In the Right Place: The Joy of Youth

“Our” white-tail deer herd appears happy and healthy this year, albeit perhaps a bit too numerous for their own and our good. The seemingly boundless joy of the yearlings – not too old, not too young for the browsing life – is infectious. Here are images of what I’m fairly sure are yearling white-tails, a male (buck) and a female (doe):

A “yearling” actually is in the second year of life (about 1.5 years old). They’re slim and gangly, with disproportionately long legs and thin necks, compared to mature deer.

The young bucks, especially, look a little odd: like does that have had beginners’ antlers screwed into their heads:

At this time of year here, all deer antlers are new bone (not horn) that is covered by a nurturing “velvet” membrane that contains blood vessels, nerves, and skin tissue. Antlers covered by velvet reportedly are the fastest-growing tissue in the animal kingdom.  

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 13 and 20, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Color Me Insulated

Versant Power, the electricity utility in northern and eastern Maine, is replacing miles of bare wire strung from utility poles here. The new lines are “covered conductors,” which are transmission wires wrapped in insulated material. Judging from what I’ve seen on the poles, the new wire apparently is color-coded:

Covered conductors make the wire more resistant to damage that can be caused by falling trees and branches, thereby reducing electricity faults and outages. (Maine is the most forested state in the U.S., based on percentage of forested land.) “The number one cause of outages in our service territory is trees and branches,” according to a statement on the Versant website.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Bath Time

This has been a good year for our lavender, as you see. It has come up lush and full of nectar that has been attracting record numbers of pollinators.  Curiously, this herb’s intriguing fragrances seem to repel mosquitoes, flies, and other annoying insects, as well as deer. (After a rain, it sometimes smells of berry-scented soap to me.)

On the other hand, lavender has been attracting humans for many centuries. Its rich history includes use in ancient Egyptian embalming, Greek and Roman bath scenting, and modern aromatherapy to promote relaxation and improve sleep. It’s native to the Mediterranean region, Middle East, and parts of India.

The name "lavender" comes from the Latin word "lavare," meaning "to wash," an apparent reference to its historical use in bathwater. It’s a member of the mint family and reports indicate that there are over 45 species of the plant and 450 varieties cultivated in various colors. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 19, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch X

The gaff-rigged ketch “Angelique” was moored off of Little Babson Island in Great Cove when we awoke yesterday morning. She overnighted there and put her passengers ashore to tour the WoodenBoat School campus. Here you see her passengers returning from that tour yesterday.:

As you can see from the vessel’s flags, there were somewhat significant wind gusts then, perhaps  10-to-15-mile MPH, which apparently influenced her Captain to motor out of the Cove instead of raising the windjammer’s beautiful reddish tanbark-like sails. That was a disappointment.

“Angelique” is one of the few vessels in the windjammer fleet that have inboard motors. She’s young by fleet standards, having been designed for tourist cruising and been launched in 1980. She hails from Camden, Maine, and was on a four-night tour of Down East lighthouses, according to her schedule. This was her third visit to the Cove this season.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 18, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Rabble Rousing

You know it’s high summer when crowds of tawny daylilies line the streets and byways to wave hello at passersby.

These lovely rabble, despite their name, are not true lilies, genetically speaking. But who cares? They get their name from the fact that each flower usually lasts for only one day and looks lily-like. Fortunately, each plant has many buds, which usually insures a long-lasting greeting.

They’ll thrive almost everywhere and are bright spots in drought and on land needing erosion control. (In days of yore, they sometimes were called what amounted to “outhouse lilies,” with the word “outhouse” pronounced “sh__house.”) Nonetheless, they’re welcome here.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch IX

It’s foggy as I write and it’s been foggy every other early morning this week. This gives us all a chance to play that popular game known as “Name That Windjammer!” For example, can you name this windjammer that was in Great Cove yesterday morning just by looking at what the fog has let us see of her:

Here are some of the hints that are exposed: she’s large; she’s got two masts and they’re schooner-configured; her Captain keeps her mainsail up as a stay sail overnight; she flies a topsail, and her sails are white (which eliminates “Angelique”).

If you guessed the 145-foot Heritage out of Rockland, Maine, you would have been correct. As the fog lifted, her unique yellow hull with red, white and blue bands were revealed:

This is her third visit to the Cove this cruising season. She’s on a six-night “Full Moon” cruise, according to her sailing schedule. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 16, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Win-Win

Our red bee balm river is cresting in scented waves and it has attracted the first monarch butterfly that we’ve seen this year. I haven’t seen any monarchs or monarch eggs on milkweed yet, but now I have some confidence that they will come like late baseball players.

Bee balm, also called monarda, is a native North American plant. It looks good, smells good, attracts all sorts of pollinaters (including hummingbirds) and is generally deer-resistant.

