We have this feisty little rose bush that insists on creating beauty for us as long as it can and against all odds. It’s giving us summer blooms for November days. Climate Change contains a few smiles.
(Brooklin, Maine)
As the color of the leaves fades, Lucille is now alone in Great Cove. She’s the last of our nautical line dancers that pointed, bobbed, and swung in unison. And, Lucille, herself, will be gone soon.
Looking in the other direction in the cove, we can see that the WoodenBoat School's float has been taken up from their pier for the winter and all of the School's fleet is gone.
After Lucille leaves, there will be no man-made resident in the Cove’s island- sheltered water. Winter’s residents will arrive in increasing numbers: sea ducks, loons, and other ocean birds; bald eagles that prey on them and on the fish; and, perhaps, more seals.
Lucille, by the way, is one of the vessels used by the Marine & Environmental Research Institute. Among other activities, MERI monitors the health of the local waters and wildlife. (Brooklin, Maine)
Despite hurricane-force winds that toppled 100-foot spruces, despite driving sheets of rain that flooded roads, and despite Isaac Newton’s fruit-inspired laws of gravity, some of our gnarly old apple trees refuse to let go of their apples.
These beaten trees are keeping as tight a grip on many of their treasures as misers in a robbery.
It reminds us that the dropping of an apple is not a simple matter. It first happens in the summer when the tree sheds (“abcises”) some immature apples to help the rest mature. As the days get cooler, the tree abscises its mature fruit.
The process involves, among other things, the apple stem cells secreting enzymes that eat away at the pectin layer that holds the stem’s cellular walls together; this weakens the stem’s grip and, eventually, the fruit falls on a physicist. The warmer-than-usual temperatures here may have slowed things up. (Brooklin, Maine)
Last night’s “Beaver Moon” arose from behind the wooded darkness of Acadia National Park, set fire to some of the lowest layers of cloud, and sent a glowing beacon to us across the ripples of Blue Hill Bay.
The moon was so bright in its early stages that it looked like a hole seared into our galaxy, a tunnel to eternity.
When it escaped the lower clouds, it became a moon in a caldron.
Although the moon was huge last night, it was not at its closest point to the earth in November (i.e., at perigee); that came Friday, when clouds obscured its rising and it wasn’t quite full. Had it been both closest and fullest, the Beaver Moon also would have been a “Super Moon.”
It also was huge and virtually full Thursday night, when the sky was clear and cloudless as the silver moon sailed above leafless branches, completing the winterscape shown here.
In case you're wondering, the November full moon is called a Beaver Moon because it comes at the time when Native Americans and early colonists in the north set their beaver traps before the marshes froze. It’s also known as the Hunter’s Moon and Frost Moon.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Common Eiders are flying in from the sea daily for their annual reunion at the Blue Hill Reversing Falls. If the past is prologue, there soon will be about 500 of them wintering in this usually ice-free part of the Bay.
Common Eiders are our largest native ducks, growing up to 28 inches in body length. The can fly up to 70 miles per hour, but we see them mostly floating offshore in large white-and-black (male) and brown (female) “paddlings.” When the tide is changing, these ducks will stream into the Falls’ fast water and dive for their meals there.
These big ducks completely disregard Emily Post’s rules of etiquette when gorging on crustaceans and mollusks. They eat Blue Mussels and clams whole, then let their gizzards crush the shells. They get fastidious with large crabs, though: they remove the claws and legs before swallowing the live body whole. They aren’t good dinner guests. (Blue Hill, Maine)
Answering Pete: The Eider holds the crab by a claw or other leg and beats the crab’s body against the water surface until the body breaks off; it then quickly grabs the floating crab and repeats the process with the other appendages. They eat small crabs whole.
Recently, this Red Squirrel has been taking its meals very near one or another of our sliding glass doors. There is mounting evidence that the Squirrel’s intent is to drive our house-bound cat insane.
To some, Red Squirrels are furry-tailed rats and a nuisance that should be exterminated. Others love them, think they’re cute, and allow them to invade the bird feeder. Red Squirrels also experience a different kind of love – by owls and hawks; coyotes, dogs, and martins; bobcats and feral cats, as well as the occasional large snake.
