JOURNAL
It doesn’t feel like spring, no matter what the calendars say, but early March is trying to live up to its windy reputation. Here,we see the usually placid Great Cove early this morning being whipped up a bit by 33-mile-per-hour gusts:
Here, we get a little closer yesterday at low tide in similar winds:
(Brooklin, Maine)
It’s a tropical 43 degrees (F) as we speak this morning. We’ve been in a freeze-thaw-refreeze cycle lately in which the wooded streams continually form ice and then sculpt it away. Compare the first image of our favorite two-foot waterfall, taken yesterday afternoon, with the one below it, taken Monday (March 2):
The streams seem to enjoy the process, but trees and smaller plants can be endangered when their root systems keep getting confused by false signals of spring. (Brooklin, Maine)
We’re watching this connected farmhouse on Bay Road die a little bit each day. She seemingly is straining to maintain some of the dignity that she had when a large family and a cow, horse, and chickens called her home.
At one time, this house also acted as an important local Post Office. Now she’s a place visited mostly by seagulls that befoul her roof.
She’s a symbol of the times: small farms declining fast, Maine land values increasing exponentially, insurers refusing to insure old houses without extraordinarily expensive safety renovations, mortgage institutions refusing to fund houses that don’t have adequate insurance, and many older owners not having the heart or money to tear down their former homes.
There is a movement here in Maine to use land trusts to try to conserve some of these farmhouses by subsidizing organic and other small farmers to inhabit them, but it may be too little too late. The inhabitants of reconstructed connected barns now often are not milking cows; they’re fancy cars.
(Brooklin, Maine; images here taken March 1, 2020)
Our temperatures in February and early March have been above average. But, they still have been mostly below freezing with some short daily highs that reach above the 32-degree mark (F). This confuses the sea ice that has been accumulating in the shadowed nooks of our coves and the pond ice in our marshes and field ponds.
As the days heat up, the edges of scalloped sea ice have been getting pulverized by the incoming tides, only to refreeze again later.
Our pond ice has been frozen thicker and more uniformly because it has less movement and salinity compared to its salty cousin. But, the ponds are not happy. They’ve been moaning a lot lately, with occasional ice cracks that open with a sound louder than a rifle shot.
(Brooklin, Maine; images taken yesterday)
February is supposed to be the grand finale of winter here, the month of blinding whiteouts, plowed snow piled high, bitter cold, and gray days followed by days so bright that they make your head hurt. Well, not quite this year. We’ll blame it on Climate Change until a better reason comes along. Nonetheless, February did have a few good winter moments, including two plow-worthy snowstorms that we explored with camera in hand.
During and after the snowstorms, some of our miserly old apple trees held tightly onto their fruit, providing red memories of Fall, albeit withered memories.
A sunny February day after a gray snowy one is one of the great pleasures of a rural life. We had several of those. On one such days, snow hid imperfections, ice glistened in branches, and an orange-burnished sunset tucked the day in as if it were a precious child.
Speaking of the white stuff, February’s full moon was called the Snow Full Moon by Native Americans. This year, it rose dramatically into a densely clouded sky and looked very “February.”
Although we had little snow, we had plenty of fierce rain and high winds, a combination that downed trees, disrupted electrical power, and devastated dirt driveways.
However, those windy days created a traveling color show along the coast, where fishing flotsam came bobbing in for a brief rest.
Some fishing vessels remain working in February here, fishing for scallops and urchins, mostly. But, a good number of vessels are put “on the hard” and go to bed with nightcaps on.
In the wildlife category, the mild month made survival easier for our resident rafts of Wild Turkey and herds of White-Tailed Deer in thick winter coats that gather falling snow. However, that survival always is subject to some culling by our Eastern Coyotes, sometimes called Coywolves. Note the fresh deer leg bone in the mouth of one of our residents, below. (Eastern Coyotes, are the result of a significant coyote migration last century; they’re larger than their Western cousins because they picked up a significant percentage of wolf in their DNA along the way.)
