In the Right Place: Abstractions and Attractions

Here you see the abstract strokes that painted last night’s sky over Great Cove, just after the sun went down behind Deer Isle. Let’s hope that it’s an augury of what we’ll see within the next 24 hours.

Tonight’s full Beaver Moon is scheduled to be partially eclipsed from our viewpoint. This should be one of the longest, most colorful lunar eclipses we’ve had in many years – if we’re awake and IF the sky is clear enough.

The moon is scheduled to begin passing into the Earth’s shadow here at 1:02 a.m. (Friday) and last almost three and one-half hours for us. (The full eclipse seen by some in the world will last for about six hours, the longest in 580 years.)

The eclipse should reach its maximum for us at about 4 a.m., when the full moon may become red or brown due to the refraction of sunlight around the Earth’s edges. If you can see it, the moon initially will be heading southwest from the northeast. Set the alarm and check the sky. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 17, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Late Again

It’s important to know that this image was taken yesterday. It’s a nearby pond that, in summer, is filled with native water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) and their floating pads. If you have good eyes, you may see a few pads still floating on its breeze-rippled water.

As of this time last year, this pond was completely “iced-in”; and, a week after that, its ice was covered with snow.

The icing-in of ponds and lakes plays a significant part in maintaining their water quality, including clarity. The delay of that phenomenon is yet another indicator of harmful climate warming.

The ice and its accumulated snow protect against continued atmospheric oxygen exchange with the water and block much of the light that penetrates it. This inhibits the growth of tiny aquatic plants (algae or phytoplankton) and animal life (zooplankton) that can adversely affect water quality if their populations get too large.

The cold lid also helps the water to “turnover” (colder water sinking, warmer rising) and cleanse itself. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 16, 2021, [water] and November 19 [ice] and 25, [ice and snow] 2020.)

In the Right Place: Parade

Here’s what a good November day looks like when gazing east from Amen Ridge here. Stratocumulus clouds parade over Blue Hill Bay as Mount Cadillac in Acadia National Park stands stiffly in review. Later, it will be the clouds that you remember.

Stratocumulus clouds reportedly are the world’s most common clouds, and the derivation of their name is not flattering. They are a “flattened heap,” according to their Latin origin. Yet, they’re friendly. They usually don’t rain on us and, if they lose control and do, it’s usually an apologetic sprinkle.

In fact, they are the sky’s fortune tellers -- they tell us when the weather will change for the better or worse. That’s because they’re usually visible when a warm, cold, or occluded front is forming nearby. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 1, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Classic

Here you see the Fishing Vessel Dear Abbie: coming into the Town Dock in Naskeag Harbor last week. Her crew has been pulling some of their lobster traps from the water and is about to offload them onto a trailer and take them to winter storage. The lobstering season here usually ends in November.

Dear Abbie: has the kind of jaunty beauty that a good hunting dog has. But, part of that beauty derives from her classic characteristics as a Maine or Down-East-Style lobster boat.

Among other characteristics, she has a graceful but functional sweep or “sheer line” from a high, flared bow that can handle head-on seas to a low working freeboard area that makes hauling traps aboard easier. Dear Abbie: sits relatively high in the water, which helps maneuverability due to less water displacement. Below the waterline, she has a rounded hull and a keel in which the propeller is set to protect it in low water. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6 [moored] and 8 [moving], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seeing the Light

The winter months of November through January here can be the best for what photographers call “the golden hours” – the first hour of light after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset.

That’s when shafts of warm light can filter through woods like messages from heaven and glowing warm light can slowly retreat across open landscapes, taking back the day’s color as it goes.

The sun’s path (“arc”) controls our light and thermal heat. In our Northern Hemisphere during winter, the sun rises in the southeast, transiting “our” sky at low angles, and setting in the southwest. The lower angles and colder (less moist) atmosphere often provide warmly colored golden hours and the best sunsets of the year. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seeing Red

Many of us hereabouts are obsessed with this iconic boathouse in Conary Cove. In fact, some of us take far too many photographs of this everchanging view. Nonetheless, here’s a November scene for my fellow obsessives:

This landmark has been repaired, restored, and repainted a number of times. As far as I can tell, the original boathouse was built around 1913 and it was white or gray then. Perhaps originally, but at least by the early 1950’s, it had a pier extending far into the Cove from those two side doors. I’ve been unable to determine when and why the pier was removed and to find out when the boathouse first was painted red.

Perhaps one of you can help us with some of the boathouse’s unknown history. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on November 6, 2021.)

In the Right Place: The Wet Threat

This image of Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

To read the column, which is about dangerous flooding in Maine and the rest of the nation, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Drought Report

Here you see Patten Stream tumbling into Patten Bay at low tide on Tuesday. We have no lack of life-giving fresh water along the coast of Maine. (Image taken in Surry, Maine, on November 9, 2021.) However, Maine’s northwestern counties are still suffering abnormal dryness and drought.

