tamarack

We pondered pellets, briefly, but switching from our current wood stove with oil backup (baseboard hot water) would require buying a generator with a protective shed the appropriate distance from the home, which would probably cost more than the pellet appliance/storage installation, and the 2-flue chimney is in place. We're at the end of the maintained road with only 3 residences on it, thus would be the last to get attention from lineworkers during an outage. 4-5 cords/yr plus about 400 gallons of fuel, which also provides domestic hot water, reducing the electric bill by about half. Everyone's situation is different, so the solutions should be different as well. Cloudy and humid here, as significant rain is north and south. We'll see if it holds off long enough for some garden work - this kind of air is loved by mosquitos, and I refuse to use repellent just for gardening. In the woods for hours, that's different.

So did I, and if I'd been the one in the story, I'd have fielded at least a half dozen yellowjacket stings because they've liked me that much since I was 5 years old and ran into the house screaming so my mom could kill the seven that rode thru the door in my clothes.

Yup, and my area is still in TS-avoidance mode. Yesterday's warned storm was in Carthage, 20 miles WNW with 60 dbz pixels and headed right toward the house. Then it lateraled the energy 10 miles to the south and dumped hail to 1.25" in Livermore Falls. We got distant grumbles and 0.02". I don't think lightning has hit within 5+ miles of our house since last August. Just had a compact little TS pass maybe 2 miles north of the office - dry outside but I think the hospital 3 miles north had a brief spate of RA++. I expect no less (meaning, no more) from the weekend action, though I'll be content if it decently waters the garden.

This. In 21 summers I've recorded just one day, 7/19/2005, in which the temp never dipped below 70. Upstairs fan on high, blowing out, does a nice job of drawing in that cool evening air, and a window unit blocks that. When we've put in the window unit, it's been in the downstairs bedroom farthest from the stairs (so back of the line for fan-drawn air), but only in times of dire dews. Mostly sunny in Augusta but the haze is much less. Maybe the mid-morning 64° TD has decreased.

My kids in SNJ have it, and they did in Decatur, IL before that. However, those places run 1,000-1,200 cooling DDs on average and my area less than 200. Probably should've put in our little window unit last July in the swampfest like we did for similar mega-dews in 2013, last time we used it. Cost/benefit for central air just doesn't work when the July average temps are 76/54. You got it! I'm not sure that place has ever hit 90F I'd guess it has, more than once but not often. Rangeley has touched 94, and reaches 90 about one year in three. They're 500' lower but also 160 miles closer to the pole.

My wife had a double bypass in October 2007 and has been pretty much symptom-free since then. Life goes on. Sun has burned off most of the clouds, will need to run the LR fan this afternoon. 1st time this season.

I think the everlasting campaigning and accompanying crisis-panic tactics began in the Clinton administration, possibly beginning with (or at least triggered by) Newt's Contract With America, but coming to full flower after the 1994 midterms as left-of-the-aisle PACs went berserk trying to undo that election. (Worked in Maine, where probably the last non-Democrat Representative ever for the 1st district, James Longley, Jr., was voted out in '96 for doing exactly what he pledged to do 2 years earlier.) Still haven't installed here. Probably time for me to haul the fan up from the cellar. Still cloudy 60s in Augusta, after yesterday's illustration of what late June sun can do. My high under the clouds was 62 while BML, about 50 miles west, reached 84.

P&C forecast for Bethel, from the GYX site: Saturday Showers likely, mainly after 7am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 74. Calm wind becoming west around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Thru May I'm pat 19.89" for the year, 1.93" AN, but w/o January I'm 0/32" BN and June should finish at or slightly below its average. Lots of cloudy wet days but not many of the deluges others have received, at least not until the past 7 days which brought nearly 3". Didn't make much difference in the Sandy River, as the trees are in full force sucking water from the soil - need 3-4" to have much impact on 4th-order watercourses this time of year. Just hit 80F. First 80F of 2019. We're tied - we had 82 on 6/10, but haven't gotten any closer than 76 before and after that, and have yet to have a daily mean warmer than 64.5 (82/47) so no CDDs. Maybe Friday.

Total of exactly 1.00" by 7 this morning, though nearly all came 6:30-11 last evening with a few fairly heavy bursts. Month's total now 4.56" and my average thru 6/26 is 4.54". Had enough early sun yesterday to reach 70 after a chilly 41, making the day 8° BM. Guessing June finishes about 2° under my 21-year average; have not had an AN month since Sept (nor a lightning strike within 5 miles of home since August.) heading into peak climo in 3 weeks or so Peak climo here is more of a lengthy plateau - average daily mean rises to 65.0° on July 9 and remains 65+ thru August 9 without ever quite reaching 66. Warmest day (at present) is July 29 at 65.94°, but that could shift a few days pending this year's temps.

