In the Right Place: FQ Time

(Posted on FaceBook February 24, 2020)

And now, from our Frequent Questions Department: “Are Maine fishing vessels taken out of the water before winter?” [Drumroll] The Answer: “Yes and no.” [Cymbal Crash]

Below, we see Earnest, near Surry Landing, telling shivering neighbors: “Come on! It’s warm enough to take off our caps.”

Long Set, below, is squinting into the freezing wind in Naskeag Harbor, muttering: “If I hear another ‘How Quaint!,’ I’m gonna puke.”

(February 2020, Surry and Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Coyness

We have at least three Coyotes on or near our (and their) property, judging from the moonlight howling contests that these canines sponsor. They’re extraordinarily elusive, but we did get a glimpse of one at a great distance yesterday. We’re sorry about this bad image, but – if you have good eyes – you’ll see one of our locals with what appears to be a fresh deer femur bone in his mouth. (Sex assumed.)

Enlarged portion:

The estimated 12 to 15 thousand Coyotes in Maine are so-called Eastern Coyotes or Coywolves. Their ancestors bred with wolves and dogs during the Great Coyote Migration from the west in the past century. DNA analyses in 2014 found that the Maine hybrids studied were approximately 62 percent Coyote, 14 percent Western Wolf, 13 percent Eastern Wolf, and 11 percent domestic dog. It’s thought that the interbreeding of the Eastern species is over here due to the canines reaching sufficient numbers.

The wild prey of the Coyotes around here appears to be mostly small mammals, occasional wild turkeys, and young and small deer. (Now, when snow and ice in the woods inhibits the leaping ability of deer, yearlings are more vulnerable. In the spring, newborn fawns also are vulnerable.) Coyotes also eat berries and other plant food, not to mention garbage.

There apparently has been no reported human injury from a Coyote attack in Maine, although there have been some reported attacks in other states. Nonetheless, Maine public policy is not friendly to coyotes. Except for Sundays, hunters may kill as many as they wish during the daylight hours and they may be hunted at night from mid-December through August 31. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Different Strokes

The weather tellers are saying that our recent spate of winter cold will end today. Although the air in the past few days could be piercingly cold, the vistas were stunningly clear and the snow stayed mostly on the ground. Early morning breezes, combined with the pure February light, sometimes turned the sea into unimaginable colors, including something like blue coal being streaked with white wavelets, shown here.

At other times, that light brushed the sea with strokes of green and blue while putting twinkles in the eyes of fishing vessels.

(Brooklin, Maine).

In the Right Place: Hatching the Plot

We’re among many thousands of people who are on “Hatch-Watch 2020,” checking from time to time on Jackie and Shadow. They’re a pair of Bald Eagles nesting in beautiful Big Bear Valley, part of the San Bernardino National Forest in California. See the nest here: livestream . (Keep in mind the time zone there.)

Jackie’s two eggs should hatch any time now, according to local experts. She reminds us of a wounded Bald Eagle that allowed us to take many portraits of her several years ago at a wildlife refuge. One portrait is below. Click on it to enlarge it.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Found Art

Lost or abandoned lobster gear is a sea and seacoast pollution problem taken seriously up here by many of us, but it does have one almost-redeeming aspect.

Colorful lobster trap buoys that have been separated from their gear wash up onto the shore and often become art in a new frame.

It can be enjoyed by the eyes while the brain despairs.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Peace

Standing within the last of the honey-toned light of a February afternoon, while drinking down an icy breeze, is, physically and literally, a sensational contradiction. That’s what we were doing standing here all alone on Sunday (February 16), watching and hearing Patten Stream tumble into Patten Bay. It was a moment to “come into the peace of wild things,” as Wendell Berry did when “despair for the world” grew in him.

We would not be alone in this beautiful place if it were spring or summer. When the alewives and glass eels migrate in from the open Atlantic to swim up the Stream, this becomes a place where wildlife with wings and fins learn to tolerate humans with nets and cameras.

Upstream, there’s about 1200 acres of clear spawning waters, much of them within 41 acres of conservation property that is open for the hiking public. At the mouth of the Stream that we see here, we’ve watched bald eagles, ospreys, crested cormorants, sea gulls, loons, diving ducks, herons, and – just behind us in the Bay – circling harbor seals. But now, it’s just us and the peace that we’ve found. (Surry, Maine)

In the Right Place: Death Grips

Many of our old abandoned apple trees would confound Sir Isaac Newton – they’re still holding tightly onto some of their apples despite gravity, not to mention rain, snow, ice, and howling winds. (The images here were taken from different trees, on Sunday, February 16.)

To be sure, we would not want to eat any of this frozen and deformed fruit, but we like to view its defiance.

A possible reason for the death grips may be that the trees are not producing enough ethylene in their old age. That’s the hormone that ripens apples and plays a part in sensing the best time for them to drop. At that time of ripeness, the hormone stimulates the production of enzymes that eat away at the cells where the apple stems attach to the branches.

