In the Right Place: Transition

It’s that poignant time of the year when the kids go off to enlightening school and the pleasure boats go off to darkened storage. Here we see Swifty, the WoodenBoat School’s Caledonia yawl, on her last day in direct sunlight this year.

Within minutes, she was backed into the WBS Boatshed.:

That’s Wild Rose, a Maine Coast Dory, drying off in front of the Boatshed:

Soon, Great Cove will be devoid of its joyful fleet of pleasure craft and the winter waterfowl will bring a new type of joy there. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 17, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Native Suns

Annual Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are at their peak here. They can be dramatic when getting their “hairdos” tussled by sea breezes:

However, they also are impressive when just imitating their namesake, the radiating sun:

There reportedly are about 70 species of sunflowers that are native to North and Central America, some of which have been cultivated for their food (seeds and oil), clothing dye, medicinal properties, or just exotic looks.  

Sunflower plants were cultivated in this continent at least as early as 3000 BC, according to researchers. They reportedly were introduced to the rest of the world around 1500 by Spanish Conquistadors returning from the Americas to Europe. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 17.)

In the Right Place: Romping

We were lucky to be down at Great Cove earlier in the week as the sun was going down. They let Snow Falcon loose in the low light with a good breeze blowing.

She tacked, romped, and sliced at high speed through the Cove like a graceful racehorse when first given the freedom of the paddock.

Snow Falcon is a Concordia yawl (No. 84) built in 1961 by Abeking and Rasmussen. She’s almost 40 feet in overall length (39’10”) and she’s very fast for her class. She now hails from nearby Pumpkin Island at the top of Eggemoggin Reach.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 13, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Medical Insurance Plans

These mushrooms have been in the news lately due to the Covid-19 pandemic’s creation of a heightened interest in the human immune system. They’re Turkey Tail mushrooms (Trametes versicolor), named for their shape and color patterns.

Turkey Tails have been used for centuries as medicinal mushrooms and lately have been associated with alleged significant benefits that protect and improve human immune systems.

Their real job in life is to get rid of dead trees in the woods cell by cell, a job that needs nature’s almost infinite patience. A look-alike is the Violet-Tooth Polypores (Trichaptum sp.), this one most likely Trichaptum abietinum:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 11 and 16, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Soul-Satisfying

At this time of the year, this traditional English climbing rose, a Gertrude Jekyll hybrid, offers us one fragrant bloom at a time and probably will continue to do so until a serious frost in October. During its prime in the late spring and summer, it was covered in blooms.

For those who skipped art history in school, Gertrude Jekyll was a renowned English horticulturist, garden designer, writer, photographer, and fine artist who died in 1932. Her Celtic last name is properly pronounced “GEE-kill,” but many Americans pronounce it “JECK-ill.”

This hardy hybrid named after her was first introduced into the United Kingdom by the famous rose cultivator David Austin in 1986. One of it’s primary attributes is that it smells like a traditional rose – that indescribable, soul-satisfying aroma that many of today’s chemically preserved roses can’t produce. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6 and 7, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Jamming at the Cove

The annual WoodenBoat Windjammer Sail-In occurred here yesterday afternoon at the WoodenBoat School. Nine coastal cruisers swept into Great Cove on good winds, while the lowering light played off their vast sails and often silhouetted the vessels. (Not to mention driving photographers crazy.)

Below we see WBS’s Friendship Sloop Belford Gray seemingly welcoming the incoming schooner Stephen Taber (which was launched in 1871). The Taber did a few turns in the Cove to show off, as you see.

On one of those turns, the Taber passed by the schooner American Eagle (1930), which had anchored and was sending her passengers ashore, where they raised their oars coming into the WBS pier float. Meanwhile, the red- (tanbark-) sailed ketch Angelique (1980) slipped by.

The schooner Mary Day (1962) arrived with the sun at her back, as did the schooners Lewis R. French (1871) and J&E Riggin ((1927), which seemed to be racing each other,.

The schooners Riggin and Ladona (1922) dropped their sails and anchored beside each other, but the gray and red- hulled French continued on and took a few celebratory laps around the Cove.

