I'm back home for almost good! Ryan will be going with me to Maine over Labor Day weekend to do my last round of sampling.

I'll get to the garden pics, etc later...I'm super tired. But first I wanted to share my next obsession: Jesus Christ Superstar. I know, totally random, right?

This is the video that started it...prepare to have your mind blown. It starts a little slow, but a couple minutes in you'll have chills, I guarantee it.

A recap of the last two weeks:

Week one I went back to Maine and compressed two weeks worth of work into one week. It was seriously exhausting, hearkening back to when I used to work 13 hour days at the field station and the Lobster. That was only possible because it was the one week per month where there are two very low tides during daylight hours, so I don't plan on making a habit of it.

Week two Ryan came to visit me! Here are the highlights:

I picked up Ryan at the airport Wednesday morning and immediately we went all Legolas:
We are totally badass! At the LL Bean flagship store there are $15 per person "Walk on Adventures," one of which is archery (other LL Bean stores have kayaking and sometimes fly casting, find one near you here). It's an hour-long lesson. Turns out I'm a natural...

Two reds and a blue. I had the best aim out of the entire group! Okay, so there were only four of us, but still... Later I got a bulls-eye! Okay, so it only nicked the outer edge of the yellow, but according to the rules it still counts. I want to buy a bow and arrows sometime so we can shoot targets out on our future acreage.

So the archery was actually the highlight of the whole week, which was kinda poorly placed since it was the first thing we did...nothing else was quite as good. Most of the other highlights involved eating! The lowlights: lots of rain while camping, boredom in between photo opportunities.

My first ever mushroom-hunting bounty! I successfully collected all these chanterelles and ate them. I'm still alive, yay! I did get an A+ in the mushroom course...it would be a PR nightmare if I died after misidentifying. (I was 100% certain about the ID, of course)

Three pounder! We bought him at the local seafood co-op and shared him. I cut my finger trying to crack open the claw; it was a very thick shell with big spines. Next time we'll get two smaller ones!

There, that's better! We ate out a bunch during the trip (like as much as the whole rest of the year combined!) and there was a $15.99 lobster dinner; awesome deal and just as tasty as the big guy! Nice bib, eh?

Out of three nights camping it was only dry enough for a good campfire once. Marshmallows:
Heating chili (yeah, we're naughty, we had the marshmallows before the chili)

Let's see...we also went to a u-pick raspberry farm (no good pics). We went to the observatory at the top of this bridge:

The view looking down the length of the bridge:
And to round things out, a lighthouse. Nothing is wrong with the camera; it was really foggy.
Now it's back to work for the next two weeks, then I get to go home and snorgle meh kittehs.

Word from Ryan is that there is an 8-inch honeydew melon in the garden! I won't get to eat it, but it still makes me happy to know that it grew.