In the Right Place: Encounters

Most of our dragonflies are gone, but some of the small Meadowhawk Dragonflies remain active. These dragonflies often appear as the first red (and sometimes golden) flecks of Fall. But, those who want to learn more about the many Meadowhawks often find it impossible to see the small differences among them in our brief encounters with the little aerobatic experts.

The dragonfly here looked to be about one inch long during the several seconds that we met. It is – we think – either a Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum internum) or a Ruby Meadowhawk (S. rubicundulum). (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Disappearance

Angelique is leaving Great Cove yesterday morning. She heads into the fog bank over Eggemoggin Reach and soon becomes a memory. However, she’s a 130-foot topsail ketch that is easy to remember.

Angelique is the only windjammer in the Maine fleet with a large overhanging fantail and tanbark-colored sails.

Many years ago, when sails were made of cotton, the sailcloth often was dipped in a vat of tannins extracted from tree bark. This was done to protect the sails against rot; the resulting red-brown color was (and is) called tanbark (although “bark-tan” would seem more apt). (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Perfection

We’re fog-bound as this is being written. We can’t see any of the boats in Great Cove and the woods are masses of interlocking green shadows.  But, right outside our window, we have a little rose bush with a loving personality.

Since July, it has been giving us morning smiles in the form of perfect yellow-pink blossoms. They go well with fog and coffee. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: More Seldom-Asked Questions

Why would the sophisticated WoodenBoat School name this small boat “Big”? (It's a Nutshell sail/row boat that is only nine-and-one-half-feet long.)

Well, apparently the name was not chosen to be ironic. This boat is one of a pair of WBS Nutshells; the other one is only seven-and-one-half feet long and it’s named “Little.” (Perhaps the names were chosen to help those who have trouble seeing a two-foot difference when the vessels are afloat.)

Here's Little on the left and Big on the right:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Goodbyes

This is the time that we don’t want to let go of Summer, but are very much looking forward to Fall. Some days, the sea breeze contains a thin layer of chill worthy of October; other days, it’s as warm as August.

Leaves remain on the trees, but they’re losing their softness and starting to murmur rasping complaints when the wind ruffles them. The green grasses and colorful wild flowers in the fallow fields are fading fast and being replaced by their yellow, white, and brown cousins, which soon will fall victim to the mowing tractors. We can feel Summer deciding to leave us. One day this month, we’ll wake up and realize that she’s left without saying goodbye. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Fairness

Labor Day Weekend around here means that the annual Blue Hill Country Fair is up and running.

The popular five-day Fair originated in 1891 and has extensive entertainment choices, as well as a wide range of contests.

The contests include, among others, weight-pulling (horse, oxen, antique tractor), farm animal judging, skillet-tossing, and pie-eating.

This is the event that inspired the country fair scenes in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Disparity

Some male Wood Ducks here are parading in their full dress uniforms and helmets; but, others still are cowering in their molting (“eclipse”) fatigues and crew cuts, looking like boot camp recruits.

The situation should right itself soon, when all will have beautiful travel outfits for the trip south. (Brooklin, Maine)

Postcards From Maine: The August Collection

A Maine August is supposed to offer everything that’s good about Summer. This year’s month met that standard. The weather was mostly sunny and there was just enough rain and fog to prevent beautiful blue-sky days from being taken for granted.

Of course, this is sailing country. Historic schooners glide into our ageless harbors carrying passengers who try to imagine what it was like to visit here in the 19th Century.

Nonetheless, there are many sailors (male and female) who come here to experience the joy of hands-on sailing in the 21st Century. Some come in their own boats, some come as students in the renowned WoodenBoat School here. Eggemoggin Reach at our front doors is some of the best sailing water in the world.

You don’t need a boat to enjoy the glory of August, if you’re a lover of the outdoors. A walk in the gardens and woods, and alongside inland waters can reveal the silent, hidden worlds of Maine.

You might even come across an inspiring message.

For larger versions of the above images, as well as many additional images of special moments in August, click on the link below. (We recommend that your initial viewing be in full-screen mode, which can be achieved by clicking on the Slideshow [>] icon above the featured image in the gallery to which the link will take you.) Here’s the link for more:

https://leightons.smugmug.com/US-States/Maine/Out/2017-in-Maine/August-Postcards-From-Maine/

In the Right Place: A Difference

What others unthinkingly find irresistible often can be quietly resisted.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Our Loss

Summer is the final, dazzling act for most adult Dragonflies, including this Twelve-Spotted Skimmer.

They may spend years as larvae in water; but, once they grow wings and instinctively become the world’s best flyers, their time is gloriously short. They eat and mate, the females lay eggs, and they start dying when Summer starts to shed her jewels, about this time of year. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Lurking

The rumor is true. Indians still lurk at the edge of Maine Fields. Here we have irrefutable proof from yesterday: an Indian Scout®, complete with camouflage, is lying in wait on the slope where the WoodenBoat School students park their vehicles.

Indians in this area have had difficulties competing against another, more powerful Native American named Harley-Davidson, not to mention some foreign invaders.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Getting to the Point

This is yesterday morning. We're on Eastern Beach in the Harriman Point Preserve, looking over Blue Hill Bay toward Acadia National Park and the rest of Mount Desert Island.

