In the Right Place: Essential to the Spirit

Here’s a local scene from last week. It makes me wonder what J.M.W. Turner and Winslow Homer would do today, if these great seacoast artists were alive and here now. Would they paint winter seascapes featuring these kinds of day-sailing fishing vessels?

Methinks yes. These vessels are essential to portraying the spirit of many waterfront scenes in Maine. Although not worthy to be even in the same thought as a Turner or Homer painting, this image does show the varying lines and equipment of winter day-fishing vessels here under typical conditions.

The scene is Naskeag Harbor at midday when the tide is half out. It’s drizzling and the wind makes it a bit nippy; but, it’s not uncomfortable by Maine standards. From left to right, we see “Long Set” and “Captain Morgan” lounging at their moorings and “Dear Abbie:” eagerly coming in from a morning’s fishing.

In the summer, these vessels are lobster boats; now, they’re scallop trawlers. They’ve been reconfigured with masts, booms, and wooden “shelling houses” to protect scallop-shucking crew members from the cold. Unfortunately, you can’t see the vessels’ complicated trawling “drags” (dredges) that scrape the sea bottom and scoop up the tasty mollusks.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 30, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Seesaws

January has gotten off to a bad start. Here’s what a local woods trail looked like yesterday, New Year’s Day: wet, warm, and soggy from all the rain and fog.

It reached 46 degrees (F) here. The snow is long gone, and the ice was almost out of the cold, spring-fed streams:

Today is more of the same. Soon, freezing weather will return. Seasonal seesawing is not good. Among many other effects, less snow and ice mean less insulation to protect wildlife that hibernate just below the frost line, such as toads and bumblebees. When the cold returns, they can freeze to death.

On the other hand, ticks have a greater survival rate and a longer questing period during warm winters. They can reach infestation rates great enough to suck the life out of moose, especially calves. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 1, 2022.)

December Postcards From Maine

Turbulent 2021 ended yesterday with a sigh. The morning was so still that Little Babson Island floated among clouds, real and reflected. In the afternoon, the island disappeared slowly into a fog under darkened sky. It was the last of the strange, sometimes mysterious, days of December.

Looking at it as a whole, December this year was more of a fall or even early spring month than a winter month. Temperatures and precipitation were well above average. We not only had days of calm, we had days of March-like winds that whipped the sea into froth and bent the grasses to their breaking points.

Of course, we had cold days and days of snow and rain in December. The snow was always light. It would lay on the ground and the ice would form in the ponds during cold days and let us imagine winter. Then, they would melt and let us think of spring — a cycle that repeated itself several times during the month.

It was a month of easy living for most of the wildlife. Our mature white-tailed deer especially took advantage of the warm sunshine while their yearlings prospered.

On the waterfront, December means scallop season. Lobster boats become scallop boats. They’re fitted with masts and booms and trawl the sea bottoms for the tasty mollusks with a dredge (usually called a “drag” here). Temporary “shelling huts” usually are added to the fishing vessels behind their cabins to protect scallop shuckers from cold and rain. The boats often have an ardent avian following.

Of course, December means Christmas and Hanukkah time for many and holiday festiveness for all. The Brooklin General Store and the Town’s Friend Memorial Library were decked with boughs of greenery, Santa was not deterred by a little snow, and he had the strangest helpers. Even Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made local appearances.

We had a good number of clear nights to watch the magnificent December night skies, especially the moon as it grew into what Native Americans called the Cold Full Moon.

Perhaps most important, December is the peak of our sunset season, when the colder and cleaner air allows us to see more of the sun’s full rainbow of colors. It is when we watch the winter solstice sun reverse course and start to give us longer and longer days and the hope that they can bring.

(All images in these Maine Postcards were taken in Brooklin, Maine, in December of 2021.)

In the Right Place: Tradition

Here you see the end of one of Maine’s many scenic private lanes and the beginning of one of the driveways connected to that road. The gracefully curved lane is maintained entirely by the owners of the shore residences that it serves.

This is private property where the public could be excluded. But, that is not the Maine way. It’s a tradition here to allow the public to enjoy scenic private lanes, roads, and woodlands. In fact, the public is encouraged to wander the private paths in the woods surrounding this lane.

The most spectacular example of this tradition is the North Maine Woods, a privately-owned 3.5-million-acre working forest. Outdoor enthusiasts may enter through staffed gates to enjoy its woods and thousands of miles of dirt roads, provided that they follow minimal safety rules and pay a $10 fee to help defray the costs of the gate personnel. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 9 [snow] and 14 [sunbeams], 2021.)