The Queen of the Windjammers and the only three-masted one in the Maine fleet, Victory Chimes (1900) and the Heritage (1983) also came in dramatically with the sun behind them.

While the Eagle and Riggin were dropping anchors and sails, the French continued rollicking and sailed between them.

As the sun continued to go down, the windjammers, including the Riggin here, became silhouettes on the glistening Cove

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 14, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Shanty Time

It’s not every day that you’ll see an 18th Century Bantry Bay Long Boat resting in a field, as this one has been doing recently. Well, yes, it’s actually a replica, but still ….

These vessels were 38 feet long and rowed by 10 long oars (five per side) and/or sailed with three masts rigged with boomless sails.  They were “officers’ barges” or “gigs” on large warships that could be rowed fast and maneuvered skillfully by experienced oarsmen. (The word “gig,” as applied to fast, narrow boats, reportedly derives from the Middle English “ghyg,” meaning spinning top.)

In 1796, part of the French fleet attempted to invade Ireland to assist the anti-British separatist movement there. Warships entered Bantry Bay on the Irish west coast during a fierce storm. Only one of their long boats made it safely ashore. It became the model for today’s Bantry Boats.

Today, rowing enthusiasts compete among themselves in local and international Bantry Boat contests. Work song enthusiasts also row the boats while singing sea shanties and other work songs. Such activities have become tourist attractions.

Actually, that’s why this replica is on the WoodenBoat School campus. Early on some mornings, it’s ramped into Great Cove and rowed out into Eggemoggin Reach by singing oarsmen and women whom you can hear all along the coast. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 12 and 13, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Waterfront Economics

We hear that the lobster prices are good, but that the delicious critters haven’t been cooperating – “things are pretty slow right now.” The hope is that the harvests will pick up as the weather gets colder.

Above, you see the Fishing Vessels Cool Change and Jack Black on Saturday at the convenience raft in Naskeag Harbor, where bait and fuel can be bought and lobsters sold. Below,, you’ll see FV Meghan Dee posing with her Mona Lisa smile at the Town Dock on Friday.  

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 10 [Meghan Dee] and 11 [Cool Change], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Early

Some wild Winterberry bushes (Ilex verticillate) here are showing large berries about a month early this year, perhaps because of our wet summer. Many of the bushes also appear to be suffering from a plant fungus, perhaps abated by the wet summer. The fungus looks like it might be Black Spot (Diplocarpon rosae), which should not adversely affect the berries 

The little red Winterberry fruits are a major ingredient in nature’s winter survival kit for 49 species of birds, deer, raccoons, and white-footed mice. However, they can be toxic to pets and people. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 10, 2021.) Click on image to enlarge it.

In the Right Place: Thick and Thin

It rained yesterday morning, as it had all day previously. But, in the afternoon yesterday, the sun broke through in places, towering cumulus clouds formed, and we had competing patches of shadow and sun on Blue Hill Bay, as you see here:

As the afternoon evolved, the thick clouds thinned and sun swept over the landscapes and seascapes. Here’s Acadia National Park across Blue Hill Bay in the late afternoon:

It appears that we’re headed for one of the wettest summer-fall seasons in history here on the coast of Maine, while we still have abnormally dry and drought conditions in inland Maine and elsewhere in the country.

The U.S. Drought Monitor reported Thursday that there was slight improvement in Maine as of its reporting data for September 7, compared to August 31. However, most of the State remains “abnormally dry” (yellow), in “moderate drought” (tan), or in “severe drought” (burnt orange).:

(Images taken yesterday in Blue Hill [Sailboat] and Brooklin [Acadia], Maine.)

In the Right Place: "Empty Nest" Blues

This image of a juvenile Osprey appeared yesterday in our monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

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

In the Right Place: Schooner Watch

The Stephen Taber slipped into Great Cove on Tuesday afternoon and, as shown here, tacked out through gusting winds yesterday morning. She was launched in 1871 from the Bedel Shipyard in Long Island, New York, and named after an obscure former New York Congressman.

The 110-foot Taber is now a National Historic Landmark out of Rockland, Maine. She still does not have an engine, but her powerful motorized yawlboat, Babe, has no problem pushing her in light air.

