Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta
When Mr Chiots and I were driving from Acadia National Park down to Freeport we passed through the small town of Damariscotta, Maine. As we were passing through, they were moving giant pumpkins around on forklifts. We were marveling at the size of all the pumpkins and then it hit me that this might just be the town we saw on TV once that raced gigantic pumpkins in the bay.
When we got to our campground later that night, we googled it and sure enough, the town of Damariscotta has a yearly Pumpkin Festival that includes a Pumpkin Regatta. We changed our vacation plans to head up and witness the giant pumpkin races. I mean how often are you only 45 minutes away from such a wonderful festival?
We arrived in Damariscotta early on Sunday morning. The streets were packed, there were decorated pumpkins all over the town and all the businesses were featuring pumpkin flavored treats.
After walking around the town looking at all the pumpkins we made our way down to the bay to get good seats for the regatta. We were so glad we got their early when we saw how many people showed up for this event.
The boats were great, all creatively decorated (is it called a boat when it’s really a pumpkin?). There were two classes, the human propelled and the super modified with small outboard motors. Amazingly only one guy went over, we were expecting to see more. By far, the best part of the regatta was the announcer, it was perhaps one of the funniest hours I’ve experienced in a LONG time. Mr Chiots got a lot of video and if he puts it up on-line I’ll make sure I let you know!
Of course we couldn’t leave without stopping at the gelato place for Mr Chiots to get a pumpkin gelato affogato. We had to eat something pumpkin flavored at this festival! (affogato is freshly brewed espresso poured over gelato)
We had a great time at the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest. If you’re ever in Maine around Columbus Day weekend I’d highly recommend going and make sure you don’t miss the regatta. They also have fun events like: pumpkin chucking, pumpkin dropping, a parade, seed saving and other wonderful things all week long.
Have you ever attended a crazy festival? What’s your favorite festival with local flair?
Share this:
The Flavors of Fall
One of the things Mr Chiots and I love about where we live is that we have a wonderful little local cider mill. They sell unpasteurized cider that they press in a little mill behind their home. They have the best cider in the area (and we’ve tried them all). They put up a few signs on the road and you buy it with the honor system, one of the beautiful things about life in rural Ohio!
The best part of this cider is that it’s unpasteurized so it gets “zingy” as I say. It starts to ferment from the natural yeast after about a week. I prefer it when it’s slightly fermented because it’s less sweet. I don’t particularly like it cold, but I love it mulled. During cider season we enjoy mulled cider almost every evening while we read or watch TV.
We don’t just drink this cider, we buy extra for many other things. I usually make a few batches of mulled cider jelly for gifts. We also boil a gallon or two down into cider syrup, which is fantastic on french toast, pancakes or drizzled over ice cream. I also buy 5-10 gallons for making apple cider vinegar which I use for canning and cooking throughout the year. This cider makes great cider vinegar all by itself since it’s unpasteurized. I’ll post specifics on this when I make by 2010 batch in the next month or two.
Are you a cider lover? Do you have a special place to buy it? Have you ever had unpasteurized cider?
Share this:
Rural Serenity
Serenity [suh-ren-i-tee] noun: the state or quality of being serene, calm, or tranquil; sereneness.
There’s something completely serene to me about grazing cattle. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in a rural area, or maybe it’s just because I love cows. They just always seem to be so completely content when out to pasture. When we were in Maine last week I was happy to see a lot of small herds of cows out grazing in the fields. What a beautiful view of the ocean these cows have, talk about free-range living!
Around our campground there were several farms raising Belted Galloway cows (or Oreo cows as we like to call them). Next to Scottish Highlands they’re probably some of my favorite kinds of cow. I stopped to take a photo of these little calves and they came up to see me!
I always feel sorry for cows on factory farms that are cooped up and can’t eat real grass and enjoy the sunshine. That’s one of the main reasons I buy my beef and milk from a small local farm that allows their cows to be out and about all the time. It makes me happy knowing that the cows that provide my food are living happy lives!
What’s your favorite serene setting?
Share this:
It Feels Good to be Home
Mr Chiots and I just arrived home yesterday from our New England vacation, so I’m beat! We didn’t have time to do everything we wanted to do (like visiting Blackrock and Bufala di Vermont for some water buffalo yogurt, and so many more). So we’ll have to plan another trip.
We managed to cram a lot of fun times into our 9 day trip, we did everything from hiking around Walden Pond to watching people race in giant pumpkins in the ocean.
We spent our time camping at several beautiful campgrounds, one on the ocean in Maine was fabulous. It was perfect camping weather, days in the 50’s nights in the 40’s. One night got down into the low 30’s. It’s a good thing we had nice warm wool blankets to keep us toasty warm!
We got to visit a few places I’ve been wanting to see for quite a while, like Comstock, Ferre & Co and Eliot Colman’s Four Season Farm, along with The Good Life Center.
We enjoyed stopping at beautiful little farms and chatting with the farmers. We also made the most of the local food from lobster and fried clams to carrots and cider.
It wasn’t all great times though, we got in an accident – OH NO! But we were lucky that no one was hurt and the car was drivable so we could make it home. So we didn’t let it dampen our spirits.
I have lots of great things to tell you about and some great goodies to give away from some of the people I met. We ended up coming home a day early because we have a busy rest of the week (and we have to get the car fixed). But I’d rather have a day less of vacation and a day to get things in order at home before a busy season.
Have you ever come home from vacation early?
Share this:
Getting There
As I wrote about earlier, Mr Chiots and I are headed on vacation to New England for a while. We have a GPS that we use for our business. It makes our lives much easier when we’re heading out for a job knowing that we’ll get there and we don’t have to worry about printing out maps and directions. About 99% of the time it gets us right where we need to go.
When traveling on vacation however, we much prefer to use a road atlas, particularly county road maps if we can find them. We like to take the road less traveled, and the GPS doesn’t like that too much. We’ve also found that when trying to find camp grounds and other out of the way places it’s not as accurate as it is in the city. And sometimes depending on the weather it quits all together.
I also love maps because you can see the bigger picture unlike our GPS. I love having the atlas on my lap and enjoy charting our progress along with way with roads, exits and towns. When you’re driving the back way it’s also nice to be able to watch the roads to make sure you’re headed in the right direction.
Are you a GPS or a map user, or do you use both?