Today’s U.S. Drought Report map shows the areas in Maine that, as of today, are “abnormally dry” (yellow), in “moderate drought” (tan), or in “severe drought” (burnt orange):

In the Right Place: Proud Smiles

Virtually all of the wild winterberry bushes (Ilex verticillata) have now dropped their leaves, revealing large blushes of berries on the subdued November landscape.

It looks like this year will be an exceptionally good one for this wildlife food.

Winterberry fruit is a major ingredient in nature’s winter survival kit. The small red berries reportedly feed at least 49 species of animals, especially birds, but also including deer, raccoons, and small rodents. The wildlife tend to eat these berries later in the winter after they have consumed more nutritious foods. This is a good deal for those of us who like to see a few bright colors in the winter woods.

The berries grow only on the females of this native deciduous holly, but they are proof that at least one gray fertilizing male is nearby (with, one likes to imagine, a proud smile on his face).

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2021.)

In the Right Place: 'Tis the Season

November begins our sunset season when colder, cleaner air and lower light angles allow more of the sun’s rainbow of colors to be seen by the human eye – especially those at the red-orange end of the spectrum.

Above, you see last night’s sunset afterglow above and in Great Cove. Below, you’ll see the moon high above that afterglow.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 8, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Arghh!

Chokecherry Tree leaves are dropping, which advertises their cherries to the birds. Our variety of this native tree is the Eastern Chokecherry also known as Bitter-Berry and Virginia Bird Cherry (Prunus virginiana var. virginiana). See also the image in the first Comment space.

This small tree/large bush is called Chokecherry because that’s what you’ll do if you taste the extraordinarily bitter fruit fresh off the tree – “Arghh!” Yet, it was one of the most important foods for Native American tribes. The very nutritious cherries were pitted, dried, and mixed with tallow and dried meat to make pemmican, a staple and hearty food for many Native Americans.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 2, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Waxing

This is a moment last night, just after sundown: The moon is a gleaming sliver rising through a tangerine sky; the blue waters of Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach are fading into the night’s blackness. The temperature is hovering around freezing, but it doesn’t feel cold; the air smells of salt and dried leaves.

In lunar-speak, the moon was starting its “waxing crescent” phase with less than one percent of its disc surface reflecting the sinking sun’s light. The moon “waxes” when it is in a period of increasing illumination and it “wanes” when illumination is decreasing. It is “full” when 100 percent of its facing surface is illuminated.

November’s full moon, the “Beaver Moon,” will rise here on November 19 and be subject to a partial lunar eclipse, which we should see here, weather permitting. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6, 2021;.)

In the Right Place: The Price Is Right (Maybe)

The 2021 lobster season is winding down fast here; fishing vessels are continually bringing in their traps and stacking them on the Town Dock at Naskeag Harbor.

The traps are stacked neatly on waiting trailers like a package of Legos® and motored away for winter hibernation.

This year’s lobster harvest was down and unusual, apparently due at least in part to our warming waters. When asked to describe the 2021 season, one of our veteran fishermen concisely said, “Good thing the price was up.” What will happen next year is anyone’s guess. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 4, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Hot Topics

It’s finally getting chilly enough here to say that November has arrived. And, so has the split Maine firewood for wood stoves. (Maine bans importation of firewood from other states or countries [i.e., Canada] unless it is specially heat-treated to kill invasive and disease-spreading insects.)

Above, you see two cords of firewood delivered to one of our neighbors in late October, which were neatly (and back-breakingly) stored by early November:

Supplemental and primary wood heating is being promoted here by some groups to reduce fossil fuel use. The use of logs and wood pellets is expanding in New England, where Vermont and Maine are ranked 1 and 2, respectively, in the country for use of wood (logs and pellets) for primary residential heating, according to the latest (2019) Census data.

It’s unclear whether warming weather due to climate change will affect wood stove use. Some groups advocate federal and state tax rebates for wood heating due to modern wood stoves’ ability to heat relatively cleanly and efficiently, thereby reducing fossil fuel use. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 21 [wood pile] and November 3 [no pile], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Showoffs

All or virtually all of our sailboats and other recreational boats are out of the water now. This gives the fishing vessels space to pose and show off their utilitarian beauty in our spectacular coastal waters.

Above, you see Sun’s Up adding the final touch to a breath-taking scene at Blue Hill’s Connery Cove. Below, you’ll see Tarrfish being backlit by strong sunlight in Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor.

(Images taken on November 1 [Tarrfish] and 2 [Sun’s Up], 2021.)

In the Right Place: A Small Ressurrection

Yesterday was a beautiful September day; unfortunately, it occurred in November. I worry that my grandchildren will have to pay dearly for our pleasurable negligence.