As with many 19th Century cargo cruisers, the Taber was built with a flat bottom to “ground out” and discharge her cargo without the need for a pier. She does have a centerboard to lower during cruising, however. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 8, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Change Is Constant

Living on a ridge above Great Cove on the Down East coast of Maine can make you eager to get up early. It’s a time to see life begun anew with the morning’s always unique offerings, which will change as the day opens wider.

My wife Barbara and I have gotten to the point where we can use shorthand descriptions to describe the morning’s complex changes. On the recent foggy morning shown here, for example, you would have heard, “Martha’s there now.”

Decrypted, this means that the retreating fog has passed the lonely mooring of the small cruiser once owned by famed author E.B. White and named after his granddaughter, Martha. It also would imply that Babson Island likely soon would be fog-free.

On a clear morning here, the sun has to rise above a ridge of trees before its early light can reach the Cove. When it does, it often acts as a spotlight to feature exquisite sights, which we consider to be visual gifts for us. Thus, during yesterday’s clear dawning, you would have heard me shout to Barbara, “Angelique!”  

Decrypted, that meant that this familiar 130-foor windjammer had come in the previous evening (without us seeing her), that she was anchored where we could see her, and that the sight was worth stopping what you were doing to see. It also is an invitation to join in the strange Peeping Tom pleasure of watching a vessel full of sleeping tourists who soon will be doing their own peeping. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine on September 6 [fog] and 7 [sun].)

In the Right Place: A Good Year For Some

We continue to see what appears to be a larger number of fawns than usual and wonder why this was a good birthing year for White-Tailed Deer. Here you see one resting gracefully on September 5:

On the day before, I watched one wending carefully through a nearby fallow field:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 4 [field] and 5 [resting].)

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In the Right Place: Healthful Nuisance

Here you see one of our last Beach Roses (Rosa rugosa) gulping sun recently. The plant also is known as Rugosa Rose, Japanese Rose, Ramanas Rose, and, unfortunately, Letchberry. (The Latin word "rugosa," meaning "wrinkled," refers to the plant’s lovely leaves.)

While the Beach Rose flowers are fading, the plants’ seed “hips” are starting to flourish. These hips are packed with Vitamin C and antioxidants and used in foods and cold remedies

Nonetheless, Beach Rose’s invasive nature outweighs its healthful uses. Maine has declared it to be an invasive nuisance. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 3 [hips] and 4 [flower].)

In the Right Place: He and She

Here you see a Painted Turtle enjoying yesterday’s very welcome sun. We’re fairly sure that he’s a He (i.e., a male), but we would have to catch and hold him to be sure; and, he is much too bashful to allow that.

Although male PTs are smaller than females, they have wider and longer tails and longer foreclaws than females, apparently to make it easier to hold the females during mating. (Speaking of which: The male’s bottom shell [his “plastron”] is curved to accommodate a female’s top shell [her “carapace”]; her plastron is flat; also, her genital and excretory opening [her “cloaca”] is close to her body and his is not.)

Our Painted Turtles are the Eastern subspecies, Chrysemys picta picta. There also are slightly differing Western, Midland, and Southern subspecies of this common native. Around here, PTs usually hibernate starting in October, but that may change with Global Warming. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 4, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Beauty and the Climate Beast

Our freshwater ponds are full and the spring-fed streams that feed those ponds are roaring through the woods here on Maine’s Down East coast. Yet, yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated two of the State’s inland counties as primary natural disaster areas due to the long-running drought there.

Above, you see clusters of Arrow Arum flourishing as they reflect themselves in the ample waters of a nearby lily pond yesterday. Below, you’ll see one of the pond’s little feeder streams rushing and bubbling yesterday through its banks of Sphagnum Mosses.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 3, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Ida and After

Our rain chain was making a spectacle of itself during yesterday’s torrential rains from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida:

The bird bath appeared as if it was coming to a boiling point, as the rain drops hit it incessantly:

Our county (Hancock) was one of two under a flash flood warning for some of the day, but today’s reports indicate that there were no significant floods and little damage to Maine from this environmental revenge. Our hearts go out to those who suffered severely to the south of us.

