20 November 2013 - Maine fly-by

I have been battling the squirrels in the feeder again. David showed up with a whole new solution!  Even better, it works. Now the squirrels climb the pole and run into the headbanger! Ha. Double ha. I love it. Now the squirrels get to the top, look around sadly then slowly slide back down. 

 

This is a great solution. And the plus is that I have two hooks to hang bird food from now, instead of just one hook on the end of a shepherd's hook. The squirrel lid also works as a platform to put other food out for the birds.  Did I mention how happy I am about this? Very happy. Or in the words of the Duck Commander, "Happy, happy, happy."

Speaking of happy, I noticed my shop guardian one night. How wonderful is this!

I had a very fast trip to Maine and back. It was so fast I almost met myself going on the coming. My plane landed at 4:15 in Portland just as the sun was setting.  I don't think I want to live on the east side of a time zone--I have a hard enough time with it getting dark at 5.  

In ten minutes it went from this:

 to this:

My schedule had me driving from Portland to Waterville in the morning, so for the first time in all my trips there, I actually had some time to wander around the Old Port area.

 

It's a funny thing. So many towns are much alike, not much to distinguish them from each other, but when you are in a city on the water, you know you're not in Kansas anymore.  The weathervane is on the City Hall and the brick edifice is a bell tower on a church.

The chainlink fence along the pier has been turned into a love padlock project called Fence of Love. It started on Valentine's Day and now there are over 300 padlocks. Couples will decorate a padlock with their names and lock them on the fence. If a couple breaks up I wonder if one of them comes back with bolt cutters. Oh, cynical me. But I do love the idea of this as guerrilla art and I'm thinking about where can I start this in SLC?

In the "I love signage" category, here are some of my favorites. 

There are so many kinds of signs to love. Flat, figural, painted, neon and many more.

And a few more in the painted-on-building versions:

Anthoensen Press. What a surprise to see this. It is a legend in fine bookmaking and printing. It was founded in the late 1800s and finally went out of business in 1987 when computers took over the publishing world. Much of their collection is housed at the University of Southern Maine. Now I have yet another reason to go back!

Wow. The old logo. What a delight to see this.