Some modes of tranasportation in Maine

 Some of these methods of transportation in Maine are the stuff that dreams are made of.  Others are just pictures I took to keep a record of what I have seen here.

Our horseless carriage under siege by the snow.

pre and post flood pics of the Kennebec

 The Kennebec in the top picture flooding the boat landing.  Second picture taken one week later you can go out onto the boar landing and not get your feet wet.  The river has gone down a lot.

 I never cease to be amazed at the beautiful writing in these books.

 whatever they spilled on this book, it ate a hole in the paper.

 It also stained the pages next to it.

 Friday the wind was so strong that the flags on top of the state house were straight out.

The flags at the armory also were straight out.  The wind was also cold as well as being strong.

A very busy weekend

We had such a busy week last week that we slept in.  I.E.  I got up at 6am instead of 4.30 am which is when our neighbor upstairs gets up and makes such a racket that I get woken up and then once awake, it is impossible to go back to sleep.  Why?  Well for one thing we do not have an alarm clock here - the one in the clock radio we have is next to impossible to set and is unreliable when we do.............and I do not think to set my cell phone........DUH!  I am afraid that if I went back to sleep, I would not get up in time to shower and get lunches made and out the door in time for work at the archives.  Guess I will have to take steps to rectify this situation.  one thing would be to get the neighbor a different job where he does not have to get up so early?  the other is to get him to stop smoking, because that is what he does at 4.45am - he goes out front of the apartment to have his "Good Morning" Cigarette.  He has another cigarette at about 6.15am and then another on the way off to work at 7.45am.  His girlfriend comes to visit each weekend and they are like clockwork - out having a cigarette about every 45 minutes.....and it does not make any difference whether it is raining, snowing, blowing a blizzard or sunshine...........they were even out there when it was 10degrees below zero in the dead of winter.  Their habit must cost then a fortune.
We went to lunch at The Great Wall of China restaurant with some friends from church and another couple from Marty's workplace.  We had a great time.  Sue and I left the group there to go walking together - something we had wanted to do for a long time but never got around to it - but on the way to the place to walk we decided to go to Hallowell and walk in and out of the shops there.  I did this myself around Thanksgiving last year (Bill hates to wander in and out of shops) and Sue and I had discussed the fact that it would be fun to do this together one day..............well Saturday turned out to be the Day.  The river is well below the decking of the boat landing at Hallowell and is becoming rather peaceful after the rain surge.
We wandered in and out of stores, looked at all the 'pretties' on sale and wandered into an 'antique' store.  I have seen this shop from the street many times but did not dream that it went back as far as it did.  Saw a Singer Featherweight sewing machine for sale for $350.  They go for $400- $450 in Arizona.  We spent the evening at home when I prepared for my Sunday School class and Bill was preparing for his presentation to the priesthood class.
In Sacrament meeting today there were three sisters who spoke.  The first one talked about the horrendous things that had happened to her during her life and how wonderful it is to have found the church and to know that she is of great worth to the Lord.  During the abuses she endured, she began to think that she was not worth much and even contemplated ending it all.  I am glad that she did not have success in this endeavor - we would be much the poorer with her not being present.  the second sister talked about why it is important to be in Church each Sunday.  She also had had a long journey to this point in her existence and we are very glad to have her with us.  The third sister talked about politics and how people have different opinions and that discussion of such can erupt in  very bad feelings on both sides.  She said that one day she thought about this and "could not understand why people did not think like her" this brought laughter.  She then said that the people she mingled with were good people and she came to the conclusion that it was ok to have differing opinions, and to take comfort in the Fact that Heavenly Father's will is paramount and that no matter what happens politically  in this election year, we should remember that Heavenly Father is in charge and he calls the shots and that each and every turn of events effected by the adversary, gets turned to the advantage of Heavenly Father because he knows the end from the beginning.
I had been asked to conduct the sisters in singing "Love at Home".  I am not a chorister nor am I a conductor, and the first practice there were only about 10 persons in attendance.  The second practice we had about 15 in attendance but today, we had all the sisters up there singing and I was amazed that we had so many women in the congregation.  I guess when they get mixed in with husbands, boyfriends, significant others, children and visitors, it is hard to imagine that we have so many women in this congregation.  The song went well and I was pleased with the effort.
I came home and ate and immediately fell asleep.  Bill had gone home teaching rught after church and he came home about 2.30pm and I dressed and we went to the Maine Veterans home to present a worship service.  As I walked through the door, bishop Dawbin asked me to give a talk.  I wondered how I could possibly give a coherent talk to these men who are veterans of various wars - who have seen death all round them and put their lives on the line so that we could live free here. What could I possibly say that would be of benefit for them?  Bishop Dawbin asked me to use the Atonement as the theme and so I borrowed his Book of Mormon and talked about 2 Nephi 9:25,26.  I also gave Boyd K. Packer's parable of the foolish young man and his creditor and how the mediator came between them to satisfy the demands of Justice and also satisfy the demands of Mercy.
the men sang with gusto and I really think that they gained a lot from the short worship service that we hosted for them.  these men are in this home for the remaining days of their mortal sojourn.   the meeting broke up with the men being taken back to their rooms.
Bill, Bishop Dawson and myself then went to see Sr. Rood, who cannot get out any more. While there they administered the sacrament to her and then we went to see Brother Smith who is in the DNR wing of the Togus Hospital (VA hospital).  Bill and Bishop Dawson administered the sacrament to him as well and then he gave a short talk from Moroni 10 citing the final admonition to us all to stay the course.  I was very sad during this meeting with Brother Smith.  He has congestive heart failure among other things and being DNR is the end of the line.  I wondered how close he was to leaving mortality and how sad to be in this situation but his faith is strong and he is at peace with the situation that he faces.  Many people face this life ending struggle kicking and screaming but he is facing it with faith in the Lord and comforted by the visits of the home teachers each week.  this was a very spiritual meeting to be with Brother Smith.
And so we face the beginning of another week at the Archives.  What a contrast this is - we are doing the court records - people in contention over possessions, deeds and money etc. and brother Smith facing the end of his mortal span.