The plant is part of the mint family and many people consume its flowers and leaves as salads and garnishes or in tea. After the Boston Tea Party, many rebelling colonists switched to “Oswego Tea” made of bee balm by Native Americans to avoid the imported and taxed British tea.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Beach Loading

Above, you see David Tarr’s Fishing Vessel “Tarrfish,” all cleaned up from the scalloping season and waiting at the Naskeag Harbor docking float for David to bring a load of lobster traps down to the Harbor. He soon came down with a trailer load of traps and took them to the adjacent beach on Naskeag Point.

“Tarrfish” soon came around and was beached beside the trailer. The traps were then handed up to David and his daughter on the boat. When all of the traps were stored on board, “Tarrfish” pulled back and returned to the docking float, probably waiting for another load.

The traps will be taken out into local sea waters, baited and set, and submerged in trap lines to capture the tasty little critters that are on the move now. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Deco Resto

Barbara and I went to Bar Harbor’s Criterion Theatre Saturday night to catch David Sedaris’s performance and see how the historic Art Deco Theatre’s restoration was going. (There also was the calamari and wine at Testa’s around the corner, but I digress.) Short report: Both David’s sardonic raconteuring and the Theatre’s historic facelifting were deserving of a standing ovation. It’s great to have that live performance venue nearby.

By the way, for Jimmy (“Margaritaville”) Buffet fans who have studied the accompanying image of the entrance to the Criterion: That’s not a typo on the marquee, “Jammy Buffet” is  the name of an unrelated tribute band that played at the Theatre yesterday night.

The Theatre was opened in 1932 by a well-off resident who had served a jail term for bootlegging. Its smartly-decorated premises reportedly included a then-modern floating balcony, a state-of-the-art “Inter-Phone” system, and a basement “speakeasy.” It apparently is one of only two extant Art Deco theaters in Maine.  

The Criterion’s restoration is a courageous undertaking and still a work in progress, as well as a learning process. (Saturday’s sound and lights had to be corrected early in David’s talk.) And, of course, David was courageously hilarious in his unique takes on life and his ridiculous dress – he wore a white imprinted sport coat and bright red, knee-length “balloon pants.”

(Images taken in Bar Harbor, Maine, on July 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Ready or Not

The milkweed around here has been ready, willing, and able to please monarch butterflies for more than a week – lush leaves to lay eggs on, nectar-filled blossoms to sip from, and the heavy, sweet scent of musky perfume to put all pollinators in the mood.

Yet, I haven’t seen a monarch or a monarch egg yet. I’ve seen one FaceBook report of one monarch seen in Brooklin so far this summer. Let’s hope that the migration is only late and not suffering again. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9 and 11, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Counting on You

This image of common a loon appears with my monthly column in the current edition of the Ellsworth American.  Click on the image to enlarge it. To read the column about what Maine loons are doing now and how you can join an outdoor adventure to count them, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Hunting the Buck Moon

The July full moon is called “The Buck Moon” because it occurs when male deer start to get their antlers. Unfortunately, The Buck Moon “rose” last night and we couldn’t see it here due to overcast and fog.

But I did “shoot” a local buck yesterday afternoon. And I did “shoot” the July 9 moon that was full as far as the unaided human eye can see.  And I did merge those two images into this image and fiddled with the moon color a bit:

And I am posting an “unfiddled-wlth” image of the July 9 full moon as it rose over Great Cove:

Perhaps I should note that the new July antlers of white-tailed deer are covered in nurturing “velvet.” That’s a living membrane of soft, hairy skin that’s rich in blood vessels and nerves, providing nutrients and protection for the developing antler bone. The velvet will be rubbed off and otherwise shed once the antlers are fully formed and hardened. 

(Moon and buck image taken separately in Brooklin, Maine, on July 9 and 10, 2025, and merged in processing.)

In the Right Place: Windjammer Watch VIII

Here you see Grace Bailey crossing Great Cove and mooring off of the WoodenBoat School pier in the early morning fog Tuesday. She was on a four-night “Adventure”, according to her schedule, and might have overnighted off of Babson Island.

This is her second visit to the renowned School this summer. She moored among some of the sailing classrooms there and used one of her side boats to send her passengers ashore to explore the campus. Once the passengers returned, she hauled up their boat and began preparations for departure.

Grace was launched in 1882 and began hauling lumber and other goods along the coast two days later. She’s a two-masted schooner that runs 118 feet long overall and is 23,5 feet wide at her beam. She has a removable centerboard for sailing and can accommodate 29 passengers. As with many coastal cruisers, she has no inboard motor.

Soon after her passengers returned Tuesday, Grace’s crew began adjusting lines and raising sails.

First the mainsail was raised:

Then the foresail:

Then the stay sail while the anchor was being hauled up:

Then the jib as she started sailing:

No topsails were raised and amazing Grace glided off:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Bucks Stop Here

Yesterday, thanks to Barbara’s vigilance and strong voice – “Dick! Look out the window!! – we saw this uncommon, although not rare, sight:

That’s a virtually mature white-tailed deer buck sporting an eight-point rack and browsing his way through our North Field. His sidekick is an immature buck that has sprouted giraffe-like prongs. Their antlers are covered in bone-nurturing velvet membranes, which will be rubbed off by late summer.