Only about 22 percent of these small Squirrels survive their first year, during which they must establish and defend a territory and build an underground food storage midden before winter sets in. (Brooklin, Maine)
This is Winter Snow Storm,” Brooklin Cemetery; it and the image below it are part of my show at the Friend Memorial Library, which will be up through November 30.
The twisting Camperdown Elm Tree in the cemetery is a rarity. It's a cultivar that can be traced back to a unique tree created about 1837 in Dundee, Scotland. David Taylor, the Earl of Camperdown’s head forester, then found a young, contorted Elm-like tree and grafted a cutting of it to a Wych Elm; he planted that cultivar in the Earl’s garden, where it remains today. All remaining Camperdowns are the result of subsequent graftings of the species.
There also are summer and spring images in the exhibit, including the following Summer Dusk, Naskeag Point:
(Brooklin, Maine)
This year’s October colors were not as spectacular as last year’s, but there were some outstanding trees, especially the Maples.
The Blueberry fields also displayed muted beauty, as did the mountains in Acadia National Park.
The most intense October colors appeared in the shrubs, grasses, and berries. The Viburnum leaves, Bittersweet buds, Silver Grass, and Mountain Ash berries were especially dramatic.
Some of the Animal Kingdom contributed to the month's color, including the Wood Ducks, Monarch Butterflies, and Meadowhawk Dragonflies.
October is the when some lobster fishermen start unloading their gear to end the season; it's also when small boats and moorings are hauled out of the water.
On October 30, hurricane-force winds and torrential rain hit our coast, wreaking record-breaking damage. As of the beginning of November, tens of thousands of homes (including ours) were without power. [We didn't regain power until the afternoon of November 30.]
There also was a glitch with Halloween. A witch-in-training tried texting while practicing flying. The result made one of our local spooks shout “Ouch!”
Nonetheless, all’s well that ends well. We’ll remember October’s many fine sunsets.
For larger versions of the above images, as well as many additional images of special moments in October, 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/October-Postcards-From-Maine/
(Brooklin, Maine)
We spotted this stranger hanging around Mainescape (literally).
Apparently, he had just seen a witch-training flight for Halloween that did not go well, as this image shows:
By the way, the words “witch,” “wit,” and “wise” apparently are derived from the Latin videre/visum, meaning “see” in the broad sense, which includes having special knowledge of the unknown. In non-Christian cultures, being a witch (or witch doctor) often was an honored calling. (Blue Hill, Maine)
We’re under a High Wind Warning until 2 p.m.; it says that there may be “gusts up to 60 to 70 mph” here along the coast. This was taken at the usually-placid Naskeag Harbor this morning:
The tropical-storm-like winds and rain running up the New England seaboard began hitting us hard prior to dawn and continued in the early hours. Naskeag Road was closed due to an electric pole snapping, but traffic sneaked under the snapped pole and wires:
This happened at the entrance of Wooden Boat's driveway, where all of the lines were brought down by falling trees:
We lost power and still are on generator. Two big spruce trees near the house came down, the top of one landing on one of our decks:
(Brooklin, Maine)
We still have very small insects flying around and slightly larger ones to eat them, including bug-hunting Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk Dragonflies such as this one. The various and tough Meadowhawk species often survive through the first few sustained frosts, which we’ve not had, and probably won’t have.
The historic average low and high for October here on the coast are 39 and 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing weather occasionally occurs here in October: the record low for us was 18 degrees in October of 1972. It can get warm: our record high for the month here was 82 degrees in 1968. (Brooklin, Maine)
We’re at the Town Pier in Naskeag Harbor yesterday afternoon watching Brooklin’s Blue Sky take her turn in a somewhat poignant ongoing process. It’s almost like watching the belongings of friendly neighbors being taken to a place they shouldn’t be.
A good number of our lobster fishermen (male and female) end their season about now. They bring up their traps and snuggle their boats to the Pier, where their gear is lifted onto their truck trailers.
The traps are trucked to their home yards or elsewhere and stacked for the winter.
Soon, the fishermen's boats also will be stored “on the hard” and these high-bowed friends that we loved to watch bobbing and pointing into the Harbor winds will become plastic-covered lumps. Until June.