Kennebec County books.

We are now working on Kennebec County books.  they are covered with dust and that dust is the disintegrating cow hide binding.  One of the first books we worked with completely fell apart.
I must say that the writing is spectacular.
The earliest book is dated 1799.
The earliest book we worked with in Hancock County was 1801.
I will post pictures on Monday because our connection with the internet through hotspot is weak and it uses up too many bytes to download pics here at home.  The connection at the Archives is much faster.

How our week goes - usually

We have a hard time coping with how fast the week goes.  We sit at breakfast on Monday and ask each other if we are ready for one more week?  Ready?   Who is ever ready for this?  We pack up our stuff and head for the Archives.  We greet Anthony, who is usually sitting at the reception computer, and then we look for Anne who sits at the research computer (but sometimes she is down on the second floor looking stuff up for the State Bureau of Investigations, SBI for short).  Most of the time Bill has the key to the elevator ready but if not, then Anthony or even Art if he is around opens the door for us.  This is a security measure put in place since 9/11.  We press the 3R button to open the back door of the elevator to let us into the digitizing area.  Jeff calls this the shortest hallway in the building - the elevator with front and back doors.
Someone has preceded us to our room and turned on the lights - they have to be on at least 15 minutes before we can adequately use them.
The first thing we do is click on the camera and then the computer and put our hats, coats and stuff on the table.  Christina is usually at her digitizing machine and we are happy to see her.  She is a temporary person here and works for another company that is doing the BDM for the state.  I sit at the computer and start the dCamX and we then retrieve a book from the pile, look at the dates in the front and the back and then enter those in the Metadata sheet on the computer, do the routine of focus, whiteboard, greyscale, LSI and then the fun begins.  One of us sits at the computer and clicks the image while the other runs the cradle and turns the pages etc.
Lunch time is a party of sorts.  We eat lunch with Anthony (he stays a very short time) and Anne and Bill and I sit for an hour - glad to do something else than what we do while at our stations.  When Nine was still on the staff she ate with us as well.  She had such a thick Maine accent that I rarely understood what she said, but we figured that if she laughed, then we should laugh and that is how it went.
At 3.30-3.45pm we call it a day - otherwise they throw us out at 4pm which is when the office closes and the 9/11 rules say no one from anywhere can be in the building after 4pm or the security police will come by and search you out (too bad they did not search out the flying squirrel before this past week - not too swift are they?)  The Bat has never been captured either so I do not know what they do about it either.  There are motion sensors throughout the building - happy batting Bat.........keep them guessing who is in the rooms?
We go home by way of the YMCA for exercise (just to keep us alive) and then at home we make dinner (read that, Bill relaxes while I cook dinner) and then we eat.  Not much time left of the day after this so we go to bed and get up the next day and start all over again.
However, on Thursday, it is a shock to see that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are all done and put to bed and it is Thursday............again.  How in the world does this happen?  Perhaps they should cancel Thursday?  On Friday we stop digitizing about 2pm while Bill struggles with the book-keeping and the reports and I keep digitizing.  We disconnect the shuttle, put it to bed in the little suitcase that they have for the shuttle carrier, stuff it into a snug little box, slap a prepaid mailing sticker on it and take it to the Fed Ex office.  Drop it off and then make a beeline for home to be there by 4.30pm for the Ward Mission Leader meeting with the ward mission leader and the missionaries and the Relief Society President.  After about an hour of reports etc. they all leave and we are exhausted - I make dinner and then we go to bed and try to get up early on Saturday - sometimes we succeed.  Bill goes off to the YMCA, and I go walking and after the morning is completely used up, we go out for Lunch and then prepare Sunday School lessons for Sunday and go to bed - again - only to get up early on Sunday morning for meetings.
In the event that we have a little spare time, we do laundry, read scriptures together,  prepare Sunday Lessons, call Sara and David, answer and write emails, and try to hook into something  normal like take a shower or read the daily paper.  Not good to be totally cut off - we have to live in this society as well as coast through with our missionary badges hanging on our lapels.
I guess I had forgotten how regimented the mission life can become.  But it is ok. that we go through this.  It is just that Thursday seems to creep up on us and jump out of the bushes so to speak and we are completely surprised at its appearance.  Thursday is just that kind of a day.

