I’M JUST CURIOUS: I’m back in Florida

by Debbie Walker

I am back in Florida and the weather is no better here than there. But I do miss that lake view.

While I was up there, I picked up a brochure for Sebasticook Region Land Trust to look at. It is what they called their Spring Newsletter 2022. It’s what they refer to as Speaker Series and Events. This one still has August and September events listed. August is named “Waterways & Connections”, Saturday, August 6, is Live Walk for Connor Mill. August 17 another Live Walk called Nature Immersion Walk. September is called Forest Revitalization with another Live Walk and a Zoom presentation called Coyotes, America’s Song Dog.

That’s only two months of activity but think of all the months you have been keeping any group activities at a distance. These are outside entertaining exercises and education at very low risk. With all the nastiness going on in the world right now wouldn’t it be nice to surround yourself with such beautiful land? These things show us a positive side of life. What better for healing us all.

While I was in Maine, I did spend some time with several “interesting” people. They made me realize my activities are quiet compared to theirs!

What do you say to someone who got out of bed, naked, grabbed a gun and headed out the door to the back 40, chasing after a fox trying to get to the proverbial hen house? No luck but at least she didn’t get chilled!

Then the next one pipes up to tell us about last November. It was after dark, and he was also naked (wife was laughing quite hard now). He claimed he heard someone by his hot tub outside, digging. He, too, took of running out around the house, naked, BB gun in hand. He was up against a muskrat headed back to his new winter home. The man got off three shots before the muskrat fell over right at his entrance of his almost new home.

Okay, that is the best I can do, there are one or two more “characters” I met. I do remember their being some interesting people as I was growing up in Maine. Not much has changed, I guess.

Recently, I fell in love with a new magazine called Mary Jane’s Farm. In it was an article written by Cindy about “Butter the Size of an Egg”. It is about old-time measurements for cooking. It wasn’t until late 1800s that we began standardized cooking measurements. I am going to share some of the older measurements. There may be more listed on a site called “Home Cooking” on About.com but here is what I have:

1 Jigger = 1.5 oz.
1 gill = ½ cup
1 teacup = a scant ¾ cup
1 coffee cup = a scant cup
1 peck = 2 gallons, dry
1 pinch/dash = picked up between fingers
½ pinch = picked up by thumb and finger.

I know you are aware that I find strange things interesting.

I’m just curious what stories you could tell! Contact me at DebbieWalker@townline.org. with any questions or comments especially if you want to share your story. Have a great week and thank you for reading.