(Brooklin, Maine)
Most of our Mountain Ash trees have dropped their leaves, making their bright red-orange berries more accessible to the wintering birds and more visible to us. Mystery and folklore surround these trees.
They’re not Ash trees; they’re members the rose tree family. They’re also called Rowan Trees here because our early Scots and Irish settlers mistakenly thought they were the same as European Rowans, which the Celts thought were magical. In nearby Canada, they’re known as Dogberry Trees and their berries are used to make Dogberry Jam.
Many old-timers believe that an abundance of Mountain Ash berries in the Fall means a harsh winter. Guess what we have now. Right: an abundance. (Brooklin, Maine)
This security system has worked well for decades on an important local boat house.
And, yes, we not only leave the keys in the car when we shop in the General Store, we leave the car running outside when we go into the Post Office to check our box. (Brooklin, Maine)
The woods are alive with the sound of … grunting. We seem to have more than our usual share of Red-Breasted Nuthatches that have decided to stay here this winter. They complain about everything, including each other.
Their favorite “song” sounds like a series of guttural notes made by a kazoo: “Aank-Ennk, Aank-Ennk.” Red-Breasted Nuthatches and White-Breasted Nuthatches (which we also have) get their first names from their color and their last names from their habit of “hatching” nuts into tree crevices so that they can jack-hammer the tough food open with their bills.
A group of these grumpy birds is called a “Jar of Nuthatches.” Why? No one seems to know. Maybe it’s because their sounds are so jarring. (Brooklin, Maine)
We’re having a remarkably mild October, which has enabled our wild Honey Bees to continue performing their Summer jobs. Here, in yesterday afternoon’s sun and shadow, worker bees busily mine Yellow Hawkweed for pollen and nectar.
When Winter temperatures finally come, these workers will stay at home and become self-generating space heaters. Initially, when the Queen is not laying eggs, the workers will cluster around her and do a “shiver” that keeps the hive at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit; when she starts laying, they will cluster closer and set the heat to above 90 degrees.
These bees consume prodigious amounts of their stored honey to generate the energy needed for hive heating. (Brooklin, Maine)
Long-abandoned apple trees overhang Great Cove and some of their fruit drop onto the beach.
When a significant high tide visits, some of those apples accept the irresistible invitation to take a short sail in the Cove’s clear, rippling waters. The result often is an incongruous, but strangely lovely, image.
When the tide recedes, the apples often come to rest in a nest of seaweed, another intriguing image.
Apples never stop posing. (Brooklin, Maine)
Most of the woods here on the Naskeag Peninsula are a mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees. In September, the tree canopy is fairly well knitted together, the mossy trails below it often are in glowing shadow, and the treading usually is soft and silent enough to stalk deer and other animals (if the wind is right).
Now, hundreds of thousands of multi-colored leaves are spiraling down and turning crisp on the trails due to lack of rain; increasingly, light is pouring through the canopy in new streams, and the walking is too loud to stalk anything – crunch, crunch, crunch. It’s still beautiful, but we need rain. (Brooklin, Maine)
Many lobster fishermen (a male and female term here) are starting to pull their traps and call it a season. This image is of Brooklin’s Christopher-Devin II yesterday, after her owners brought some of their traps ashore at Naskeag Harbor.
The traps were transferred to the owners' truck trailer on the Harbor Pier, where other lobster fishermen had done the same.The closing-down process will continue for many local fishermen into November, although some of the hardier souls will fish for lobsters or scallops through the year.
The official data are not in yet, but it appears that the 2017 lobster landings will be significantly less than those of 2016. This is not surprising, since last year was a record year and 2017 has had bait price issues and quirky weather. (Brooklin, Maine)
Many adult Herring Gulls, such as this one, stay here on the coast during the winter or move farther out to sea if the ice is extensive.
They once were a fast-increasing species and considered to be the “typical” seagull. However, the population of Herring Gulls has been decreasing for several decades, a fact that has become a concern even though the species is not endangered yet.
Despite living in rough conditions, individual Herring Gulls still live about 30 years on average.
(Brooklin, Maine)