homes in downtown Augusta

 I just love it when they put in a Front Door and forget to put in stairs............

 This home has a historic marker over the front door.  I dates from 1787 or so.  Well kept for that long.

 This home has a turret on top.  That was one way to get light into the center of the home.  Blaine house, the residence of the Governor has the same arrangement.

 This is Governor Hill Mansion.  It is a stately old building that must have been the center of all kinds of parties, receptions and possible political intrigue.............politics is just what it is.....politics, warts and all.

 Kennebec Bank has this wonderful garden that has all its tulips in bloom right now.

 I have not seen any other of these pocket sized cars here in Augusta....but saw this one near the YMCA.

The Kennebec - still full and flowing very fast.

I wandered around Augusta while Bill was at the YMCA and took these pictures of downtown Augusta.  I find it hard to believe that so many of the really old homes are still occupied.  More than that, they are well kept and it is a shame that the homes around them are not as well looked after.

One less Squirrel on the loose

Wednesday was particularly difficult.  We worked on the Monster Book late Tuesday afternoon and it took all of Wednesday to finish it off, one page at a time.  Doing Right / Left capture is no picnic and this book is 800 pages.  What was the court thinking doing an index with so many pages – covering so many years?  We start another county today and hopefully the books will fit under the cradle glass.  They look to be pretty big but we will see what will fit and what will not.

The cleaning crew set a live trap for the animals that live in this building and they caught a flying squirrel.  I did not know that they had flying squirrels here in Maine but apparently they do.  The squirrels that I see outside on the trees are regular squirrels so I do not know where they keep the flying variety – perhaps just in the ceiling of the Archives?

Anthony told us of a leak in his area that has damaged some books.  Of all the places that they keep paper stuff it is hard to believe that a leak occurred – but then we did have a tremendous amount of rain.  I went walking yesterday afternoon while Bill was at the YMCA and went down to the River.  It has gone down somewhat but it is still a raging torrent.  Even the slickest fish would have a hard time going upstream as yet.

David called up and was asking for stuff.  In particular he wanted me to send him some safety pins to make the weather shield for his Western Hat a little smaller since the elastic has given up the ghost and no longer keeps the shield on his hat.  He wanted me to go to a western store and buy a shield for him and he had a hard time understanding that we are in Maine, the most Eastern State of the USA and that Western stores are just not here.  He does not understand why this is so.  I told him that he could go buy the safety pins himself much cheaper than I could by getting them and then paying postage to get them to him.  He also told me that while they were at a job in Phoenix, doing yard work, that he picked up some paving stones that the people did not want so now he has paving stones as stepping stones in his garden.  I have no idea how big his garden is, but he is very happy and occupied with it right now.  He told us he has one strawberry plant, one yellow squash plant among others.  He is a happy camper and I hope that the Phoenix Sun does not scorch the plants this summer.   Well, you can hope that these tender plants will withstand 110 degree temperature!

Sara told us that Jacob was awarded the most prestigious Chemical award given by the School.  Last year he got scholarship money but this year he got this award for his contribution to the chemical research of UNL.  They still do not have phone service due to the tree branches smashing the phone line when they took the tree down.  You win some and you lose some.

The trees here are beginning to leaf out and the world is pretty and fluffy green everywhere you look.  The Kennebec Savings garden is spectacular with the Tulips all up and blooming.  While Bill was at the YMCA I walked over to the bank garden and admired the flowers.  Many trees are blooming as well and the world has been transformed from drab leafless skeletons, to the excellent finery of Spring.  Bring s hope that summer is near and warmer temperatures will be part of our lives again.

