where everyone is low voiced whispering. When you are a kid used to using your outdoor recess voice for communication. To make a point. Or at a funeral with shades of purple trappings, sadness enhancing organ music and occasional bell chimes gonged. Resonating, signaling the end of time. Before the shift to let’s celebrate the life of the newly departed people. Can I get an amen? Not cry our eyes out and feel sorry for our own loss. Remembering they’re going, headed, on their way to a better final place, their real home. While the hole in your heart heals.
Some stained glass church windows donated by family members in memory of the loved ones.
To soothe the loss. To remember, not have the memory fade and the person’s “light” to live on. And lots of stained glass with scripture inserted. Tied into the array of colors and patterns. Stained glass is neat. But not just in churches in Maine any more. The image above mostly ordinary sea glass. But not so simple and transformed into something of dramatic beauty. Because of many hours, a highly creative spirit of the artist who proudly displays it at a local Lubec Maine coastal eatery. Here is another of a Maine moose of colored glass.
The front entry door to where I live in a Houlton Maine home has a small vertical rectangle window space. And the old plain jane glass needed replacement a while back. I had a property behind me that sold to an Arizona couple. She was a nurse, he had royally messed up his back as a fire fighter. And instead of taking pain killers or keep trying to be put under the knife for more operations when the rails on the train had run out, the husband drank beer. All the time nursing cheap beer, Blatz barley pop. Like it was on an IV pole, plugged in by a hose for a slow drip constant. Except no metal pole on squeaky wheels or the swinging, hanging bag. Just right hand curls of the cheap beer through out his day. Into each night. Creating lots of returnable deposit empties, dead tin soldiers.
One hobby Lloyd developed along with his default beer drinking as a professional, highly functioning alcoholic was stained glass.
When he did not have time for the pain, he repaired removed church window sashes. In his carriage house workshop. Creating new stained glass window works. He brought tons of glass of various textures, patterns and hues with every color solid and combination pigments known to man. From West Germany, and in special 2×4 construction bins for each. Mostly sheets, squares but every smaller piece from a previous job kept for a shepherd’s pie of sorts. For repair and new window creation.
Some green glass remnants he had kicking around made a local electrician sigh in big relief.
When he broke a piece changing, swapping light locations in our house. But Lloyd cut the exact replacement color, shape and wham bam soldered, whipped it in securely. Nice and tight. And all was good again. His old Highland Avenue Houlton Maine home has lots of stained glass work left behind that is now owned, enjoyed by Anne and Andy Cottle. That used to be lived in by neighbors Margaret and Gary Hagan before the stained glass ta da embellishment took the place up a few notches.
Maine churches in the area lamented hearing the relocation news. Sad to see him move before their immediate need was met in their sanctuary of worship. But while here, he was a Johnny Appleseed of sorts for long overdue stained glass church window repair. The local Houlton Maine churches in the flock could not afford to hire out of state firms to travel way north. Lloyd was well received and kept as busy as his lower back would allow.
Before he left, back to that window out front where I live. I asked if I could hire him to make a replacement of stained, colored glass.
We drew out a design of diamonds of lavender and milk glass, he measured the opening. And in short order, a new windows was created for what I thought was peanuts for compensation. It was a hobby, past time not full time work for Lloyd. He could not work the standard forty hour week. But when he was feeling his oats so to speak, having a good day, he created something beautiful. Above and beyond.
Here is a Maine stained glass link of beautiful galleries to inspire. The lamps with dragon fly, jewels of intricate, rich hand blown colored glass beads, real antique ones not reproductions are neat. But creative spirit and not just solemn, proper, pious church applications has flung, no nailed the door wide open on stained glass “sky’s the limit”.
Creations now only limited by your imagination and time allowed, the commitment from your wallet for the DIY stained glass designers. But stained glass also like ordering a restaurant meal options and how do you want it cooked has become more sophisticated than just repair of existing church windows. The cost has come down as the increase in the size of the market extends way way beyond church buildings, religious applications tied to just the collection plate.
