Month: May 2020

Destination – Sugarloaf Mountain

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We drove up to Sugarloaf yesterday … you may remember we have made a trip or two here in the last few months. Sugarloaf is about a 2 hr 15 min drive from our house in Northport. It is the second highest mountain in Maine, at an altitude of 4240 feet at the top of the ski trails. Our destination was our new cabin in the town of Carrabassett Valley. Carrabasset Valley sits at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain.

Sugarloaf Ski Area in early March – top of the mountain covered by fog

After selling the Florida House, we thought we were happy to have only one house to take care of – but we always reserve the right to change our minds. We agreed we missed the mountains, and also agreed it made sense to get something within easy driving distance. Our goal will be to minimize air travel in the coming years.

This lead to a few trips to the Sugarloaf Area, where we finally found the cabin for us. We have always wanted a log cabin style home, and thought seriously of building one. But, a perfect place for us came on the market, and we closed the deal last week.

These photos give a flavor of the place. It is one large great room on the first floor, with a den, master bedroom, guest room, and two bathrooms upstairs. There is an apartment over the garage that has a kitchen, living area, bedroom, and bathroom.

We are here for a few days, getting acclimated with the dogs. The house came furnished, including plates, glasses, and pots and pans. We passed on the piano, although we would have kept it if we thought Amy would visit 😉. (The piano was donated to the local Christian Ministry.) We plan to spend a week or two a month here, probably more time in the winter than in the summer. We will see how it works out.

That is our news for the month of May. More details about the area to come in future posts.


We are grateful to have found a second home in the mountains, and are looking forward to sharing with friends and family.

Road Trip

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We set out on a road trip yesterday, but before we did, snapped some photos of blooms and trees.

The apple trees have blossomed:


The yard is looking green these days and the leaves are filling out the trees:

And, the gorgeous trees as we set off on our Road Trip:


Check back tomorrow to find out where our road trip took us.

Happy Birthday Lou!!!

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We had a pizza PARTY 🎉 last night to celebrate Lou’s birthday. It was also our friend Pat’s birthday. Donna made a cake and we celebrated in Covid style.

And Lou says thanks for the Birthday Wishes !!!

Happy Birthday Pat
Snuffing the candles while social distancing
Don’t worry. This is the only time people got close to each other, and it was for a few brief seconds.
‘Donna cuts the cake

 

Pizza Pizza Pizza – Guest Blog!!!

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Here we go – an exciting guest blog from Kathy. Kathy and Steve recently took delivery of a pizza oven. This seems to be the thing to do as a couple of our friends have added pizza ovens (we just mastered takeout, so that will have to do for us).

__________________ Kathy’s blog starts below:

Three key learnings so far:

#1   It is never as easy as the reviewers say

#2   I’m beginning to wonder if someone doctored the video we watched of a 6 and 9 yr old making pizzas – they made it look soooo easy!

#3   If you want to make homemade dough, good luck finding yeast.   Luckily a rescue package arrived from Maine Midcoast RR with some spare yeast and an added bonus of a roll of toilet paper!  Thank you Lou.

Now – a description of the pizza making process:

#1  Testing the yeast.  Yep it is nice and bubbly.  I used my KitchenAid stand mixer.  Poured the flour, etc. in, set it on medium speed for 10 minutes.  Dough comes out perfect.   Before the yeast arrived I bought a ball of dough at the grocery which we used for our first pizza attempt, it was really good.

 

#2  Waiting for the dough to rise.  It looks like a cartoon face.   It eventually rose over the top of the bowl.  Punching dough is fun!

 

#3   After 2 attempts hand tossed pizza is out.   Rolling has eliminated the query “can’t you make it round?”  For me rolling makes it much easier to control the shape and size, granted it is still wonky, but this is a definite improvement.


#4   Flouring the peel is key, otherwise the pizza sticks to the peel and will not slide off into the oven.  We learned that from watching a video of a 6 and 9 yr old make pizzas.  We also prefer the stainless peel to a wooden one. 


#5   It is starting to bubble.   This oven will heat up to 900 degrees fahrenheit.   We cook ours at around 725 degrees, it only takes a few minutes.   Steve has one of those infrared pizza guns to keep track of the oven temperature. 


#6   The finished product, again not exactly round, but it tasted good. 

Our review – practice makes “good”!    We are looking forward to getting to the point of being able to have guests over for pizza.

Update on May 28 … Kathy continues to make pizzas and progress. These look so good. The first is half pepperoni and half bar-b-qued chicken. The second is all pepperoni (yummmmm)

_______________________ This concludes Kathy’s Guest Blog !!!

Thank you, Kathy, for telling us what it’s like to use a Pizza oven. We are looking forward to being some of those guests who get invited to check out some Pizza!!!

 

Leaving the Sweaters Behind

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This week is showing us the first true signs summer is on its way. Sunshine, warmth, and just a little wind.

The flowers are also coming up strong, and so far little evidence of the deer eating them. These photos are with the phone – we might have to break out the real cameras.


This next grouping includes blossoms from one of Lou’s Apple trees. It has an early start, compared to the other 🍎 trees.


We decided to postpone our boat outing for this weekend, thinking Memorial Day weekend might not be the best time to do a check run. We will stay home and work on our social distancing.

Be Safe!