Tag: a to z 2018

#AtoZChallenge | G is for Goats and an Adorable Way to Recycle Our Christmas Trees

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I put up five Christmas trees each year. One stands in front of the window in our mudroom and is covered in ornaments that I’ve collected from my travels over the years. You can see it from the road as soon as you come over the hill leading up to our house.

The second is a slightly bigger one in our living room that I insist on putting colored lights on even though the rest of my family prefers white ones. The colored lights are nostalgic and remind me of my childhood. The lower third is where all the non-breakable ornaments hang, an attempt to dog proof it. It’s also tied to the ceiling for reinforcement since it has some irreplaceable ornaments on it including a glass elephant my grandmother gave me.

A third table top tree in our breakfast area showcases my Superwholock obsession although in actuality it is covered only in Doctor Who ornaments and one determined mini-bust of Dean Winchester that I converted into something that I could hang in the tree out of desperation at not being able to find any other Supernatural ornaments. I’ve yet to locate a Sherlock one that I like either.

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#AtoZChallenge | F is for Four Winter Hikes and Extra Points in Scattegories

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One of my favorite cold weather activities is hiking. Fortunately, we have an abundance of trails in Maine but I don’t always blog about every hike that we take. So, for today’s challenge post, I’m sharing pictures from four different hikes we took this past winter.

Have you ever played Scattegories? It’s one of my favorite games. The basic premise is that you roll a letter dice, and then you have to think of words that begin with that letter for various categories . If you come up with multiple words that start with that letter for a category, you get extra points. This post gets extra points since the name of three of the four trails that we hiked also begin with the letter F.

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#AtoZChallenge | E is for the Eastern Prom and Staying Active

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The Eastern Prom in Portland is usually full of activity and the host to many community events but on a cold winter day I ventured down to this waterfront location and captured a few quieter winter moments. The park was empty and isolated but the views were still spectacular.

While the park was deserted, the snowman standing guard among the playground equipment and the many pairs of footprints frozen into the snow underneath the swing set showed that even in the winter the park still gets plenty of little visitors. According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, the Eastern Promenade is also a great spot for sledding that doesn’t seem to draw the crowds of some other locations, but offers a great hill with amazing views.1

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#AtoZChallenge | D is for a Determined Dog Chasing Snowballs

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My dog was built for water. He’s a swimmer. During a few tentative minutes his first time in the lake where his head spent more time under water than above it,  I thought we may have gotten the only Labrador Retriever on the planet who was about to drown. Fortunately, he caught on and has never looked back.  He loves living on the lake and swims any chance he gets.

But, what does he do in the winter with the lake frozen over and temps hovering around zero? Fortunately, he’s also built for the cold so the temps don’t bother him but getting exercise in during the more limiting winter months can be more challenging.

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#AtoZChallenge | C is for a Coastal Hike at Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park

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Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park is a gorgeous coastal hike. It’s my favorite type of trail. After hiking through the forest, you take a short passage down to the ocean’s edge and emerge onto stunning coastal views.

We did this hike as winter was winding down last year, so the snow was manageable as we hiked through the forest, although we did still need our crampons. When the weather starts warming up,  you need to be extra cautious about ice. Since there is a lot of melting and refreezing happening at this time of year, there can be some hidden slick spots.

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