It is hard here in the East during the winter.  If you do not snowshoe, ski, skate or cross country, you are limited to exercise at the YMCA tiny track (21 ½ times around is one mile) or a DVD on your living room floor for exercise.  I am glad that we signed up for Western Line Dance – at least for two hours a week we got to hop around and do something aerobic.  We looked up the YMCA at Keene and see that it offers a wide range of classes, much like the YMCA in Prescott.  They even have ZUMBA at 4.30pm and for sure I can make that class time slot when we move there.  I really miss Zumba.  I wonder if they have Western Line Dance classes elsewhere in Keene that we do not know about?  I did a search on the net for such and apparently there is one about 45 miles away but I doubt if we will make that effort.  A class close to home is much more desirable.

It is 6am now and it is raining outside.  It has been raining all night and expected to rain all day today.  I must admit that it is not the driving rain that brought the flooding to the Kennebec River, but if it lasts long enough even a gentle rain over time will swell the little streamlets that are all over the place and feed into the river.

They all passed--------Hooray for us....this week

 Bill and Rob clowing around with the folders that passed.

 All of these passed this week.  We worry each week when we send them off to SLC and hope that they pass - we do not like re-works.

The Grand-Daddy of them all.  18 1/2 inches high, about 12 inches from spine to edge of page and over 4 inches thick.  It took us two days to digitize it doing right page/left page.  It had 800 pages in it.  What on earth was the court thinking to have such a large volume compiled in this Index of Hancock County, Maine?

An all day affair

This is the project we worked on all day today.  It is a comprehensive index for Hancock County Court.  Under each alphabet letter there are combinations under which the entries were made.  E. G.  for the Markham name, it would appear under the letter M of course, but then you would look  for it under Ma.  For Milne, you would look for it under Mi and the writer would follow the Mi with the rest of the letters if it was the first entry or write it in full if it was one of a number of names starting with Mi.  Rather like a telephone book listing.
this book is 800 pages and we are having to do it single page - i.e. left/right capture.  We digitize the left page first all the way through to the back and then go back to the beginning and digitize the right hand page.  The program is designed to leave a space for the right hand page as you go through for the first time.
Yesterday we did a few other books and started on this one and had 25 pages done before it was time to go home.  Today we finished the left hand pages through 800 and then began the right hand pages and are up to 400.  It is arduous work and we have to stop every  50 to 100 pages to refocus the camera.
Digitizing is not a walk in the park.  This book is 18 1/2 inches high by 10+ inches wide and almost 4 inches thick.  It is so big that we could not put it under the glass of the cradle to digitize it.  You can see the red level by the cradle and keyboard that we use to check if the page is sitting straight so that the camera can digitize the book.
We were so tired at 3.30 that we packed up and went home.  We took a nap (90 minutes or more).  There are times when it is good to take naps.

traffic woes because of the rain

We did not expect to have a flood while on our mission but the Nor Easter dumped enough rain in the area to cause the authorities to consider closing two bridges on an arterial road and in the paper they expressed their concern that the bridges would be compromised by the flood and need repair/replacing.  The roads here are not well made and do not hold up under the traffic that they carry and so if this one road got closed, it would be even more of a nightmare getting around here.
A highway east of us is closed because a culvert washed out and the road collapsed as a result.

Flood Stage of the Kennebec

 this is the boat landing at the Hallowell access.  It is usually dry and you can get close to the river.

 the river entered here to access the boat landing and was coming in very fast

 No mud flats for the birds to wander in today and definitely no wading birds in sight.

 Some of the flotsam and jetsam that the river was hoarding on the boat landing.  Even found a flip flop shoe had been gathered in.   It is just about 9 O'clock if you are looking for it.

 Looking towards the Thai restaurant in Hallowell.  The river was really coursing at this point and carried logs etc. along with it.

 The boat landing is now fuller than when I first got there.

 It flowed out the end towards Hallowell.

 The blossoming trees along the Rails to trails walk - quite a contrast to the raging river a few feet to the right of this trail.

 In the center of this picture is a Robin looking for leftover worms I suppose.

a nearby trash/treasure store sports this sleigh from days gone by along with a lobster trap to the right of it.

Cradle back in service

 The scribe who wrote this index up got really creative with the lettering.

 These index books from Hancock county are over 18 inches high and will not fit under the glass of the cradle

 Set up to do the right/left capture of the large index on the repaired cradle.

 Ready for work.

what our Right/left capture screen looks like.  We will do the left pages first and then go back and do the right pages.  the program chooses for us.