It turns out that Sir Isaac was viewing more than gravity at work. (Brooklin, Maine) See also the image in the first Comment space.

In the Right Place: Say What?

Today is our most confusing holiday historically and grammatically. We celebrate it under federal law as “George Washington’s Birthday.” However; he actually was born under the Julian calendar on February 11, 1731, which became February 22, 1732, under the Gregorian calendar in 1752, and then the third Monday in February by Congressional fiat.

In some states, however, George shares the spotlight. Today is “Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthday” or Day in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, and Ohio. In Alabama, it’s “Washington’s and Jefferson’s Birthday.” In Arkansas, today is “Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day.” (Ms. Gates was a civil rights activist.)

It gets worse for punctuation perfectionists – the states can’t agree on how or whether to use an apostrophe in further naming today. Some celebrate today as “President’s Day,” grammatically meaning only one unnamed President (Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming).

Some celebrate “Presidents’ Day,” grammatically meaning some or all Presidents (Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington [and Puerto Rico]). Some simply omit the apostrophe and declare that it’s “Presidents Day,” to leave us scratching our heads (Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon [and the Maine Court System’s notice of closure today]).

The Presidential Seal, shown above, based on the Great Seal of the United States that was approved by George Washington, adroitly avoids an apostrophe. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Thoughts

Fine works of art should be shared. This is especially true with short-lived floral art designed to send a personal thought.  Victorians liked this concept, especially when the thought could be delivered without self-implicating evidence in the form of words. The concept apparently was learned from the Persians in the 17th Century. Eventually, Valentine’s Day became the most famous day to express romantic thoughts to others through flowers, often anonymously.

Which brings us to the fine work of floral art shown here. It should not only be shared, but much-deserved credit should be given to the artist, Cullen Schneider, the owner of Fairwinds Florist in Blue Hill. As has been the practice for decades, this arrangement was delivered on Valentine’s Day to a beloved woman with an unsigned note from her lover of many years. The people’s names are not important; their thoughts and the art that communicates them are. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: What a Difference a Day Makes

Thursday (February 13), we had a light snow shower that didn’t amount to much more than a fling of pixie dust, but it did make the neighborhood look a little more magical and set the scene for yesterday’s beautiful gleaming landscape. It also inspired us to take a few more images than usual.

We begin with what was happening while the snow was falling. The roads to the center of Town didn’t really need plowing, but got cleared anyway, of course:

The General Store, Library , and Town Offices went about business as usual, as did the Brooklin Cemetery in its own hallowed way:

Naskeag Harbor was quiet and, judging from the tire marks, a place to check things out during the snow shower:

The dusted trees were especially proud looking, including Spruce, River and White Birch, and Weeping Beach:

We have many classic structures that calmly sat this brief interruption out.

And, then came yesterday — calm, clear, cold. — and very bright.

Snow-dusted Mount Cadillac, across Blue Hill Bay in Acadia National Park, looked like Moby Dick broaching.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: A Lovely Thing

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The image below appeared yesterday in our monthly column in the Ellsworth American. The column was about the fascinating origins of what is now the universal heart symbol: ♥.

To read the column, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Fickle

As you can see from this image taken from our garage a few minutes ago, it’s snowing here as we speak and we’re under a winter weather advisory that forecasts very cold temperatures for tonight and tomorrow. February is so fickle.

Yesterday was warm and squinty-clear with one of those breezes – not too strong, but not weak – that tickles the sea surface into billions of sunny smiles:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Hunkering

Here we see our winter-vacationing Common Eiders taking some sun together on Saturday, February 8. (Such a group of Eiders is a “paddling.”)

They started to arrive in Blue Hill Bay in September and often hunker at the mouth of the Blue Hill Falls natural spillway. They wait there for the right time to enter the Falls’ fast, lowering water and feed on the mollusks and crustaceans being exposed and tossed about in the spillway. We estimate that we’ve had about 400 Eiders at times this year in this part of the Bay. The males are mostly white and black and the more numerous females are mostly bronzy-brown.

(Prior year image)

Eiders are our largest native ducks and are among the few waterfowl that are strong enough to swim up the whitewater of the Falls. They’re no slouches in the air, either. They’ve been clocked flying at 70 miles and hour, according to researchers. (Blue Hill, Maine)

In the Right Place: Blubbering

It was cold and raining when we visited Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut last week. But, the bad weather turned out to be a good thing when we decided to go outside and explore the Charles W. Morgan, shown here. We had her all to our wet and shivering selves. The Morgan is one of the Seaport’s most popular sights; she’s had tens of millions of visitors walk her restored topside and lower decks and she’s apparently still seaworthy.

The Morgan’s popularity stems mostly from the fact that she’s the last remaining American wooden whaling ship. She was built in 1841 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and spent her first 81 years whaling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. She sailed as a double topsail bark with a capacity of over 300 new tons. Her other vital measurements in feet: overall length 113; beam (widest width) 27 ½, and depth 17 ½.

