Family and friends, giggling nephews levitating from the couch, tantalizing packages, Bessie’s pecan pie, carols and espresso…may your world be filled with all your cherished pleasures too…carry the blessings of the holiday into 2011…peace be with us all…Love Astrig & Steven

It’s crispy cold here but there’s no wind so you can hear the snow crunch under your boots and the ice crackle as the tide comes over the seaweed. We just walked to the park and I wanted to show you the tanker in the Bay. Cheers!

After living and breathing the campground life for going on 18 years…I just had an epiphany (yes, I’m slow to generate these thoughts)…our “job” is to facilitate the long lazy vacation days of others from June to September.  Then it takes us a few months to settle into a new rhythm while we put the campground…

I had lunch with artist Susan Perrine the other day in Lisbon Maine (she’s the lovely woman responsible for the twig garden structures in the Shores).  I chatted her ear off about my child-like weaving and she answered every one of my beginner questions.  When I was finished breathlessly, she spoke of the gallerys that are…

Su came up for a few days to help us celebrate and as usual the time flew by.    One of the drawbacks of living this far North (I know, there’s a whole country North of us…but in November Searsport feels “far North.”) is that we don’t see as much of our family during the holidays for…

If you don’t have an opinionated father, don’t bother reading this post…it will probably bore you.  Me, I was raised to know that as long as dad was roaring, he was OK…and when I stumbled upon this essay by Bruce Cameron I had to read it twice…the first time to myself, giggling…the second time to…

Steven and I often argue about exactly when winter starts…I believe it starts as soon as it’s too cold to work outside before 11 AM (Yes, I have lots of wooly projects I’d rather work on in the comfort of a sunny window).  Somewhere around the 1st of November seems about right.  Obviously my willingness…

We’re still closing down the campground.  This week we’ve mulched leaves, cut the roses back, planted spring bulbs, put away the playground, winterized the water pipes, pulled the remaining string beans and stashed the last of the garden benches.  Next week we’ll shut the bathhouse down, plant more spring bulbs, mow more leaves, and build…

These days are filled with canning tomatoes, making more applesauce, trying new pickle recipes and dyeing wool as fast as I can…the nip in the air is enough of a reminder that we’ll be inside more hours than not before long.  Already is too chilly (for me, not Steve) to work outside before 10 and…