Looking north, the reason that our adjacent town was named Blue Hill is apparent.

The Preserve is a 138-acre peninsula in Brooklin; it was bequeathed for conservation to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust by our late friend and neighbor, Sue Lyman Drew. The land was first registered to the Harriman family for farming in 1795. Now, it’s primarily wooded, having been used as a hunting preserve by Sue's family.

To the west, is Allen's Cove and the former home of E.B. White who frequently wrote about the area. At low tide, that Cove is a panorama of rock ledge, mud flats, and fields of rockweed and other seaweeds.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Haunted

We’ve been visited by a Ghost Chipmunk. We can see a hint of normal Chipmunk red-brown markings through our visitor’s white fur. It's not an albino, it has a partial loss of pigmentation (leucism).

Brief research indicates that this white rodent is a rarity.  Here's an image of a normal Chipmunk followed by several more of our Ghost.

That research also indicated that the strange name “Chipmunk” may have been a phonetic spelling or corruption of the Ottawa Indian word for the animal: Jidmoonh, meaning red squirrel. Wonder what the Ottawa Tribe called the larger rodent that we call a Red Squirrel.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: A Down East Summer Day

Yesterday was one of those Summer days that we try to remember in February, but never can quite conjure back the feeling of being out in it when our senses came alive. Here are some reminders, all from yesterday.

A briny breeze thrills our bare skin and drives a large herd of cumulus clouds northwest. Temperatures are in the low 70s (F) in the morning and peak at 79 in the afternoon.

It’s a fine day for a race for those so inclined.

It’s also a good time to walk the spicy-scented fields, where Queen Anne’s Lace, Goldenrod, and drying wild grasses poignantly foretell the end of Summer.

The mixed woods remain – for a short while – shaded by the leaves of birch, maple, and other deciduous trees that grow among the tall spruce and fir. There’s a slight scent of balsam here.

Monarch Butterflies are storing up energy for their impending migration south, a hopeful sign; Wood Duck are hiding while in molt, humbled by their loss of magnificence and inability to fly well.

In Summer gardens, the primary colors are fading and the fall whites are emerging, including those of the Hydrangea blossoms.

(Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: The Eyes Don't Have It

As summer flowers begin to bend and fade, Black-Eyed Susans continue to stand proudly radiant.

The origin of their name apparently is the ballad “Sweet William’s Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan.” It was written about 1720 by English poet John Gay. The dramatic farewell occurs when Susan appears by surprise on William’s warship before he sails off to battle.

Of course, neither Susan nor any other human ever had black eyes. But, Susan may have had dark brown ones, as does this misnamed flower.

There are 30 species of Black-Eyed Susans, all native to North America and part of the Rudbeckia genus; the one shown above is R. fulgida var sullivantii. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Keeping the Doctor Away

It looks like we’ll soon be having a bumper crop of wild apples. (By “wild,” we mean the apples that drop from the many abandoned-and-no-longer-cultivated apple trees growing here.)

These apples can play a critical part in wildlife preparing for and surviving the winter: bear getting ready to hibernate, deer filling out new coats for winter, fox, coyote, rabbits, and small rodents. They’re part of the fall and winter diets of crows, catbirds, seagulls, and many more birds.

Most of the wild apples taken by humans around here seem to be pressed into cider. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: The Least Shall Inherit the Obscurity

This is the Least Sandpiper, the smallest shorebird in the world. It’s lucky to reach six inches in length.

These Pipers tend to travel in small flocks that put on close-formation aerobatic performances over the water.

The Least Sandpiper often is not noticed on shore because of its size and its habit of not spending time at the water’s edge during low tide; it usually is feeding for insects among the seaweed up at the high tide line, where its markings are good camouflage.

By the way, one of the collective names for any group of Sandpipers is a “contradiction,” as in “There’s a contradiction of Least Sandpipers!” Why that odd name was chosen and by whom seems to be a mystery.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: A Thorny Subject

Black Raspberries are now coming into their own in the wild brambles here. Unfortunately, the ripe one in this image is no longer with us. (It was delicious.)

There’s a quick way to tell a Black Raspberry from a Blackberry: pull the berry off the bush stem and look at the bottom of the fruit. If the berry is hollow, it’s a Black Raspberry; if there is a white stem core that plugs up the middle of the berry, it’s a Blackberry. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: In Real Time

Great Cove’s waters in the early morning are a rippling darkness, more easily heard than seen. A wooded ridge blocks the sun from reaching the Cove at true dawn. The first sign of dawn comes to its waters as a reflection: a glow in the sky above the ridge.

The Cove then accepts that early light into its own, rolling reflection, all the while waiting for the sun to show itself. There may be an allegory on the perception of reality here. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Moorage à Trois

When it gets a bit boring for one or two people living on their moored sailboat, they can tether up with like-minded sailors and visit or even party. Tethered sea-households are especially recommended for partying people – rowing under the influence to your boat, especially on a dark and windy night, is not a great idea.

Above, we have an interesting composition in Great Cove: a tethered threesome on the gray morning-after, with the ketch Angelique and schooner Stephen Taber (right) behind them. The afternoon after this image was taken, all boats had gone their separate ways. (Brooklin, Maine)