The Morgan hung five whaleboats on her side davits and stored a spare one atop her after house. These approximately 30-foot vessels were light, fast, and highly maneuverable by oarsmen who got dangerously close to a whale to enable a harpoon throw. The boats often had different trim colors to allow identification from a distance. Whaleboats were “double-enders” (pointed at both ends), a design that allows beaching and refloating without turning around.

The Seaport’s historic Danish training ship Joseph Conrad was moored for the winter close by. She was built in 1882 in Copenhagen to train Danish merchantmen and was christened the Georg Stage. She was sunk in 1905, but raised and repaired. She was bought and put under the British flag in 1934, when she was renamed after the famous adventuring author Joseph Conrad. In 1936, she was bought by an American and served as a merchant marine trainer in this country. In 1947, she bacame the property of the Seaport by act of Congress.

In the Right Place: Peeking

Last night’s full moon rose from behind Acadia National Park and barged uninvited into the cloud conference there about how much rain to deliver to us today (which has been plenty).

The moon, which was a super moon, played peek-a-boo among the clouds while still in its early, Martian red ascent.

 It turned platinum in about 10 minutes and reached for us with a glitter path whenever it could see Blue Hill Bay.

The primary name given by Native Americans to this February full moon was the Snow Moon, but it also was known by some tribes as the Storm Moon and Hunger Moon. In other parts of the world, the February full moon reportedly has been called the Chinese Lantern Festival Moon, the Mahamuni Pagoda Festival Moon, and other names. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Reality

Friday’s snow and ice storm was a reminder of how horrible a real Maine winter day can be – bitter cold winds; slippery and slushy roads; ice- laden trees blown down, and power outages. Yesterday was a reminder of how beautiful a real Maine winter day can be after an icy storm – air so clean and clear that inhaling it seems like receiving a sacrament; sun so bright in the snowy landscape that we have to wince to take it all in; ice-glazed trees that, when caught by the sun’s rays, look like the most delicate of blown glass, and orange-burnished sunsets welcoming warmly-dressed deer to nuzzle darkening, snowy fields. But, still cold.

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: NOTICE

ITRP will be taking a few travelling days off. We’ll probably be up and running here again next week. In the meantime, here’s a placemarker from yesterday’s walk in the woods that might get you in the mood to contact your own muse.

Cheers! (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Heartbreaking

This residence at 627 Naskeag Road went up in flames of unknown origin yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, no one was hurt; it apparently was a summer residence or otherwise uninhabited at the time.

First responders and equipment came from Brooklin, Blue Hill, Deer Isle, and Sedgwick, as well as the Peninsula Ambulance. Investigators reportedly will be studying the scene today.

More images from the scene are below:

(Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Putting Up

A seven-member wild turkey troupe that came by yesterday to peck and scratch and excrete under the bird feeder. We have at least three distinct nomadic tribes of them that wander by regularly according to some schedule known only to them. Here’s the apparent leader of yesterday’s tribe:

We’re finding it increasingly difficult, however, to love the turkeys the way we do the deer and red squirrels, which also have become overpopulated and bold to the point of sometimes being pests and traffic hazards.

Maybe it’s that turkeys insist on traveling by gawky-headed walking, rather than elegant flight. Maybe it’s that they look like they were designed by a madman: head like a vulture with boils; neck that can be elongated like a feathered snake; body like a bulbous gourd (or shmoo, for old Al Capp fans); naked, scaly legs and sharp toes like an ostrich or giant chicken….

Nonetheless, we’ve come to think of them as our turkeys and we put up with them and they with us.

(Brooklin, Maine)

January Postcards From Maine

The first month of the new decade was very mild for a January in Down East Maine. There often was a stillness to it., except for the energetic streams carrying snowmelt to the bays.

The low light of the season always had us checking the skies near dusk, when sunsets and their afterglows often made the day’s end dramatic.

January’s nights could be as dramatic as its days. The month’s full moon was the Wolf Moon, according to Native American legend. And, this year we had two lunar bonuses. The moon was a Super Moon, being at its closest point to earth. Also, in the latter half of January, the moon became a brilliant waxing crescent that would race above us on its way to the rest of the country.

Of course, it wouldn’t be January in Maine without snowstorms. But, we had to make due with only two plow-worthy storms.

Weather-wise, there are few things better than a sparkling sunny day after a night of blowing snow — and, we had one.

We also had ponds that froze, thawed, and refroze:

While we had little snow, we had plenty of rain and fog, often working as a pair to produce dream-like scenes.

Our usual wildlife seemed to snigger at the mild weather this January. There appeared to be no stress, even on those that lived by grazing grass, foraging for anything edible, or digging up buried nuts.

Many of our fishing vessels stayed in the water after lobster season and converted to trawlers with booms, masts, and wind-protective shelling huts. They dredge for scallops or urchins in January.

We end with a beginning — the calm of a sunny January dawn after a night of high winds and snow. It’s a good way to remember the first winter month of the decade.

(All images above were taken in Down East Maine in January 2020, except the “Wolf Moon” superimposition, which was created that month from prior images.)