new friends.....

Say hello to Becky and Butch Durgin of Meadow Creek Farm in Sumner Maine!!!! A few weeks ago, I posted on the Maine Draft Horse Assoc. page that I was looking for some help with Tonka and getting him hitched to a cart. Well, I got a nice note back from Becky, saying that she and her husband raised Belgians and did training, and if I would like to work with them, they would be willing. It also turned out, that they were doing some rides in Eliot at the Raitt Farm one weekend, and if we wanted to go and talk with them, we could. So, Ed and I went over early one Sunday morning and got to meet Becky and Butch in person.

What a nice couple and their horses are amazing!!! Not only did we have the chance to chat with them at great length, but got a number of rides behind those beautiful horses, AND>>>> Butch even gave me the chance to drive them!!!!! (If I wasn't hooked on driving before that.... I certainly am now!!!!)

The drawback ,at the moment, meeting up with Becky and Butch, is that the fall is their busiest season, so it might be a little while, before they can spend some time with Tonka and us... but that's ok... because we have some great new horse friends.

Today, we thought it would be fun as a family, to make a run to LL Bean and poke around Freeport. As we were having lunch, we heard the wonderful sound of bells, and hooves, and sure enough, there was Becky, Butch and the Belgians... doing rides for LL Bean's and the holiday weekend. You can be sure, that as soon as we finished with our lunch, we went over to see them, and they were so excited to see us!!!! Nothing doing, Becky told us to hop on the wagon and take a ride thru Freeport.... Butch asked if I wanted another try with the team, but to be honest .. with all that traffic and such, I begged off. Sadie however, hopped right up on the front seat, to get a bird's eye view, and away we went thru the busy streets of Freeport. This team walked quietly along, past barking dogs, clapping people, motorcycles, and even a fire engine, like there was nothing else in the world but them. Butch took them down a quieter side road, and handed the reins to Sadie!!!!! The smile that broke out on her face as she drove that team along must have been a little like mine a few weeks ago when I took them.

Becky told me that she thinks there is a weekend coming up soon, where we can bring Tonka to them, and she also told me that they are scheduled to come to York in October for Harvest Fest weekend!!! I invited them to park here at the house, and take the Belgians up to the village from here, so we will see how that works out... but it sure would be fun to have them in our yard..... either way, I can't wait to get Tonka with them, I know that Butch can get him going for us... and I suspect that we will all be friends for a very long time....

camp news

Every spring when it's time to put the docks in, it seems like we need a small army of friends and family to help with the "feat". This year, along with Dave, we had help from Dale and Val as well (check the spring blogs!!!) and every year, after the "feat" has been completed, Ed says the same thing "We should look into aluminium docks"

Now, there's no doubt that aluminium docks are nice, they are light weight and easy to handle, they are certainly "lake friendly", they last nearly forever.... but they can be expensive. As the summer has progressed, though, Ed has talked more and more about them, and finally went on a "fact finding" about them. Well, turns out, that if you order them at the right time (ie: the end of summer) you can sometimes find a deal.... and so he did. This past week, the old, heavy wooden docks have been replaced with these nice new aluminium ones!!!!

Course, that meant getting rid of the old docks, and hopefully, for the last time, it took a small army of men to do so. Ed took his chainsaw and cut the wooden docks into manageable pieces, and Dave, Bill and John, wrestled them up onto the shore and then to Bill's trailer to be hauled away!!! Oh, and maybe one of the best things about the new docks... NO dock spiders!!!! Those spiders are as big as house cats!!! and like the dark spots under the wooden decks, but the new ones are open, light and airy and we are told, the dock spiders don't like them as their homes.... fine with us!!!!

Now, what's with the boat. Well, it has it's own story!!! This boat is actually an old boat... a 1966 model and it used to belong to Ed's Uncle Phil. Back in the day, Phil and his family had a camp on Wilson, and Ed can remember running their boat across the lake to visit with his cousins, Deb and Cindy, and vis a versa...... he has a lot of wonderful memories of growing up on the lake. Uncle Phil sold his camp in the early 80's because his family was no longer using it, and when the camp sold, the boat was pulled from the water and parked in a garage.


I'm not exactly sure how Ed found out it was for sale, but either way, Ed decided it would be fun to have and bought it from his uncle. This boat has only ever been on Wilson Lake, aside from sitting in the garage, and it didn't take too much "tinkering" to get her running again. "We" aren't exactly sure what we will do with this old boat, it runs pretty well, and its fun to have a boat to take us around the lake, and we don't need any sort of "speed" thing, so for a while anyways, we'll hang onto it and use it. Sometimes its fun to have something older to play with and Ed thinks it's pretty neat that the boat has retunred to it's "home".