In the Right Place: Pretty Soon

High-speed Internet access finally is coming to Brooklin. Here, you see the fiber optic cable being lashed mechanically yesterday to a messenger line that was strung between the poles along Naskeag and Back Roads. That’s cold work up there.

The big question around here: When will everything be hooked to homes and wi-fi routers? I keep hearing “pretty soon.” That confounding answer seems to be somewhere between a confident “soon” and an indefinite “later.” But “pretty soon” may be the best you can do with outside winter projects in Maine. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 18, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Points of View

We actually got some sun yesterday afternoon, and more than the few peek-a-boos that I predicted. However, the sky remained laden with what looked like low-lying stratus clouds and the light was peculiar.

Above, you see a midday view to the east across Blue Hill Bay; that’s Mount Cadillac arising out of Acadia National Park. Below, you’ll see the sun going down to the northwest behind the clouds; that’s the WoodenBoat School’s pier and boat house that the sun’s glitter path is reaching for.

Being able to look east, west, and south over beautiful waters is one of the advantages of living on a small Down East peninsula. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 17, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Wimpy Weather

We’ve had snow, sleet, rain, and more snow over the past 48 hours, but it has been a series of easy-going light touches that have left us with only a reported 1.5 inches of accumulated snow, if that. Here, you see today’s overcast morning.

However, forecasters say that there is a good chance that we’ll see some sun – probably just a couple of peek-a-boos – in the afternoon. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 17, 2023.)

In the Right Place: The Somber and the Good

Here you see a somber pastural scene: this morning’s sleet and rain attacking last night’s snow. Today is our fifth day in a row of winter gray, something that Mainers need to come to terms with.

At the moment, I can’t think of any artists (other than Andrew Wyeth), who have captured Maine’s (and Pennsylvania’s) somber winter moods well with paint and brush, or even tried. Of course, most people probably would not want to see such scenes, no less go out and paint them.

Most of us seem to prefer storing memories of the “good” days, such as Tuesday of last week. That’s when Great Cove last was seen rolling blue under a sunny, cloud-flecked sky:

By the way, the island in the center of that image is Little Babson Island, which is not to be confused with the unseen Babson Island to its south. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January10 and 16, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Tumultuous

Posted on FaceBook January 15, 2023

We’ve been getting a lot of rain lately. Our streams seem to be at capacity, although there apparently has not been significant flooding in our area. Here you see Patten Stream flowing tumultuously into Patten Bay yesterday as the rain came down.

It might be viewed as a visual metaphor for many things that are coming down lately, although the stream is prettier:

(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on January 14, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Moody

Steady, fine rain brought darkness to Naskeag Harbor yesterday, Friday the 13th. At first, the mood was somewhere between melancholy and dreamy.

Then, six common eiders swam by grumbling loudly with heads hunched into the spray. Throughout, “Tarrfish” lay calmly at her mooring and the house on the hill stared as usual. Oh yes, almost unseen in this image, a wet herring gull flew low and heavily through the rain to land on Naskeag Point’s sand spit and wait things out there. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 13, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Sign of the Times

In the Right Place: A Sign of the Times

This image of a pair of Common Eiders landing at Blue Hill Falls appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American:

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

In the Right Place: Variety Is the Spice of Night

Sunsets come in many styles during January. Last night’s, shown below, was cloud-swept and predictive of this morning’s overcast:

Monday’s sunset, shown below, was piercingly clear, but we still had overcast the following morning:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 9 and 11, 2023.)

In the Right Place: WARNING

There has been a very recent fatality and several near-fatalities this month in Maine due to walking, skating, and/or driving on ice: DO NOT DO IT unless you are SURE that you are walking or skating on at least 4 inches of ice; snowmobiling on at least 5; driving an average-size passenger car on 8-12, or driving a truck on 12-to-15 inches. Those are government numbers, not mine.

In fact, Maine officials do not recommend driving passenger cars or trucks onto frozen ponds or lakes, period! They say that, if you must drive a vehicle on that ice, be prepared to leave the vehicle in a hurry through its windows, which should be kept open when driving on such ice. Also, unbuckle your seat belt, pack flotation gear, and have an emergency plan discussed with your passengers before driving onto frozen bodies of water.