All Ida had left for us on the coast was a little more than two inches of rain, with 1.8 of those inches coming from midnight to about mid-day, according to our local weather station. Ida didn’t go gently.

The day before the storm, Maine still had a dryness problem, according to yesterday’s U.S. Drought Monitor and this map based on August 31 data:.

It reported some improvement over the previous week in central Maine, but the data showed that most of inland Maine remained “abnormally dry” (yellow), in “moderate drought” (tan), or in “severe drought” (burnt orange). Yesterday’s rain should have helped relieve that situation some. (Brooklin, Maine)

In the Right Place: Schooner Sighting

Here you see the Coastal Cruiser Heritage on Tuesday, August 31, gliding into Great Cove with the dusk sun in her sails.

She spent the night and awoke to what, at first, was a sunny day.

By the time that she left the Cove yesterday, the sun was disappearing and the clouds were forming for last night’s and today’s torrential rain here from Tropical Storm Ida.

The Heritage is a 145-foot schooner that hails from Rockland, Maine, where she was built in 1983 for the tourist trade. She is the “newest” of the Coastal Cruisers and sports a unique yellow hull.

According to her website, she has 16 passenger cabins, most of which can accommodate two people. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 31 and September 1, 2021.)

August Postcards From Maine

August, usually the top rung of high summer, was different this year. It was very “weathery.” It had a good share of Maine sunny days, but it also had more than an average number of rainy and foggy days. Either way, however, this August was great for clouds. We watched them rise high behind the iconic Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge, set the scene for our fall-turning fields, reflect in ponds, and collect over Acadia National Park to make rain.

We often watched the clouds collect above the islands sheltering Great Cove while the sun battled the morning fog for supremacy. When the fog won — as it often did — the sailors at the WoodenBoat School still went sailing there.

Nonetheless, the August precipitation provided much-needed water and moisture here along the coast while abnormally dry and even drought conditions were experienced in other parts of Maine. Our ponds, wooded streams, and protective salt marshes had plenty of water.

Our woods remained verdant and our fields were a haven for ever-changing grasses and wildflowers, especially Black-Eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s’ Lace, and Goldenrod. In shaded areas, fungi prospered in the moist environment, including Scarlet Waxy Caps (Hygrophorus coccineus).

Our “wild” apples on ancient abandoned apple trees were not quite ripe yet in August, but the deer were already eating them. The wild Blackberries started making their appearance and were delicious when ripe. Many of the Northern Ash berries also were at their peak and ready for the jam pot.

This August was good to the wildlife here. There seemed to be more White-Tailed Deer births this spring and early summer, which meant that fawns were gamboling all over the place by the time August came. Their nearby mothers were already undergoing coat changes; while the fawns were starting to lose their camouflage spots and putting on weight during the month.

The birds were spectacular this August. We monitored an Osprey family all summer. In August, we saw the three red-eyed young learn to fly and at least two of them learn to fish. (Adult Ospreys have golden eyes.)

Not to be outdone, the female Common Mergansers and their broods formed flotillas of 10 or more in August and cavorted (seemingly laughing) in the coastal inlets, much to the chagrin of more docile ducks.

August is an important time for the more delicate (indeed beleaguered) Monarch butterflies. It’s a time when we see many of their brightly-colored caterpillars, which create chrysalises in which they magically become butterflies.

On the waterfront, August is the peak of the sailing season here, especially in and around Great Cove. Many of the commercial windjammers came in to shelter in the Cove in the month, including the three-masted Victory Chimes on a cloudy day, the tarpaulined Mary Day in the rain, and the small Mistress on a clear day.

The famed annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta ended on a hazy August day in Great Cove, as usual. The Cove also is the primary classroom of the WoodenBoat School’s sailing students who flitted about in all kinds of August weather. When not being sailed, their boats would bask in any available sun.

Last, but certainly not least, we must recognize our fishing community of men, women, and vessels that continued the lobster fishing season in August. We’re fortunate to have Naskeag Harbor in Brooklin, where we can see the vessels and perhaps take a swim in chilly, clear water.

(All of the images here were taken in Down East Maine during August 2021.)