Coyotes can’t reach our annual convention of about 400 Common Eiders in Blue Hill Bay. They come into the fast waters of Blue Hill Falls with the rising tide and dive for mollusks and crustaceans.
Finally, February is about love. Valentine’s Day is a great excuse to brighten the winter of a loved one. This year’s flowers from Fairwinds Florist in Blue Hill did the job nicely for one beloved person:
(All images above were taken in Down East Maine during February 2020.)
Today is Leap Day, an extra day in our lives that is given to us by calendar makers only every four years. It’s a reminder of the value of Time, which seems to have become mankind’s most important dimension. Most of us need uniform calendars and clocks to exist effectively in today’s world. We need to be “on the same page” with others for everything from baptisms to funerals.
In significant part, that’s because we now live our lives according to how long it takes us (and the Earth we’re on) to make one revolution around the Sun. A trip around our star takes us 365.2422 days, as we now measure things. That’s about six hours more than the standard calendar year of only 365 days, which includes a February of only 28 days.
So, we forget about those six hours until they add up to a whole day in about four years (6 x 4 = 24); and, we make that today, February 29. If we didn’t “leap” into this extra day, time would continue to get away from us and we’d end up with summer beginning in mid-July. (Brooklin, Maine)
Here we see Naskeag Harbor roiling in yesterday’s storm of teeming rain and wind gusts of over 50 miles per hour. The tide ripped seaweeds off their rocks and beached them:
Rain chains worked overtime:
A few trees came down into Naskeag Road and a few people temporarily lost power.
Nonetheless, the temperatures remained mild for February and much of the remaining snow and ice was washed away. By four p.m., the sun was trying to break through in an eerie way. As we speak, its sunny, 28 degrees (F) with gusts of 28 MPH that are white-capping Great Cove. (Brooklin, Maine)
This abstract expression was not created by Jackson Pollock in a red mood; it was created by the sea in a bad mood. It’s an image of seaweeds in the low sunlight of a February afternoon. They were ripped from their rock holdfasts by a recent turbulent tide and stranded on Great Cove’s shoreline.
The species here appear to be mostly Dulse (Palmaria palmata) and Knotted Wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum), which is our principal “Rockweed” that attaches itself to rocks and other hard underwater surfaces.
Seaweeds such as these often are considered to be in the plant kingdom, but they’re not true plants. They’re rootless algae that seek external food like animals, but they also create internal energy (photosynthesis) like plants. They’ve been used by mankind for thousands of years as human and other animal food, fertilizer, medicine, and cosmetics, among other things.
Today, attention has focused on these marine algae to see if they might be mankind’s next major commercial harvest from the sea. Let’s hope that any such wild-cut sea harvest is more sensitive to the environment than prior major commercial harvests that lacked forethought, such as the over-harvesting of the smaller fish (alewives, etc.) on which local cod preyed, which apparently has almost extirpated our once numerous cod. (Brooklin, Maine)
Here, living in our melting snow and ice, is a tiny fungus called British Soldier Lichen (Cladonia cristellata). Its name derives from the British uniform referenced in the New England warning, “The Redcoats are coming!”
However, these redcoats won’t fit anything much larger than a pinhead and they like to bivouac on cedar tree stumps.
Nonetheless, the lichen is considered to be a tasty treat for white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and other mixed salad lovers. We say “mixed” because lichens are two symbiotic organisms – a fungus and an alga – in partnership to help each other. Basically, most of the combined body is a fungus that provides protection, water, and minerals to the lichen; the alga makes sugar from sunlight for the fungus. Because their “bodies” are mostly fungi, lichens are classified as fungi. (Brooklin, Maine)
Despite our recent tropical temperatures (i.e., 40F+), there were rink-sized patches of ice in the woods and on spruce-shadowed country lanes. The slick stuff was appearing from under the melting snow and plowed crusts yesterday.:
For those who can’t resist the come-hither call of the woods, cleats and/or a hockey stick are advised until the ice melts fully. (Brooklin, Maine)
(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)
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)
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).
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)
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)
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)
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.
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)
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)
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)