In the Right Place: Having a Gland Time

Here you see a white-tailed deer yearling that didn’t know what to do for a few seconds when she saw me Tuesday. Note her ears-back anxiety display. She bolted off when she heard the “click.”

However, she’s a good illustration of the answers to two common questions:

1. How do you tell the difference between a large yearling fawn and an adult doe? The yearling has a flattened and foreshortened head compared to her mother; from certain angles, her face looks a bit like a donkey’s. Also, the yearling has an almost square body compared to the sleeker rectangle of her mother:

2. What are those things that look like sores on the rear legs of both male and female deer? Those are some of the glands that play important roles in the lives of the animals.

a. The tarsal glands are located on the inside of each rear leg at the hock (“elbow”). Deer can flare their tarsals to release a pungent scent. They also urinate on their tarsals, making that combined scent unique to each animal – one of the ways a fawn finds its mother.

b. The metatarsal glands are located on the outside of each lower rear leg, closer to the hooves (which have their own glands). The metatarsals don’t release scent, but are thought to be natural thermostats that help regulate the deer’s body temperature and conserve energy in the cold.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 28 (yearling) and October 4 (adult), 2021.)

In the Right Place: Great Goodbyes Department

Yesterday morning and early afternoon were wet, gloomy, and not worth thinking about. But, late in the afternoon, the wind started to tear apart the dense cloud ceiling and long nebular trains began to streak through the sky. Soon, the falling sun said goodbye with a glitter path that ran all the way from Deer Isle to our shore.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 28, 2012.)

In the Right Place: Faltering

We’ve had a spate of cold weather that is refreezing local ponds, as you can see from this image taken yesterday. The ponds here seemingly are being driven crazy – wet to solid/solid to wet – by December’s faltering attempts to get cold and remain cold in our sick climate.

The ice in Down East Maine ponds and lakes is nowhere near the four inches that experts say is necessary for safe skating. Research indicates that a deep pond or lake won’t freeze thick enough for skating unless it is subject to certain conditions, including about two weeks of overnight temperatures near zero degrees (F).

Wind is another one of those conditions; it can ripple freezing water and create weak spots. Even swimming fish can do that. Variation in lake or pond water temperatures also affect the rate of freezing. Please note that I’m only talking about fresh, relatively still water here – not iced-in rivers or tidal sea waters that are more unstable. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December27, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Coming Thither

Here you see the Fishing Vessel Dear Abbie: and some of her groupies out and about last week despite the rain. The birds appear to be Herring Seagulls with a few Lesser Black-Backed Seagulls mixed in.

Fairly recently, research has found that seagulls and gannets can distinguish the design of a fishing trawler from that of vessels that are nonbeneficial to them. And, they often do so from as far away as seven miles and come thither.

While some optimistic seagulls will follow a fishing vessel that is not fishing, most are realistic and will not bother until the fishing starts. Nonetheless, the birds benefit from more than a boat’s discarded bait, scallop innards, and other gull gourmet items.

The churning wake of a vessel often roils small fish to the surface where they are easy picking for the birds. And, relatively fast moving vessels create a vacuum behind them in which seagulls can fly with greater ease and speed:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 22, 2021.)

In the Right Place:

In the Right Place: Winter, Finally

This is a good winter’s day moment from yesterday. It was almost noon, sunny and cold and windy.

The waters of Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach are turning into thick strokes of that indescribable non-colored sea color – a sliding mixture of dark blue, brown, gray, and green. The wind, gusting above 35 miles an hour, is catching the tops of many swells and forcing them to bubble into frothy peaks that the sun is turning white. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 23, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Trappings

Lobster traps mostly hibernate in herds around here, although there still are the occasional loners who have yet to find their way home.

Under Maine law, a licensed commercial lobsterman (male or female) may run as many as 800 traps (or “pots”) at a time, although running that many traps apparently would be unusual. Given that each trap reportedly costs about $100.00, you can see that this gear can be a significant investment for a seasonal family business.

Today’s plastic-coated wire traps are bigger and more complicated than those quaint wooden ones painted by Winslow Homer. Among other things, they come equipped with open vents for the lobsters to escape if the buoy line to the trap is broken by a whale or other cause and the trap becomes inaccessible. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 21 [many traps] and 19 [2 traps], 2021.)

In the Right Place: U-Turn

Here you see yesterday’s winter solstice sunset over Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach. The word “solstice” is derived from Latin and broadly means “the sun standing still.”

Thus, yesterday the sun stopped what to our eyes was its southerly journey and now will appear to turn around and slowly head north. (Of course, our sun doesn’t move like that; our planet is doing that kind of moving in relation to our star.)

