a minute at sebago lake

Sebago Lake is one of the largest in Maine, and depending on where you go, about an hour from Portland. We went for a drive last week and ended up on the shores there, where you can hang on the beach and take a dip. It has sort of a local summer invasion feel and was a bit too crowded for my taste, but I can imagine it'd be really pretty in the off season. You can also go camping in the state park and there are trails to hike too.

Much like some of our other driving adventures, we were ill-prepared for swimming or hiking, but took a stroll along the water. I think it's so cool how the trees grow right along the edge, roots half in the lake.

sunset at the marsh

Last night Kelsey called to see if I wanted to go bird watching at the marsh (this one), so off I went. We didn't see too many birds, but Kelsey's boyfriend Matt taught us a lot about identifying trees, so all in all a nice, nature-filled evening.

Remember for another time: you can rent canoes here and wander around the waterways.

My iPhone caught the sunset, too. This is why I live here. It's this pretty all the time.

how to make your chicken coop smell nice

I have too much time on my hands.

Our chicken coop doesn't smell bad. It smells like chickens. But not bad.

Ever the perfectionist, I set out to see if there was some kind of nice smelling, non-harmful stuff I could spray or leave in the coop to keep it smelling ultra-fresh.

I came across this post on the Community Chickens site (yeah) by Jennifer Burcke of 1840 Farm and gave it a shot.

I slightly altered it. Her post calls for Dawn Lavender dish soap, but I didn't have that. I did have some lavender scented Dr. Bronner's, though, and figured that might do the trick.

And now the coop smells lovely! We have a fan in there, so when I let the girls out in the morning I just spray one or two times into the fan. It diffuses it a bit and fills the room with a fresh, lavendery minty fragrance.

(This smells good in general, so you can use it in your house too, if you don't have chickens.)

If you are a crazy chicken person and want to give it a shot, here goes:

In addition to smelling nice, the grapefruit seed extract acts as a disinfectant and the tea tree and peppermint are insect repellents. The lavender just smells nice, and I suppose is calming to humans, but who knows what chickens think about lavender.

If I was a good blogger I probably would have photographed this lovely spray bottle in the grass surrounded by sliced grapefruit and fresh sprigs of lavender, but alas, you'll have to settle for this wood siding of the coop.

Also it's super hot up here these days. This is Khaleesi, hating the heat. Did you know that chickens pant to keep cool, like dogs? There you go.

the upside to unemployment

Weekday beach day. The waves were awful for boogie boarding this morning, but the water was perfect for floating and the sun was perfect for reading in.

sunrise

I woke up at 4:30 this morning remembering that I had forgotten to shut the shed door, and couldn't stop thinking about what wild animals might have gotten in, so went outside to take care of it. I was greeted by this. The field belongs to our neighbor, the view belongs to anyone.

I also exchanged a "good morning" with a guy out on his longboard.

thoughts on a friday night

I am job hunting again, for the first time in 5 years. It feels a lot longer than 5. I suppose I was quite fortunate that my jobs have sort of naturally transitioned into one another; I haven't really hunted in quite some time. Even my first hunt wasn't very long, which was lucky at the time. I graduated from college in the midst of the economic collapse and took the first job I was offered, which was the first job I interviewed for.

It's a little bit wild that I can do anything. Like, literally, anything. Maybe not literally. But almost. There's a great big world out there and I can decide how I want to fit into it, but I can't decide how I want to fit into it.

I want to tend the land and animals. I want to make things. I want to play in the kitchen. I want a little stability, but not so much that I let myself be complacent and bored. I want time off to travel. I want to make enough money to be able to travel. And live. I want to sing, again. I want to spend the whole day listening to the waves and the whole night watching the sky change.

Until very recently I was touring the country and sometimes world with a rock band. Not as a musician, but as a manager and a planner and a helper and an organizer. It was a fantastic life with wonderful, amazing, talented people, but one that kept me up too late and facilitated a habit of not taking care of myself. 

And now I'm looking for something that leans a little bit more toward wholesome and simple.

two lights state park

On a whim, we went for a drive after dinner last weekend and ended up at Two Lights State Park. It's got a nice walking path looking out over the ocean, and it's full of secret and not-so-secret picnic table spots, most of which have little tiny grills. The mosquitos were too bad and we were too ill prepared to go too far into the woods, but we took a stroll up on the cliff along the water and enjoyed the views.