#rosehips

As part of getting that snack, I finally caved and tried those “bacon grilled cheese” chips, too. And... I was very surprised that they were actually pretty damn good! Normally, bacon-flavored things taste vaguely like the red plastic casing around certain kinds of bologna (it's very gross). But whatever they used here... not only tasted pretty close to actual bacon, but also, they used it sparingly, so that the flavor was present, but not overpowering. We tried a blueberry soda, too. But I didn't like this one as much as the one we got earlier that day:

...I'll have to tell you more about the wonderful thing that is "blueberry soda" tomorrow.

...But anyway, I digress. Back to this morning! So while I did dishes (everything that accumulated by M since our departure, plus the camp cookware), J cut up some onions and got everything all set up for us to have hotdogs...

...Natural casing is the best thing.

I had gotten a jar of cheese sauce as part of tending to J's hankering. He doesn't like cheese sauce. But for me, it's an essential hotdog ingredient:

...I was curious about it because I hadn't seen this kind before. Sadly... I didn't think it was as tasty as the stuff I normally get.

Oh well. I still had a plate full of yummy hotdogs, so I'm not inclined to complain! Here, want some?

The gentlemen did their work on the holes in our walls while we ate. Today, they began patching everything up with sheetrock. They worked here all day, and I'm pretty pleased with the results:

Tomorrow, at around 8 in the morning, they'll come by with some stuff to make it look smooth. Once this is all taken care of, we can work on putting in flooring again; existing directly on the concrete slab has... kinda sucked, actually.

I spent the vast majority of today fixing up the pictures I took for you yesterday. There were so many good ones, and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna show 'em all to ya, because there are so many that I figure if I try to dump all of them on you at once, you'll get overwhelmed!

I did take a shower at some point today, though. It was very much needed, and I felt a lot better afterwards. Then, at some point, our dear friend A arrived, because he's visiting every Thursday now, which is wonderful. I finished fixing the pictures sometime after A's arrival. But by then, J had gone off to his job at the old folks' home. It presented a bit of a problem; it's J's birthday, today, and we had planned on getting him snacks from Taiwan Noodle, because it's his favorite. He wasn't present to put in his own order. But thankfully, I know him well enough by now to know what he gets. So I just got him his usual things – spicy diced chicken, with spicy wonton.

Once everyone's snacks were selected, M and A hung out downstairs. Confident that they'd be all right on their own for a bit, I went upstairs to sort the pictures I fixed up into folders, and to breathe life into today's wishes for you:

It wasn't long before the snacks arrived. This is soup with stewed pig's feet; I was having a hankering to chew on some cartilage, not gonna lie. I expect it's because of all the walking, yesterday, which I'll have to tell you about tomorrow:

This is J's favorite spicy diced chicken soup, with rice noodles, and also some spicy wontons...

We also got a bunch of things to share: chicken soup dumplings, pork soup dumplings, veggie dumplings, and red bean buns...

...And... since I was having a “wanna chew on cartilage” sort of hankering, I also tried their marinated pig ears, and found out that they're absolutely delightful:

Sadly... M and A had already both eaten all their snacks before I could take a picture. There's a number of vegan options at this shop, and spicy vegan options, too, which are A's favorite. M usually gets the sesame chicken or the General Tso's chicken, which is Americanized Chinese food that they have onsite to cater to Americans with... I guess “sensitive” palates. M legitimately is a supertaster, and his senses perceive even lettuce as unbearably bitter, so... things like five spice powder and anything unfamiliar hits him harder than an ordinary person. As a result, he tends to stick with variations on “chicken tenders” or “sandwiches”. He dislikes most vegetables, and most seasonings other than very basic ones like salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika.

Once J arrived home, he and I ate together; I waited in part because he doesn't like to eat alone, and I wasn't gonna let him eat by himself on his birthday. He seemed pleased with the selections I got him. There was plenty leftover of everything that J and I got, to stick in the fridge for tomorrow.

Afterwards, though... I decided to compare regular goat's milk with the powdered goat's milk that J got for the camping trip.

...I'm surprised to tell you, after trying them both side-by-side, that I might start getting the powder to add to my tea. They taste about the same, with some minor differences about when certain flavor components get perceived. But the powdered stuff is less expensive, and lasts longer.

...I didn't expect to have so much about today to write to you about, given that mostly I just fixed up photos all day. But here we are, haha...

In any case, I wanna get to some of the pictures that I gathered up for you yesterday. I'll start with the ones I find most exciting:

...So these are definitely blueberries, from the campsite we woke at yesterday morning. Apparently, these are incredibly plentiful in Maine. So... I gathered a bunch to bring home, very first thing after waking up.

...I will find a place to plant these. I will give them to those in my circle who want to plant these. We'll see how it goes.

While I was off gathering, J was cooking breakfast. He brought a can of Spam, and a bag of homemade eggless powdered pancake mix, to whip together with the water we brought:

...I wish I knew for certain at the time that what I had gathered was blueberries, because then we would have had blueberry pancakes, and J would have loved that very much. This was still very good though!

Once J and I ate, packed up, and left the campsite, we went to a place called Bar Harbor. And I discovered that the kind of roses with some of the best fruits – Japanese roses – grow wild here:

These are... invasive, in my part of the world, I think. They're robust plants that easily outcompete native flora. But I wonder if they'd take well to container gardening, so I grabbed a few fruits; the flowers and the fruits of these are edible, and make for good jams and sweets.

I'll have to talk to Atr about it. He'll probably want some of the blueberries I got, too, come to think of it...

In any case... I haven't any more room for pictures, unfortunately. And also... it's getting pretty late. I still have so much more to show you (seriously, I have over 100 more pictures for you!), but I think I'll get more into it tomorrow; the gentlemen will be back to plaster over the sheetrock tomorrow, and I'll breathe life into more wishes, but... I otherwise expect tomorrow to be quiet, which will leave plenty of time for me to tell you more about Bar Harbor and all the stuff we saw there. So I'll be very mean and horrible and evil and leave you in suspense about it for now, and tell you tomorrow. Maybe I'll even tell you about it in the morning, shortly after I wake. So you'll just have to keep yourself alive until then; you wouldn't wanna miss it.

I love you so much. Enough that I want to show you all the things about my world that are beautiful and good, despite all the problems everywhere. Enough that I... completely accidentally got good at photography, in an effort to show you these things. Whoops. Haha...

I'll write again tomorrow. I'll have faith in your safety and I'll have faith that you're on your way home in the meantime.