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In the Right Place: Hippy

Many Beach Rose (Rosa rugosa) hips are now cherry-tomato-sized and providing deer a tasty alternative to apples. Humans also consume these hips for their vitamin C, antioxidant, and flavonoid content.

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Beach Rose plants are popular here, despite the plants’ highly invasive nature. They originated in Asia and were imported into New England for ornamental use as well as to stabilize shifting shorelines, hence their common name. Since the hardy plant had a high tolerance for sea salt, it was tried along New England roads that got plenty of salt and other chemicals in the winter. Thus, it now appears along many of our roadbeds.
However, a bed of these roses isn’t always good. Firmly established Beach Rose plants create dense barriers of thorns and spines that can be painful, if not impenetrable, to walkers and dogs. They also are almost impossible to remove without heavy digging equipment. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Intrepid

Here we see the coastal cruiser Mercantile gliding out of Great Cove as one of our August foggy drizzles (fogzles) comes rolling in. The vessel’s intrepid tourist passengers are excited about having a low-visibility adventure that most fishermen would rather not have.

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Below we see the sloop Vela being captured by that same fogzle as it arrives at her mooring. Her intrepid WoodenBoat School students seemed to be eagerly learning about her rigging before they disappeared. Not seen is an intrepid old photographer beginning to wonder why the hell he’s been standing there getting wet.

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Yhe Mercantile is a 115-foot schooner that was launched in 1916 and now hails from Camden, Maine. Vela is a 50-foot gaff-rigged sloop that was launched in 1998 and now hails from Sedgwick, Maine. The photographer is a 5’9” gaffe-prone observer who was launched 23 years after the Mercantile and 59 years before Vela and now hails from Brooklin, Maine.

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In the Right Place: Baleful

Our ponds have remained reasonably full in August and the basking has been easy for our Painted Turtles. But, they often have a counterproductive way of going about it. They need to bask in the sun’s rays to help regulate their temperature, obtain vitamin D, and to kill parasites. Nonetheless, some of them can’t seem to overcome a civic impulse to improve their neighborhood and build two- or three-turtle high condominiums with a water view. In such cases, only the penthouse turtle gets the full sun.

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The main scientific theories about this behavior seem to be that it’s competition for the best spot, a turtle social trait, and/or a defensive strategy (more eyes and ears). But, it seems, no one is sure how turtle piling fits into the survival or quality of life of these summer residents.

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By the way, a group of turtles is officially called a “bale.” This, reportedly, is because a collection of these compacted and plated reptiles is thought by some to look like a bale, which usually is a closely pressed and visibly bound container of merchandise. To us, one turtle may look like a bale, but a stack of them looks like a shaky pile of bales. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Treasure

Historic Alera was moored in Great Cove yesterday and for almost all of last week. It was like having a reincarnated Theodore Roosevelt camped in your back yard – except that Alera is much better looking than Teddy.

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Alera, which means Eagle in Latin, was launched in 1905 and is 30 feet long at the waterline and 43 ½ feet overall. She’s also known as “NY 1,” which she proudly displays on her mainsail. That’s because Alera was the first of the New York Yacht Club’s famed 30-foot class of racers.

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Eighteen of these identical 30s were designed by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (“call me Nat”) to race against each other. Nat, by the way, is the Michelangelo of racing sailboat architects. (He designed every defender of the America’s Cup from 1893 through 1920, among many other accomplishments.) Twelve of his 30s reportedly remain viable treasures today.

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While in Great Cove yesterday, Alera and three residents formed an interesting wind quartet. Here she is with Shenaniganz (a 16-foot Cat Boat), Ned Ludd (a 19 1/2- foot Caledonia Yawl) and Aretha (a 11’2” Shellback Sailing Dingy):

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We’ll end this post with Alera returning to Great Cove last year:

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(Brooklin, Maine)



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In the Right Place: Breathing

Yesterday morning was a bundle of brightness and crispness, of bluer blues and greener greens and sudden breezes that were both chilling and thrilling. It was a reminder of what a privilege it is to be able to escape the grotesque carnival’s noise simply by going into the late summer woods alone and breathing balsam-scented air while a hermit thrush sings.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Plaintive

The virtuosos of the Mimid Family in this area are Gray Catbirds, Northern Mockingbirds, and Thrashers. “Mimid” is Latin for “mimic” and the Catbird, shown here, is the best performer in the family, in our opinion.

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Catbirds get their name, of course, from their plaintive “meowing,” but they – especially males defending territories – also mimic other birds, frogs, machines, and almost 100 other sounds. And, unlike other Mimids, they can sing long arias without repeating a single mimicked sound.