Practically, this means that our daylight will start to increase slowly each day until the summer solstice. Days reportedly now are getting longer by an average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds; by January 18 we’ll be having an extra hour of daylight. After that, we’ll accumulate about an hour every four weeks. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 21, 2021)

In the Right Place: Imagination

The poet Mary Oliver said that she walked in the woods alone so that she could become invisible, hear the almost unhearable sound of flowers singing, and pray in her own way.

Yesterday, it was easy to imagine Mary’s invisible presence in our woods, as she listened to the almost unhearable sound of snow murmuring.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 20, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Gutsy

Here you see the Fishing Vessel Long Set dredging for Atlantic sea scallops in Blue Hill Bay on a sunny day last week.

Below, you see FV Tarrfish, entering Naskeag Harbor with a load of scallops on the same day:

The next day, in the rain, FV Dear Abbie: came home to her mooring in the Harbor with a load of scallops:

The halos of seagulls over the fishing vessels indicate that they still have some shucked scallop shells on their decks.

Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) have complicated bodies inside their shells. Among other things, they have stomachs embedded in digestive glands, nerves, gills, ganglia, gonads, and – most important to gourmands – an abductor muscle that opens and closes their shells.

The fishermen remove those abductor muscles and store them in containers on the vessel to take ashore and refrigerate. Those muscles are the “scallops” that we eat. The rest of the mollusk’s body parts (or, as fishermen say, “the guts”) are thrown overboard with their attached shells. Opportunistic seagulls usually can catch them before they sink too far and become fish food. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 15 and 16, 2021.)

In the Right Place: More Snows of December 19, 2021

The following are additional views of Brooklin, Maine, taken after our first measurable snowfall of the winter. All images, except the last two, were taken on December 19, when it snowed occasionally and the sun shone a bit. The last two images were taken December 20, a clear day that was enhanced by the snow.

December 20, 2021

December 20, 2021

In the Right Place: Just About Right

We’ve been having kind of a Goldilocks snow fall since last night – not too little; not too much; just about right. So far. It looks like we have about two inches of powder, which is not enough to plow driveways, but the roads have been kept clear with chemicals and a little plowing. Here are a few images:

Although small, this snowfall has been our largest this winter. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 19, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Cool

Here we see last night’s virtually full moon moving northeast. To our eyes, it will be identical to tonight’s actual full moon, which we’ll likely not see due to inclement weather. December’s full moon is known for its high trajectory, which makes it visible longer than other moons when the sky is clear, but also smaller. It is 251,726 miles away today.

The most common name for this month’s moon is the Cold Full Moon, reportedly based upon the Mohawk Native Americans’ name for their coldest period of the year. Apropos of that name, the weather tellers are predicting that we’ll be snowed upon this afternoon and evening. It might even be our first plowable snow. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 17, 2021.)

In the Right Place: Mexican Merriment

Holiday Poinsettia plants seem to be selling well at Mainescape, a nursery in nearby Blue Hill. These plants are native to Mexico, where they have long been used to decorate nativity scenes.

They’re named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico, who shipped the original specimens to this country.

The red “flowers” are not flowers; they’re a form of the plant’s leaf known as bracts. (Images taken in Blue Hill [in store] and Brooklin [in vase], Maine on December 13, 2021.)

In the Right Place: 'Tis the Season

At this time of year, when we see armed people dressed in camouflage charging toward the shore in an inflatable boat, we know that it’s not an act of war by militant Canadians.  It’s duck hunters returning from a cold morning among the islands in Eggemoggin Reach.

Migratory game bird hunting here is extensively regulated by both State and Federal requirements. The hunting may only be with an appropriate shotgun, hand-held bow and arrow, crossbow, or by falconry.

Among many other requirements, the shotguns may be no larger than 10 gauge and cannot be capable of holding more than three shells at a time. The shot in the shells must be steel or otherwise approved as nontoxic to the birds, because they may later find and eat expended shot.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 15, 2012.)

In the Right Place: Double Whammy

Yesterday, we watched the sun go down and leave an orange afterglow above Deer Isle, while a brilliant moon hung over our shoulders like a rough gemstone.

Technically, the moon was in a waxing gibbous phase and at 81 percent illumination. It is waxing (getting more luminous) daily now and will be full on December 18.

While waxing, the moon is gibbous because it is more than half illuminated and distorted to our eyes. The word “gibbous” is derived from the Latin for “hump” and “hump-backed”; the word “waxing” is from the Old English word for “growing.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 14, 2021.)