I’ll add this: Don’t take your dog when driving on pond or lake ice. If things go sideways, an excited dog can make your escape difficult and, of course, you’ll be seriously tempted to stay in the freezing water longer than necessary to save a thrashing, beloved pet. Also, ponds can be deceivingly deep; don’t assume that you or your vehicle won’t sink entirely below water. For example, the field pond shown here is 14 feet deep in most of the middle area. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 10, 2023.)

In te Right Place: Winter Fun(gi)

There are at least 16 mushroom species reported as growing in the winter woods of New England. Perhaps the easiest one to recognize is the Red-Belted Polypore (or Red-Belted Conk), shown here. There’s a debate as to whether these are edible, which means to me don’t take a bite.

Red-Belts (Fomitopsis pinicola) are good tinder for fire-starting. They also reportedly were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes, especially as a styptic to clot blood in wounds. Other reported medicinal uses include as an antihistamine and digestive tonic.

Notwithstanding their history and some questionable recommended recipes on the Internet, leaving these fungi alone to digest dead wood seems to me to be our best option. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 9, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Life and Taxes

Most of Saturday’s snowfall was nothing but a pleasant memory in the cold woods yesterday, but hard-to-see ice patches remained a danger. Nonetheless, walking alone in the sun-dappled woods is, for me, a good way to let go of troubling thoughts about what’s going on elsewhere.

Walking on wooded paths seems to emancipate me from life’s slavery to time. I don’t worry about such things as “wasting” a full five minutes just watching a diligent downy woodpecker work a birch tree the way an IRS agent would examine the return of a known tax evader.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 7, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Cagey

Yesterday was the last day of the hunting season for sea ducks and other migratory birds in our coastal zone. And, it looks like the owner of this truck at Naskeag Harbor literally has “bagged” a pair of common eiders, Maine’s largest native duck species.

Of course, these are well-crafted duck decoys that duck hunters use to lure eiders into range. Seeing them brought to mind the seeming strangeness of the word “decoy,” so I looked into its origin. It turns out that the word derives from the Latin for “cage” (cavea), the Middle Dutch for “the cage” (de kouw), and the fact that tamed ducks in cages or otherwise restrained were used in days of yore to lure wild ducks. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 6, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Nice and Easy

We had a nice and easy snowfall last night, the kind where you wake up in the morning to pleasing sights: the trees filigreed, the ground carpeted, and the snow on the driveway too slight to require plowing.

The sun briefly broke through the overcast once or twice in the early morning, but then gave up.

In the woods, it was profoundly silent at first, the kind of silence that seems to be opening and closing as you walk through it. Then, I got to a spring-fed stream and the silence eased into rippling glissandos.

The trees overhanging local lanes captured most of the snow, leaving interesting patterns on the crushed rock surfaces. The snow also held on to the tall grasses that lined driveways.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 7, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Abundance

The woods remain alive with wildlife food, especially winterberry and wild rose hips The continuing availability of these easy-to-find foods would seem to indicate that other, preferable natural foods still are abundant in the wild, perhaps due to the relatively mild and wet winter that we’ve been having.

Winterberry fruit, shown above, is a favorite last-resort food of birds, including American robins, catbirds, eastern bluebirds, hermit thrushes, wood thrushes, northern mockingbirds, brown thrashers, cedar waxwings, and white-tailed sparrows. However, raccoons and mice also are reported to feed on the berries in winter as well.

Wild rose hips, shown above, have been reported as vital to the survival of many birds, especially American robins, cedar waxwings, grouse, and wild turkeys. They also are eaten by white-tailed deer, coyotes, beavers, opossums, snowshoe hares, skunks, chipmunks, and mice. The rose hips shown above may be multiflora rose hips, but I’m not sure of their identification. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Maine Gothic

Here you see the house with the Gothic upper window on Harbor Island at half tide on Tuesday. It was one of those silvery-gray winter days in Naskeag Harbor when the sun is away, the wind is resting, and the shadowless light is exquisite.

That’s when tidal currents become glistenings and reflections create a sense of great three-dimensional depth:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 3, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Irresistible

On clear days in January, the sun sets to the southwest of us (about 240 compass degrees) and appears to be at eyelevel. It briefly becomes a huge spotlight aimed directly at us, and often is so powerful that we have to close our blinds.