Nonetheless, below, you’ll see a scene from yesterday that is a positive thing: a pond and field that were resurrected in the 1990s to replicate wildlife habitats that are getting scarcer and scarcer. The stone wall was rebuilt on the line of a 19th Century sheep pasture border that had crumbled away.

When raising sheep became unprofitable here, the field was abandoned and allowed to grow up into a soaring forest. It was packed with trees, bushes, and brambles that stood closer than subway-goers in rush hour. Re-clearing the field was a mechanized adventure that made you wonder how pioneers could do such things by hand and horse.

The field is allowed to stay fallow now. In the summer, it hosts, among others, wildflowers, grasses, and sedges; climbing and flying insects; ground-nesting birds, including wild turkey families; at least one bobcat, skulking coyotes, browsing and sleeping deer, and the occasional black bear whose cubs invariably walk on the wall where snakes sunbathe.

In the fall, however, the field must be mowed because, at that time, hundreds of little tree and bramble seedlings have sprouted there and must be discouraged. (You can see this year’s mower’s paths in the Image, which was taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 2, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Plant Pythons

Now that many leaves have dropped, we can see that the golden husks on the Asian Bittersweet vines (Celastrus orbiculatus) are opening and their glossy red berries are ready for the birds to eat. It’s a tragic collaboration.  

The birds spread this tree-assassin’s seeds so profusely that all known countermeasures to eradicate or even to get ahead of the invader’s propagation have been failures. The vines continue to climb and wrap themselves around their sylvan victims and squeeze them to death like militarized pythons.

It’s a reminder that the impulsive pursuit of beauty can be disastrous. These constrictors were introduced here in the 19th Century to bring spectacular colors to gray winter landscapes. They create gray spring and summer trees.

Maine has given up on trying to eradicate Asian Bittersweet, but it has listed it as an invasive species that may not be sold or distributed here. There is a native version, aptly named American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens), that is environmentally innocuous. But, that’s another story. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 1, 2021.)

October Postcards From Maine

October followed our summer’s trend: It was warmer and wetter than average. The month’s signature features, the fall colors, were slightly below average — which means that they still were beautiful.

Before the end of the month, the wooded trails were leafy carpets that crunched with each footstep.

The many rainstorms swelled moss-banked streams and filled marsh ponds to the brim. The excess water and fallen leaves, however, also at times filled culverts; small floods damaged gravel roads and driveways.

The ample rain produced bumper crops of Mushrooms, Beach Rose hips, and wild apples.

Our fields turned dark with white sprinkles of dying Queen Anne’s Lace and Daisy Fleabane. Those that had not been given their fall cuts in September were mowed in October.

October is when our White-Tailed Deer get their lush, winter-woods-colored coats. This year’s coat change may have been premature, considering the warmth of the month. That warmth has kept Chipmunks awake, Meadowhawk Dragonflies and their gnat and mosquito food in the air, and Great Blue Herons still hanging around.

Despite the warm weather, some of our fiishermen (male and female) began pulling their lobster traps out of the water in October and trailoring them to winter storage. But many fished on, even though the harvest was less than expected. All or virtually all recreational boats, however, were stored before the end of the month.

The October full moon is the Hunter’s Moon and usually is spectacular. It did not disappoint this year.

Of course, October is the Halloween month. It’s celebrated annually by the Brooklin School with a march of its costumed students and staff down Bay Road, with protective Town fire trucks in front and in back.

Finally, October here is when the sunsets and their afterglows can become pumpkin orange and, next month, fiery red.

(All above images were taken in Down East Maine during October, 2021.)

In the Right Place: A Weakened Glow

It’s the last morning of October. Power has been on and off several times; the sun has just broken through the clouds that brought us torrential rain overnight. Wind gusts in the night exceeded 40 miles per hour and still are in the mid-30’s. It’s a “hot” 59 degrees (F) already and clearly will be in the 60’s before Noon.

Mosquitos and dragonflies were flying yesterday, and no doubt will do so today; some trees have not yet lost their leaves and barely have turned to fall colors – and, as you see below, the Tamarack Trees have only now started to glow weakly, which signals that their needles won’t become incandescent and fall until mid- to late-November.

It’s not right. But, we all know that and most of us are not doing enough to right the increasing list of the world’s environment or to worry about tipping points.

Nonetheless, for a while, we can admire the “Tamarack,” an Algonquin Tribe name for “snowshoe wood.” The tree also is called a Larch or Hackmatack by many. It’s different from most trees: it’s “deciduous” (not evergreen), but also “coniferous” (cone-bearing), and “monoecious” (producing male and female cones).

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 30, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Boo!

One of Brooklin’s most charming annual events took place yesterday: the annual Halloween march of Brooklin School goblins. Students and staff, convoyed safely between Brooklin fire trucks, marched from the School to the General Store, scaring all the traffic off Bay Road for a time.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 29, 2021.)