Whitlocks Mill Maine Lighthouse Is Northern Most Of The 68 In Vacationland.
With 68 Maine lighthouses, if you want to collect, capture, experience them all, some pretty easy to GPS.
Lots are low hanging fruit simple, others require a boat ride quite a ways out into the Atlantic Ocean to get up close and personal. After showing the house dubbed “The Castle”, a Brookton Maine home last Saturday, I was already in Washington County so why not go a little deeper. The quest to explore for more lighthouses in Maine resumes.
Many Maine lighthouses have paved parking lots, are part of state parks with facilities. Sometimes part of a fort. Not just a light to warn of rocks for sea going ships to protect from wrecks or sinkings. Some with fortifications nearby for defense during time of war. Which our history shows we have been in and out of a quite a few skirmishes.
Some Maine lighthouses are little guys, spark plug variety I call them. Lacking the fort, the state park with bathrooms, picnic areas. Missing the walking tours with lots of signage showing the images, historic information at various stations along the path ways around them fanfare. Maine’s Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse is another spark plug, pint size, junior model, runt of the litter example. The light is all there is, without the other fan fare. So is Lubec Channel lighthouse in Maine.
So back to Whitlocks Mill Lighthouse, it is an easier one to catch on digital because she’s right off US Rt 1.
Parked on the river bank of the St Croix 3 miles east of Calais. Not jutted out on a point surrounded by water and rocks like some Maine lighthouses.
Whitlocks Mill lighthouse in Maine is near the St Croix River View Rest Area. Established in 1892, built in 1910, automated in 1969, with a tower that’s 25 feet high. The inside lined in ceramic tile. Three seconds of green alternating light with three more of darkness is the heart beat rhythm, the pulse of this Maine lighthouse. Maine lighthouse preservation is popular and done by some pretty dedicated people. After snapping some images of Whitlocks Mill lighthouse I thought maybe I had enough daylight to get a glimpse of the St Croix River lighthouse.
Found the island the St Croix River Lighthouse was parked on, before destroyed by fire in 1976. Bummer.
And there is nothing like a three for three Maine lighthouse collecting day so next on the list was a trip to Cutler Harbor Maine. One day I was lucky enough to bag four but those are the easier, low hanging fruit drive a little, walk a little Maine lighthouses.
So rolled into Cutler Maine, saw the communication towers, but dusk was approaching. Which can be a magic time on a sunny day to add sparkle, back lighting drama to a shot. But it was foggy, the day before a Maine snow storm and that’s okay too.
Because lighthouse in Maine life was not all sunshine, rosy easy warm weather.
It was sometimes bleak, cold gusty winds, salt air sea damp, a tad dreary. And that comes across with the right weather conditions, season, time of day in a shot. Which is a true reflection of what it was like to actually live at one. Before they one by one became automated. To work, live at a Maine lighthouse year round. Pretty solitary, lonely life but some had farms associated with them. So lots of gardening, stable chores for the critters kept a mind occupied. Plus lamp maintenance, storm repairs were on the job jar to do list as well.
The target, mission for the tail end of the day was to try to capture a glimpse, see if I could get close enough to Little River Lighthouse in Cutler Maine. Remember I said some Maine lighthouses are easy pickings for sightings, image collecting? Struck out on Little River lighthouse. Need to charter a boat ride, or paddle a sea kayak out to accomplish this mission as she is on the seaward side of the island at the mouth of Cutler Harbor. A jogger provided me with the boat charter skipper I can call too. All in all not a bad day of collecting images on my Washington County day visit to Cutler Maine, other places along the way.
Went on down US Rt 1 for some fresh Maine seafood.
Being this close to Machias, Washington County’s seat or Shiretown to sample a platter of Maine clams at Helen’s Restaurant. Saving room for a slab of juicy, warmed up local blueberry pie with some ice cold vanilla ice cream drizzling down over the top. That hit the spot for the ride to get ahead of the snowstorm that was just starting. That made the drive north up US Rt 1 a little more interesting listening to Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion on the way back to Houlton Maine.