Yet, just as often, a chance to see the golden light on Great Cove and our North Field cannot be resisted, even though they have to be viewed through wincing eyes. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Roseanne Weather

Last year was Maine’s wettest year ever during the 128 years of recorded precipitation, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And, as you see here in images from yesterday, our streamflows are at or above normal as they have been all winter. Soil moisture also appears to have been replenished fully after having gone through a moderate drought during the summer.

This, of course, is good news. However, it has to be tempered by the fact that much of the precipitation came from violent storms that carried with them their own, different problems, including flooding, property damage, and loss of power. Climate Change brings instability and extremes.

When it comes to Climate Change, the practical philosophy of “Saturday Night Live’s” Roseanne Roseannadanna seems to apply: “It just goes to show you, it’s always something! If it’s not one thing, it’s another!” Sorry, you have to be of a certain age to remember Roseanne, as played wonderfully by Gilda Radner. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2, 2023.)

In the Right Place: New Year's Wishes

Naskeag Harbor was a bit choppy yesterday (New Year’s Day), making these scallop-fishing vessels pull at their moorings like tethered colts.

Let’s hope that the winter won’t be too harsh for our fishermen (male and female) and that 2023 will be a better year than 2022 for them. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 1, 2023.)

In the Right Place: New Year's Bonus

The request for this image and post came from Liam English, a friend. Here you see an important cluster of gravestones in the Brooklin Cemetery as they appeared today, New Year’s Day:

The most recent of these markers is for Roger Angell, one of the significant Americans who died last year. He died at the age of 101 and was buried next to his second wife, Carol Rogge Angel, and in front of his mother, stepfather, and half-brother, all three of whom also are famous, as many of you know.

Roger was an essayist who was a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine. His mother, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, was the first fiction editor of that magazine. His stepfather, the renowned E.B. White, also was an essayist and book author who often wrote about Maine life. His half-brother, Joel McCoun White (son of Katherine and E.B.), was a famed naval architect who founded the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard, now run by Joel’s son, Steve. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine on January 1, 2023.)

December Postcards From Maine

This December in Down East Maine was both beautiful and beastly.

Take Christmastime, for example. It’s a time of paramount religious importance for many and of winter festivity and glad tidings for all. This year, at first, December lived up to its festive expectations, with Mainers hanging a profusion of Christmas/Holiday wreaths, buying seasonal flowers, attending concerts of traditional music, and even making fun of Santa Claus:

But, then came the Christmastime Surprise, a mega-storm that eliminated power with near-hurricane-force winds on December 23 here and evolved into lashing rains that kept the power off for days in our coastal area. (We got our power back on December 26, but some were less fortunate.)

Nonetheless, we can’t let a difficult week characterize all of December. It had its very good days, as well:

Of course, there were gray, wintery days and a little light snow, which disappeared fast in December’s above-average temperatures, but even these had a seasonal attraction:

One exceptionally fortunate event for us happened this December: We beheld the rare sight of a male bobcat pacing around and guarding the carcass of a deer that he may have killed. (Bobcats have been known to take down sick or crippled deer bigger than they are and then cover them with leaves or grass as a food stash.)

On the working waterfront, the scallop fishing season began in December as usual. Some fishermen dredge for the tasty mollusks, some dive to hand-harvest them, and some do both.

This December had its special poignancy in our area. The beloved 1926 rainbow bridge over Blue Hill Falls was demolished and cleared away during the month and a detour over a temporary bridge was installed until a new, mundane flat bridge is finished next year:

The weakening old bridge was an iconic cement rainbow-arched rarity. Only one now remains in Maine. Here are two images of it from our archive:

Leighton Archive Image

Leighton Archive Image

Finally, we look to the December skies, which usually are dramatic and this year was no exception. The partially-full moon appeared during the day early in the month; yet, it was fogged-in when it rose full. Nonetheless, it’s the sun that is special in the winter. December is the beginning of three months of our most spectacular sunsets, and the one below met the test.

(Except as noted on two images, all other images here were taken in Down East Maine during December of 2022.)