Like many towns in Maine, Hope is a place where the “town” is an intersection of two roads.  Don’t blink!  We like it that way here.

The center of Hope is the intersection of Route 105 (at this stretch I think it is called Camden Road) and Hatchet Mtn Road on the left...it is Church St. on the right.

And the heart of Hope is the Hope General Store (gray building on the right, above).  Right next to the General Store is a small shingled building: it houses the school district officers, the town offices, and the library:

The Town Offices, Library and more are in the little building behind my dirty car

Basically, there are three town employees and they all back each other up and do just about everything.  I’m now registered to vote in Hope, and am so glad to be here! Looks like the Library is honor system:  go in, and remember to write down what you want to check out on the way out.  I’ll find out more as soon as I have time to read again!

Looking down the Route 105 (oh yeah...the post office is inside the general store...you can see the sign just to the right of the stop sign); a few miles past this intersection, turn left, then take the second driveway on the left to our house@

EVERYone in the area knows about the Hope General Store.  Manager Andrew originally hails from Scotland (and you can still hear a trace of that wonderful accent), which explains why (YIPPEE!) they have MacVities chocolate digestives (cookies to Americans).  YUM!  Like a good corner grocery it has everything you might need and have forgotten at the in-town shopping:  milk, flour, chips, cookies, bread, wine, sandwiches, toilet paper, beer, munchies, and “Hope is Hip” bumper stickers.  Here’s the front of the store:

The General Store, with good people and good things inside

And saving the best ’til last, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the “round the world” clocks over the door.  From left to right:

Check out the "around the world" clocks above the door....

Here’s the close up:

Hope around the world....the UK, Maine, and Australia!

• Hope, Darbyshire, England (plus 5 hours),
• Hope Standard Time, Maine
• Hope Valley, Australia (plus 13 hours)

Have I recently said I love living in Hope?

That’s both the weather and my ability to get our from under all the house stuff!   Gradually we are settling in, and most of the boxes are gone.  Most of the painting is done (except for the studio of course), and the lighting for the studio will be done after the painting. I can’t believe it’s a week since I blogged…ooops!  I have been finishing up all sorts of  house stuff, and converting my “With a Dash of Color” lecture from “hold up small samples at the front of a large room” to a digital presentation.  That has entailed taking photos of some of my earlier, traditional and contemporary style quilts, so I’ll share those before too long.  Betcha didn’t know I made all of ’em!

Until then, it is WET!  We’ve had quite a lot of snow, and for the past three days we’ve had days into the 40s, including one night that didn’t go below freezing.  The good news:  the driveway is no longer a skating rink/sled run.  The bad news, the driveway squelches and squishes it is so mushy!  And today it is pouring rain.

Camden Falls, March 7th, rain and snow runoff

When I took Eli to school, I decided to drive down to the harbor and, as expected, the Camden Falls were in full roar!

The upper falls were roaring!

You can see the driving rain if you look at the rocks on the bottom...those gray streaks!

Another look at the lower part of the falls

At the bottom hillside edge of the Camden cemetery, the road was flooded over—between melting snow, run off, soaked ground, and mounds of snow impeding the flow of water, it’s a bit of a mess out there today.

The water had nowhere to go on Route 105

They had a digger out to deal with moving the snow so the water had a chance of going away!

But the best bit…they’ve started to spray white primer on the ceiling joists, which will greatly improve the mood in the studio!

Spray painting the joists in the basement (aka studio ceiling) begins! WOOT!

So what does one do when you are moving in and it snows?  Stay put and unpack more….   I got my wish for at least one really good snowstorm after moving in.  Last night we got (I’m guessing) somewhere around ten or more inches of snow between yesterday afternoon and sometime in the wee hours.

Mid-morning Friday it began to snow. Notice the top rail of the fence and the top of the fence posts. You'll see why I'm asking at the end of this post!

The photo above was yesterday afternoon…HOW did I get so lucky to live somewhere so beautiful??? No matter what the weather or the season, it is glorious!  I can wait to see this view turn green, then gold, then back to white, as the year turns and share the view with you all.  And I may be more than just a bit of an odd duck:  I have always loved storms:  rain, wind, whatever.  This house is very snug and tight, which is a good thing as it takes quite a buffeting from the wind.

It has been colder, but not by a whole lot.

When I got up this morning…it was a bit brisk. Yes, that is 15 Fahrenheit,  with a mild breeze blowing (3 miles an hour, bringing it down to a wind chill of 12).

Mt. Everest you might wonder? Snow capped peaks? Sort of....

Once I got the storm door unfrozen and used it to push away the snow blocking it on the outside (I was thinking it was a good thing the house wasn’t on fire!), this was the view of the path to the car.  Ahem.  Path?  What path?  FORMER path.   Now, it didn’t snow that much…the wind blew it there…..

The arrow points to the close-up shot shown above

If we wanted to go anywhere, or let in the guy to measure Eli’s room for carpet, or take the dog for walkies, that path had to re-emerge.  I used the exercise as an excuse for waffles (with maple AND raspberry syrup thank you very much, and my made from scratch recipe please, no toaster waffles!) later.  Ahem.