The winter BWI recorded more snow than CAR, possibly the most anomalous snow stat I've seen in the Northeast, with the 2011 Octobomb its nearest competitor. BWI's top percentages of CAR snowfall: 2009-10 109.6% 1995-96 56.7% 1961-62 51.5% 1963-64 50.9% 2002-03 49.6% Edit: Forgot to add that, on average, BWI snow is 18% of that at CAR.

4/20? We had a max of 51 that day, with 0.79" RA and a rumble of thunder. Front must've been close but never got here. Tallest minima here is 55, on 6/20 amidst the downpour; we never had even a 50+ minimum until the 6th of this month. Warmth is coming, but it ain't here yet.

Our building is a retro-fitted masonry monster constructed about a century ago, and temps seem slow to react to change of seasons. My cubicle is on the "porch", a more recent (50s?) framed addition, and it's 78 on the thermostat, which is mounted on the bricks of the original building, but 80 on the instrument on the desk. Last year about this time the cubicle was running low 80s, while the cross-corner office was about 70 with a breeze and its occupant would've preferred the 80s. (My preference would be low 70s in summer, 65 in winter. At least it's better than before the reno - I was in the same porch cubicle then, and during a cold spell it was close to 60 at desk level and low 40s at ankle height. That's a bit chilly, even for me, but not so much as to make me ask for a space heater.)

Thurs-Sat look 5-6° AN for BOS, warm and summery but nothing exceptional - except for this cool spring/early summer to-date.

Would be a real surprise up here - I don't think Maine has seen anything above a Cat 1 in the past 150 years. Maybe when GW has SSTs in the Gulf of Maine near 80?

The waiter comes over with my meal and begins to tell me how to go about eating the Lobster Brings back memories from 1995 when Portland hosted the national convention of the Society of American Foresters. While the New England SAF folks were planning for the one full-attendee supper (scheduled for the evening of our field-trip day), some folks from SNE were concerned that folks wouldn't have time after being in the woods to clean up before dinner. One Mainer on the committee said, "When you tackle a lobster, you wash up after the meal." We had Maine humorist Tim Sample giving instructions on how to turn a whole lobster into food ("Then there's the tomally - nasssty stuff!") and he cracked the place up while telling everyone how to crack their "bugs."

Sounds like my PQI-born daughter. When she went to college in SC her friends would say, "You're from Maine; you must love seafood." Her response, "No, I'm from Aroostook County and I love potatoes." So much so that when the camp where she worked for several summers planned instant mashed potatoes (which she despises), she volunteered to put her potato peeler where her tastes were, enough to feed 110. Fortunately, 2-3 friends got wind of this and joined the party. I then asked him for some crackers for the Tomalley...........lol Supposedly contains dioxins or some such. However, with the amount of whole lobsters we buy/boil, I'd have to live another 1,000 years before there would be any effect.

Channel a TS north, just for fun?

I've read that each of their rolls has meat the equivalent of an entire lobster, and w/o non-essentials like mayo and veggies, just some melted butter. Never had one there, however. We get very good ones at Mosher's Seafood in Farmington, 7 miles from the house and no lines. Rte 1 sucks in the summer In the past when I'd drive Rt 27 to Wiscasset in summer, the quickest (but by no means quick) method to make a left turn often was to go right, travel past the end of the eastbound line on Rt 1 - often to Wiscasset Ford 1.5 miles west - and make a U-turn in the parking lot.

I've read something similar about copperheads, that the young ones' venom is more highly toxic than that of adults. However, the old maxim "the dose makes the poison" remains true, and the little ones can deliver much less volume. Edit: I've also never seen a water snake nearly so dark as the one in the pic. The hundreds I saw in NNJ always had the red-brown markings, and ones immediately post-shed were frequently mistaken for copperheads, though the latter's color and head shape are radically different. A website article I checked on water snakes notes they can deliver a painful bite, a fact I learned several times (each bite fully earned) including having a tooth broken off in my thumb.

More tender than the tail, so I save it for last. And though I like hot dogs, I'd consider them pollution to join lobster in the roll.

And the washer - even my brand new wiper blades won't scrape the pollen clean without help. The flowers on white pine are as abundant as in any year I can recall. Barring a disaster (the record thaw of Feb 1981, followed by frigid cold, killed almost all the 1st-year cones in N.Maine) those trees should be loaded by late summer next year.

Or not. 1st reports say the pickup and bikes were driving in opposite directions. People routinely travel 70+ on that road, whether 2, 4 or more wheels.

June is pollen month for white pine, also for red spruce. Everything seems 7-10 days late this cool cloudy season - normally the pollen peak would be before mid-month, but around here the blossoms on WP only appeared while we were in SNJ (6/11-18) and pollen fall will probably last to the 25th or beyond.

Did you go there hunting? Chasing "Esox alligators" (muskies)? Canoeing? I've got loads of memories from the almost 10 years (1976-85) working in that country. Finally saw a bit of sun after 6 yesterday afternoon