However, Catbirds are more bashful performers than their cousins; they prefer to sing unseen and we often must part a leafy curtain to catch their performance. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Local Beauty

Here are still-water studies of two of our local beauties posing in Great Cove earlier this week. Both were built by students at our neighboring WoodenBoat School. The first is Winslow:

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Winslow is a skiff that is not quite 14 feet long (13’6”). She’s similar in design to the 19th Century skiffs that were rowed for recreation on the Charles River in Boston. Many skiffs are flat-bottomed and slow, but Winslow’s elegantly curved hull makes her a high-riding and fast-pulling boat. She was built during the 1998-1999 school years.

The second beauty is Shearwater:

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Shearwater is a 16-foot sail and pulling boat designed by Joel White and based on the lines of a Norwegian workboat. Her light weight (150 pounds) and narrow beam (4.5 feet) give her very good acceleration. Shearwater can be remarkably fast when rowed by two good oarsmen. She was built in 1987.

(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Oh-Oh

Our mysterious American Mountain Ash Trees are now bursting with their outrageously orange berries. We say that these trees are mysterious because they’re the subjects of considerable folklore and mystery. For one example, no one seems to know why they are called ash trees. They’re not ashes, they’re members the rose family.

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They’re also called Rowan Trees here because our settlers from the British Isles mistakenly thought that they were the same as European Rowan Trees. The Celts (and some of America’s colonists) thought Rowan trees warded off witches and had other magical properties. Across our border in Canada, American Mountain Ash Trees are also known as Dogberry Trees and their berries are used to make popular Dogberry Jam there.

But, it’s an Ojibwa Tribe legend about the trees that gives us pause, as we look at the multitudes of orange orbs hanging from them now. The legend is that, if there are many Mountain Ash berries in late summer and fall, the winter is sure to be very harsh. Oh-Oh. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Breathtaking

This graceful craft is a – take a deep breath – tandem, double-paddle, skin-on-frame, ultra-light canoe. We’re seeing her in foggy Great Cove last week, where she met serious water for the first time. She was built by students at a WoodenBoat School class under the direction of boat builders Hilary Russell and Roger McKee.

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This canoe reportedly has – take a deeper breath - spruce gunwales; northern white cedar ribs; white pine stringers (supports in hull); a spruce keelson (centerline backbone for transverse pieces); hardwood deck, backrests, seats, and rub-rails; brass stem bands (boat end protectors), and a polyester skin that is waterproofed and hardened by a polyurethane coating. Phew!

Here she is taking her maiden voyage:

(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Elusive

It’s a little after 7 a.m. and we’re in our second-floor office trying to get some writing done. The shades in front of us are closed because the morning sun beams in and makes us squint. A large shadow suddenly looms….

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It’s a Pileated Woodpainter! This is an elusive species that appears here only about every 12 years. This friendly Pileated Woodpainter should not be confused with the shy Pileated Woodpecker, although both are high climbers and have caps (that’s what “pileated” means).

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A quick way to tell the difference between the Pileated Woodpecker and the Pileated Woodpainter is to compare their large bills: the Woodpecker’s is bone; the Woodpainter’s is paper. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Bad Hair

This is a swarm of recently-emerged caterpillars that soon will become Milkweed Tiger Moths, also known as Milkweed Tussock Moths. They’re devouring their namesake plant for one of the reasons that Monarch Butterfly caterpillars consume it. The toxicity of milkweed makes both the crawling and flying phases of the insects toxic to predators.

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But the Tiger Moth caterpillars go one step further. Tiger Moth Caterpillars literally have “bad hair” and by that we mean poisonous pompadours. Their hairdo includes “urticating” hairs, named after the Latin word for stinging nettle (“urtica”). Some of these defensive growths are long and flexible and some are stout and bristly.

The former can puncture human skin and break off, causing inflammation in sensitive people. The latter can puncture the skin and inject venom (“envenomating” hairs), which can cause a severe reaction in those people. Look, but don’t touch. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Fishing Time

Here we see this month’s full moon as it rose over Naskeag Harbor on August 15. The August full moon is most commonly called “The Sturgeon Moon,” which was the Algonquin Tribe’s descriptor relating to the time when that fish is most easily caught in what is now the United States' Northeast.

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However, in the Pacific Northwest, the Haida Tribe called this moon “The Salmon Moon.” The Cree Tribe, in what is now the Ontario area, called the August moon “The Flying Up Moon,” perhaps because some birds start to migrate in August. The Ojibwe tribe,in what is now southeast Canada, called it (and sometimes the July moon) “The Blackberry Moon,” in reference to when those berries became ripe. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Lurking

We’ve got our own version of the Loch Ness Monster in Great Cove. The first sign of its presence usually is a school of good-sized fish (Pogies?) jumping out of the water for no obvious reason.

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We’ve come to realize that they jump because they see the monster rising fast toward them from the black depths. The monster attacks with tremendous speed and force, sometimes bursting high out of the Cove to catch its prey as they leap for their life.

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We’ve seen, at a significant distance, the monster’s silhouette and parts of its breaching body and can tell that it’s a large seal of some type. But, we haven’t been able to confidently identify what type of seal it is. We think that it’s probably a Harbor Seal, our most common seal.