There's that snowcapped ridge again, with the shovel for scale

Fortunately, the snow wasn’t too heavy!  Eli, who is getting *very* tall (at almost 13 he is just a skosh shorter than I am!), did the doggie duties.

Yes, 'widgeon, you CAN do it! Up you go!

But but but, said ‘Widgeon, my leggies are short!

Hah HAH! The doggie is a trooper! He's reached the pinnacle!

And it is SO much fun to romp in and eat the snow:

Let's go galumphing, says the dog....it's fluffy!

Then it was time to dig out the car (yes, we are eventually going to build a garage!)

Please notice the car. Behind the wind blew the snow nearly away (tho the plow ridges on the side of the drive are nearly as high as the side mirrors).

It appears the snow decided to land on the hood of the car. As you can see from the shovel I placed on top, the roofline is snow-extended all the way to the bumper!

Phew!  It wasn’t as much work as I feared, though, because the wind swirling around the cars had minimized the build-up between them and on the sides.

DONE! There is, once again, a path. And if the weathermen are right, we'll have three consecutive days above 36 which will melt and mud things up nicely....time to get the dog-wiping rags out!

And remember those fence posts….

This is the view from the dining room. If you look in the middle distance, you might see some little brown dots.

Here’s a closer view.  The top rail of the fence is now buried, just leaving the tips of the posts.  Wonder what the ground looks like under the snow?  We’ve never seen it except in the real estate listing photos!

Yes...those little dots in the middle are the tippy-tops of the fence posts. I LOVE IT HERE!

Now…to unpack and hang some pictures…nearly done (well, except for the studio…another week or so until I can begin there due to painting gonna happen).

Kate's card and candles, Kathy's bird whom I named Egbert

Move-in Friday brought some lovely surprises:

A card from Frayed Edges friend Kate says “Heart  Hope Home”…how perfect is that?

As Kate said...sometimes you just find the PERFECT card

And it arrived our first day in the house!  Next to the card is Egbert, the bird Kathy (also a Frayed) made for my birthday last year, and the votives are from Kate’s Christmas gift.  The old coffee mill from my dad went up first on the antique baker’s cabinet, and this group went up next!

Here is the current state of the studio:

My studio. Ahem. Clearly, this is the "before" picture. Alas and alack, the "after" picture probably won't be able to happen for at least 6-8 weeks...shriek!

UGH!  The wall on the right will come down to open  up the space, and a deep closet will go in on the left, with all of the closet doors becoming design wall spaces.  And the deep cinnamon brown on the walls will go away!

It was a tad nippy on move-in days…. but our painter (!) brought us a bottle of wine from Hope Vineyards…Australia!

I'm guessing it is a lot warmer in Hope Vinyards, Australia, than Hope, Maine--and 29 is a fairly warm day for winter (almost freezing for those of you who do celcius)

The part of the studio on the other side of the ugly wall isn’t quite as grim looking…three mini windows up high, less “stuff”… and when combined and painted the two rooms will be lovely!

The small/narrow room on the other side of the ugly wall that will be removed....also packed with STUFF

A week into residence, we’ve had below-zero (Fahrenheit!) wind chill, tonight I saw a shooting star (while walking the dog who refused to lift his leg in that bitter chilly wind!), and we have yet to have a single room other than a bathroom that is free of boxes.  BUT, most rooms are most of the way “there.”  And the necessary work begins tomorrow morning, and hopefully most of it (except the studio) will be done in the next four weeks.  I remember what passed for normalcy in this household fondly.  Fortunately, this house and location is SO worth the tumult of moving… I just wonder when I’ll actually be able to share any art of quilting with you!  Thanks  for coming to visit anyway!

Going up the driveway (first hill very icy and slick!) toward the morning sun; house faces north...

We are here at last!  I took this shots as I drove up the loooonnngggg driveway on Friday morning, which would be our first night in the house.  Here’s the house, a view from the driveway to the view (north) and the hill behind (south), and a closer look at the entry porch:

There is more snow than Camden, but those big hummocks are plow piles!

you enter the house from the porch by the entry hall and kitchen (on the right)

I had my car packed to the rafters with assorted stuff, but decided I really should carry a quilt in as the first thing in the house:

I had cleaning supplies with me, buit didn't want the first stuff in the house to be drudgery, so I grabbed this quilt from the top of the pile in the back of my car and just popped it up on an available support in the dining room (which *will* be painted a different color!)

The moving van

The drive was icy, so the movers put down old pads to make the trip into the house safer

left at about 3:15 Friday, February 11th, and we have unpacked like dervishes since.  At least in the kitchen it is looking like we have made some headway!  Here is a “before” of the entry and kitchen:

Heaps and piles everywhere. There are still some, but smaller after five days of unpacking....and different stuff!

And the other end of the room, the kitchen

And birdies!

The chickadees were voracious! Have bought seed!

More pictures soon…..