Notes from Maine - 2026/09/20
It’s cold here. That shouldn’t be a surprise, but I thought we had at least a few more weeks of mild temperatures before we took the plunge. This house doesn’t hold heat well. That’s wonderful in the summer. Right now, it’s a little frustrating. I open my windows when we’re at the hottest point of the day, but the house gets colder and colder as we move towards winter.
Albert (dog) is back to normal except a shaved spot on his arm. That’s a relief. He had his teeth cleaned on Friday and we had to talk about possible extractions. So far, he still has his molars. They might come out at some point in the near future. I will take him down to a specialist as soon as I can make the appointment. We’ll find out then his prognosis. Until Albert, all the dogs in my life had good teeth. I’ve never had to take a canine friend in for annual (or semi-annual) cleanings, brush daily, and talk about pulling teeth. For all his strengths, Albert just has bad teeth.
The horses are enjoying the cool weather. They can wander the pasture all day in the sun with very little trouble from bugs. There’s no real grass left, but they get plenty of hay to supplement. Earl (Shire horse) is getting his foot soaked every day right now. The farrier came out to trim everyone’s feet last week and decided not to put on the fourth shoe. Earl has an abscess that doesn’t seem to bring any pain, but it’s right where the shoe would land. The farrier chose to wait until Monday so I can soak the abscess out. I think it’s working. It’s hard to tell.
Maybelle (spotted draft) and Lilly (their daughter) both have great feet. Lilly is pretty sassy with me, but she stands very well for the farrier. Looking at her baby pictures the other day, it’s impossible to understand how she has gotten so big. Her little legs didn’t work those first few hours so I had to hold her up so she could nurse. My back still aches when I think of it. She was so wet, floppy, big-eyed, wet, and sopping wet. She was already a sweetheart that first day, trying her best to stay on her feet.
Yesterday, Lilly was very frustrated. Albert and I crossed the field to go out through the back gate. One of his frisbees was lost in the tangle near the creek and he needed help finding it. Lilly was insistent—she very much wanted to come help us look. I kept turning around, trying to shoo her off.
“No, Lilly, you can’t come. Go eat hay,” I said, repeatedly.
Every time I would turn to admonish her, she would spin and then bounce between her front feet and back, reminding me that she could kick me if she really wanted to. Then, she would run away, only to come back when I was opening the gate. I placated her by throwing an apple. The tree at the back of the pasture is dropping giant apples right now. Most of them land outside the fence, so the horses need someone to toss them in every now and then. When Lilly chased after an apple, I slipped through the gate.
The process is always the same when I help Albert look for a frisbee. I wander around, looking up to see if it’s caught in the branches. I’m usually wrapped up in thorns when Albert comes to find me with a frisbee in his mouth. Apparently, my role is to just curse and tromp while he does all the real work. When we got back to the gate, Lilly was waiting for another apple. I threw a bunch towards her parents and she had to run to get her share.
Sometime this afternoon, the horses will go inside to their stalls. Earl will get his foot soaked again and everyone will get hay and grain while we wait for rain. There’s a 70% chance of rain for the back half of the day and the temps will be low. The barn is very cozy when everyone is inside, munching and dozing.
This coming week, I have to decide the fate of my mudroom. Eleven years ago, I put in a chest freezer because I intended to spend three months in the house without leaving. Even after that experiment was over, I decided to keep using the freezer out back. It was simpler to stock up on certain items, like the frozen blueberries I eat at breakfast. Last week, the freezer finally died. It wasn’t an expensive or particularly well-built unit, so I imagine it’s not worth the time to try to fix it. I have to decide if it should go to the dump or maybe into the cellar.
It might seem weird to keep a broken freezer. There are a few things I keep downstairs, like the rubber rafts for when we put up a giant slip-n-slide out in the field. Those rafts are packed into tight, lidded buckets so that mice won’t chew them. I’m wondering if I should keep the freezer as a mouse-proof container.
The other use I can think of is to use it for chemical storage. I have big cans of naphtha, denatured alcohol, lacquer thinner, and automotive clear coat. The broken freezer could serve as chemical containment, but I’m more than a little concerned about that idea. Flammable vapors from slightly-leaky containers would build up in there. Those cans are supposed to be stored in a detached, ventilated space.
The chest freezer will probably go to the dump.