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File Photo

Harbor Seals can grow to over six feet long and weigh almost 400 pounds. Usually, Harbor Seals find their prey along the bottom (e.g., lobsters and other crustaceans) or chase fish at mid-sea depths. This Great Cove lurker is different, and we’re glad it prefers fish over arms and legs.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: The Right Stuff

As you can see, not all fishermen on lobster boats use traps these days, but they all continue to wear “oilskin” bib pants. Today, waterproof oilskins often are made of breathable rubber or flexible PVC-coated synthetic fabric – the right stuff for fishing in foul weather and other wet activities.

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In days of yore, fishermen wore real oilskins, often made of discarded sailcloth coated with linseed oil and wax, which created a waterproof and breathable garment.

The bibbed fisherman shown here in Dear Abbie: is Nolan Candage, the son of the owner of another good-looking local fishing vessel, Judith Ann. (Brooklin, Maine) Click on image to enlarge it.

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In the Right Place: Time

It’s the beginning of the end. Although she won’t admit it, we can see that Summer is thinking about forsaking us, as she always does. She’s letting Goldenrod and Queen Anne’s Lace take over her fading fields; her wild apples are turning red and losing their grips; her light no longer lasts long enough.

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One morning in the coming weeks, we’ll wake up and realize with a pang that she left us without saying goodbye. But now, now is when we try to get closer to her and make believe that the two of us can prolong the best of times. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Refocusing

When walking in the woods or the marshes, it’s virtually certain that we’re being watched by some of our unseen furry or feathery neighbors. Yet, often an inch-by-inch focus on our surroundings reveals no other living creature.

That’s the time to refocus on the big picture. We might realize that there’s something strange about what we thought was a gray rock 200 feet away – when the light changes, it casts a reflection of an upside-down Great Blue Heron that is watching us very closely.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Pirates' Choice

Here we see Actress in Great Cove last week. She’s a 75-foot Brigantine out of Belfast, Maine, that was designed by the legendary Murray Peterson. Originally launched in 1937, Actress apparently is the only Brigantine in the Maine coastal cruiser fleet.

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A Brigantine is a two-masted vessel carrying rectangular sails on the foremast and gaff-rigged, triangulated sails on the second mast. (Actress often travels without raising its rectangular sails.) Brigantines were developed as more maneuverable hybrids of vessels known as Brigs. A Brig also is two-masted, but both of its masts carry rectangular sails.

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In fact, Brigantines were once called “Hermaphrodite Brigs.” Apparently, however, that nickname was discontinued after the definition of a “hermaphrodite” became generally known. The root names of both types of vessels are derived from “Brigand,” because fast Brigs were favored by pirates.

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(Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Plantation 5

Here, we see a summer squall forming over brooding Blue Hill Saturday afternoon, August 10. A furious rainstorm of about five minutes ensued, followed by sunshine and relieved smiles.

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The Town of Blue Hill below this 940-foot summit was incorporated and named after the Hill in 1789. It was among the lands granted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to hundreds of British colonists who defeated French colonists and their Native American allies in the French and Indian War (1754-1763).  The Blue Hill area became known as Plantation Number 5 when first settled by colonists Captain Joseph Wood and John Roundy in 1762. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: To Fling

A “lobster smack” is not just what your lips do after finishing a delicious lobster roll. It’s also a vessel that takes lobsters from fishing boats to a commercial facility for processing or resale. That’s part of what’s going on here with the operations of Damon Seafood Company in the middle of our Naskeag Harbor. Fishermen can buy lobster bait from that floating hut when going out and sell their catches to a smack when returning.

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Historically, “smacks” were sailboats that specialized in transporting fish and lobsters caught by other boats. Thus, smack crews were called “smackmen,” not “fishermen” or “lobstermen.” Their boats often had holes in the hulls to allow seawater to flow in and out of “wells” below decks where live catches were held.

The word “smack” for a vessel is thought by some to have originated from the old Dutch words “smak” (small sailboat) and/or “smakken” (to fling [e.g., fish]) or to dash [e.g., from boat to boat]). Today, smacks are motorized and have equipment to keep the catches fresh in saltwater containers. (Brooklin, Maine)

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In the Right Place: Finger-Crossing Time

Canada Lilies are finally blooming here along the coast. They were very late here this year, as were many perennials.

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These exotic wildflowers are native to much of New England and Canada. Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds love them as do an increasing number of gardeners who now can purchase them from plant nurseries.  And, in days of yore, Native Americans loved to eat them.

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Unfortunately, White-Tailed Deer also love to eat Canada Lilies. More worrisome, however, is the spread of the Scarlet Lily Beetle (Liliocens lilii), another lily leaf muncher. It’s a voracious non-native that was introduced into Canada from Europe or Asia in the 20th Century and is now attacking lilies throughout New England. Keep your fingers crossed. (Brooklin, Maine)

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