Some yearling bucks leave their mothers’ home range in spring and summer, but often join one or more roving mature bucks for protection in what are known as “bachelor groups.” When winter’s rutting season arrives, the bucks usually disperse and compete in the yearly efforts to propagate their species and dodge bullets. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Case of the Missing Frogs

My wife retained my investigative services to solve a mystery. As of mid-June, our ponds had the usual complement of what sounded like about a dozen green frogs here and there seemingly plucking their bass banjo strings randomly during most sunny days.

At the beginning of July, we started hearing and seeing fewer and fewer of these and then heard and saw none by July 5. The sound of that silence in summer was startling.

I inspected the scene thoroughly and found nothing suspicious at first. Then I set up a surveillance area in the cattails from which I could view the large pond without being detected easily. When I arrived on Sunday morning and peered through the green blades, there he was.

I said to my imaginary companion, “There’s your culprit, Watson! Note the small, shifty eyes, the big mouth, and rolled-up pants. Note that he’s trying to look like an idler in a place that is not for the idle. Elementary.”

Yes, the suspect is a great blue heron. He and his kind primarily eat fish and there are small fish in these ponds. (They’re mostly common and golden shiners, I think, that apparently have been brought in as eggs in the feathers and intestines of visiting ducks.) The fish attract great blues, which are not very particular about their diets. They’ll eat almost any moving body that they can get their beaks around, including insects, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, and other birds.

Yet, GBHs are painfully skinny and leggy, a condition that is obvious when they’re not fluffing up or flexing their magnificent wings. They often are more than four feet tall, but they weigh only between four and six pounds.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 6, 2025. Sex assumed.)

In the Right Place: July Is Bustin’ Out All Over!

This is the time when poppy patches go a little crazy here living up to their names by suddenly popping out in multitudes of pastel-like splotches that dance wildly in the summer breezes, providing provocatively fleeting glimpses of their complicated sexuality:

These are almost hallucinatory scenes at times, which reminds us that the flowers have been associated historically with Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep. Some species contain enough opium to harvest commercially for their medicinal and illicit drugs. But garden varieties have been bred to minimize or even eliminate the flowers’ opium-producing capacity.

Poppies have been associated with many other states of mind and polity over the centuries that they have been cultivated. These include remembrance of fallen military, death in general, peace, hope, and of course love. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 5 and 6, 2025. Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein for manipulating their song title.)

In the Right Place: Seeing Spots

It’s high summer and the larger dragonflies are starting to come out. Here you see a male 12-spotted skimmer approaching a cattail head that is his favorite hunting perch. They’re known for their territorial behavior and the trait of returning quickly to their perch after being disturbed.

Many call these insects “10-spotted” skimmers because they count only the 10 light spots on the wings of the males. However, the insect naming powers counted the three dark spots on each of this species’ four wings – on those of both males and females -- and decided 12 was better than 10 as names go. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: A Traditional Good Time

Independence Day yesterday was beautiful weather-wise and the annual Brooklin celebration was – as usual – a traditional good time full of flags and fun. There was rousing music by the amazingly good Brooklin Band, which played for viewers young and old as the parade was forming. .Morning refreshments were available from local entrepreneurs.

The parade not only had the obligatory Fire Department vehicles. It also contained an eclectic assortment of expressions and many antique or classic cars and trucks, which we have come to expect.

After the parade, the crowd assembled on the Town Green where there were young peoples’ games and contests, gossiping with neighbors, old vehicle exhibitions, and plenty to eat. Among the games and contests were the popular annual Dead Chicken Toss and Wet Sponge Toss, croquet and golf contests, and the very hard slippery pole climb for our well-conditioned youngsters.

Delicious food options included pulled chicken, pulled pork, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad, Coleslaw, watermelon, and ice cream.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 4, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Meanwhile

Here’s one of Barbara’s patriotic peonies to start off what we hope will be a happy and meaningful Independence Day for you:

I hope to show you later that Brooklin’s renowned July 4 parade and celebration also was happy and meaningful.

In the Right Place: Osprey Nest Report

Bad news: This is Harriet on June 27. Alone. No Ozzy. No nestlings. She comes to the nest every now and then, “begs” for attention awhile, and then departs when she attracts none. Ever since the raids by a rogue male osprey that I reported on last month, the occupancy of the nest has been sporadic and only by Harriet.

Harriet should be tending one to three well-developed nestlings by now, as she has had for many years. Here she is (or at least the female we called Harriet) and one of her three nestlings last year:

As reported last month, Ozzie nearly killed the invading male, but Ozzie may have been seriously wounded, himself, without me seeing it. We can hope that Ozzie returns and I’ll keep an eye on the nest, but the Ozzie and Harriet sitcom this year may turn out to be a dark tragedy. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 27, 2025, and July 1, 2024.)