Freeport, Pisqah, and First Garden Post

Last Saturday I helped with a Fast and Female event at LL Bean in Freeport. Kikkan Randall was in town for a few days to work with LL Bean and the F&F "Power Hours" were a big draw for girls from all around Maine. Despite the less-than-ideal weather we had two great sessions that included some exercising, autographing, and an inspirational talk by Kikkan. I really hope Kikkan enjoyed her visit in Maine! Everyone was very excited to meet her and proud to have her visit the other "upper-corner" of our country.

Fast and Female events are always fun to me. One of the things I enjoy most are catching up with young skiers I have known for some time. They grow and get stronger and seem to love skiing more every time I see them. Some of the skiers below I have known for a VERY long time. Since they came home from the hospital with their parents, who are teachers at Gould! Ms. Mia (all the way to the left) was born my sophomore year and I held her right after she came home. Now she's quickly approaching my height and I'm trying not to feel too overwhelmed by that.

There are tons of great photos from Fast and Female on Flying Point Road. There's a great photo of all the MWSC girls in that collection. It was also really fun to see the Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby girls' teams there, acting as ambassadors. 

Since we were down in that neck of the woods (meaning southern Maine), Daniel and I and Sadie had some good family time. We hiked the new longer trail on Mt. Pisqah - a real treat. Pisqah is a great hike in my hometown but I've always had to go up and down a bunch of times to get in a longer workout. So it's nice there's a longer trail, now! Here's Emily, Sadie, and I at the top. We didn't go up the Fire Tower. Sadie's not a fan of that.

Today we finally had a sort-of-sunny day that coincided with me being home. I planted a bunch of things I had started inside and direct sowed a few things. We had a couple old bamboo ski poles around, so I'm using them for bean stakes.

Note the fencing in the background. For those not familiar with my neck of the woods, let me tell you, we have a gazillion deer. A gazillion. (They are so inbred on this island that some of them are piebald deer, with coloring of varying levels of white. Some are half white - half brown.) Unfortunately the fencing doesn't also keep out the slugs. So tonight I went back out and set some beer traps. You know you don't drink much when the only beer in the house is for slug bait.

Our property is very shady. This hyacinth is a couple weeks behind most gardens with more sun. But that's okay - it's still beautiful!

This week I added Pushaw Lake to my paddling list. Sadie and I had a lovely SUP that included letting Sadie run around a couple of small islands. Here's a photo from Pushaw last year.