In the Right Place: Comfortable Calm

Yesterday was a comfortable calm between winter storms. Here you see the iconic view of Blue Hill Bay and Acadia National Park from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge at mid-day yesterday:

The temperature was 21°(F) with no significant wind. It was comfortable enough to do some work on Fishing Vessel Tarrfish at the dock in nearby Naskeag Harbor:

It snowed last night and continues to do so now in a fussy, small-flaked way, but it’s warmer and windier than it generally was last week. More specifically, it’s 28°(F) with a windchill of 19° at 6:30 a.m. and wind gusts of up to 23 miles per hour out of the East. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 27, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Hungry, But Not Frozen

You know the deer are hungry when they start eating viburnum bushes, as you see in this image of one of “our” white-tailed deer this morning:

Some of the better food is under several inches of ice, which the deer have to dig through with their hooves. That’s what this yearling had just done:

On the other hand, we’ve seen no indication that the deer are having any problems with the cold weather. It was 14°F with a windchill of 7° when these images were taken. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 27, 2023.)

Ice Bursting in Air

It’s warming up considerably here, compared to yesterday, but I suppose that’s only a relative comparison. It’s 8°F (wind chill = 2°) as I write this at 6:30 a.m., compared to 1° (WC = minus 5°) yesterday at 6:45 a.m.

The image above is from yesterday morning in Patten Bay. It’s “young” sea ice doing what it does as the tide lowers: the surface ice blanket lowers with the tide, but has to give way to sizable rocks, which burst through the descending ice plane in interesting formations.

Nearby, Patten Falls at the mouth of Patten Stream was pouring a torrent of fresh water from melting snows and ice into the Bay:

(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on February 25, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Booted Mummy Time

It’s 1 degree (F) with a wind chill of -5 here as this is written at 6:45 a.m. To be sure, our benign blizzard of two days ago left some beautiful snow, but she also left a vast, freezing wake. Nevertheless, here’s a look at a stand of spruce with cold feet during yesterday’s frigid morning:.

Below, you’ll see how the WoodenBoat School’s pond was doing then:

If you’re drawn outside by the beauty of it all, make sure you’re dressed like a booted mummy. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Civilized

Here you see two images of this morning’s first light on the aftermath of yesterday’s much-anticipated “blizzard”:

Contrary to some forecasts, the storm turned out to be a civilized visitor that gently tucked the community into a fluffy blanket of powdery snow before leaving quietly. The following are images of it in progress and shortly thereafter:

Country lanes and roads were quickly and easily plowed.

On the waterfront, lobster traps provided the only color and fishing vessels seemed not to notice.

There was some color here and there and plenty of texture..

In the Right Place: Fickle February

We’re getting some serious snow as I write this morning, but that will have to wait until later; I don’t want to let yesterday’s weather go unnoticed in this journal.

Yesterday probably was as perfect a day in Great Cove as fickle February is capable of producing: miles of wispy cirrus clouds raced in a big blue sky above a magnificent high tide of restless winter water.

(Images taken on the WoodenBoat School campus in Brooklin, Maine, on February 22, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Views With Some Room

Here you see Flye Island and all of Blue Hill Bay about to disappear in the morning fog on Monday, as we looked east from Amen Ridge on Naskeag Peninsula:

The sun soon burned the fog off and, three hours later, we got a view of eternity through the southern entrance to Great Cove on the other side of our Peninsula:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Revelations

As the sun was descending yesterday afternoon, it briefly revealed a sleeping beauty in her winter shelter near Great Cove.

(Images taken at the WoodenBoat School boatshed in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Along the Byways

We had a blustery snowstorm on Friday night that made driving to the Inn for dinner a little tricky. However, the storm had a very short lifespan. After a frantic convulsion, it died with a whimper, and we were bequeathed about an inch of powdery snow. That’s too little to plow off of our lanes and drives. Yet, as you can see, this powder still was decorating our byways yesterday morning, even though we had above-freezing temperatures.

We have a number of beautiful private country lanes that enter the woods from principal roads and serve internal driveways to houses hidden in the trees. The driveways feed into the country lanes like river tributaries. This is a sensible way to avoid numerous single-home driveways that cut into principal roads and become potential safety hazards and/or eyesore gaps in green roadsides.

Although the lanes are private and privately maintained, the tradition here is to allow the public to walk or even drive along their picturesque, wooded curves. However, many (if not most) of these lanes are posted with No Hunting signs. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 19, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Complicated Stories

A thought while seeing this recent sunset over Great Cove: February’s sunsets along the coast are more fantastical than the obviously beautiful winter sunsets of the rest of the winter months.

The sunset lights of November through January often seemingly are in bold, delineated strokes of oil paint, easy to humanize. Those in February often seemingly are in emerging, luminescent sweeps and dabs of watercolor or, sometimes, a strange combination of oil and watercolor, that tell a more complicated story. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 16, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Exposure

The gnarly, twisting trunks and limbs that create the dense canopy of old crabapple trees are exposed in winter. It seems almost indecent to peek through what were once thickly flowered summer robes and see the arthritic-looking parts of aged bodies. But, it’s intriguing.

Some researchers say that the name “crabapple” may be derived from the density of the tree’s crown, which is “crabbed” with branches and small apples in the summer. Crabapples, which usually are too sour to eat without processing, are one of the ancestors of the cultivated apples that we eat off the limb.

Today, there apparently are few truly wild crabapple trees. Most are cultivated for special purposes, often for the decorative appearance of their flowers and the pollination of the bees that they attract to their areas. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Twisting the Night Away

The winter water gear apparatus at the WoodenBoat School is both functional and (in a uniquely maritime way) artistically expressionistic when operational.

It also apparently can be dangerous to view closely, as this image from yesterday shows.

High winds, ice, and repetitious freeze/thaw cycles apparently weakened one of the base boughs of the old spruce tree that anchors the exhibition. And then, a big circling wind apparently came in from nearby Great Cove and twisted off about a 50-foot portion of the bough.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12 [closeups] and 16 [wide-angle]. 2023.)

In the Right Place: Staying in Shape

Here you see a saucy white-tailed deer posing on Valentine’s Day. She appears to be in beautiful shape, as do all of “our” white-tails, which seem to be thriving this year, despite some very nasty weather.

I suspect that their highly-insulated and water-resistant winter coats are the primary reason for their good health. Another reason may have been that our summer and fall grass crops seemed to have been particularly good this season for the deer to binge on and build up the fat that they need to store for winter. More Valentine’s Day visitors are shown below.

Their activity also diminished in winter, as usual. During the worst of our recent weather, the 15 or 20 does that are “regulars” did not make their rounds across our property for about two days. They apparently bedded down deeply within the woods and didn’t move.

On sunny days this month, we’ve also seen members of the local white-tail sorority keeping their metabolic rate low by bedding down in groups of up to five in fields and basking, sometimes for more than an hour. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Minor Mysteries

I tend to think of February as a gray month, even though I know, historically, it has been a one of the most variable of our months in terms of weather – sun, cloud, rain, snow, ice, killer colds, sweaty thaws, fog, sea fog, sea ice, and combinations of these.

As with the weather, this iconic scene shown here never stays the same; there’s always something to ponder. The tide is rising fast, yet Fishing Vessel Tarrfish is slack at her mooring; the main windows in the house on Harbor Island are shuttered tightly, yet the attic Gothic window isn’t; Tarrfish’s scallop-dredging mast and boom are in place, yet I don’t see her “drag” (a form of New Bedford bottom dredge) on deck.

Perhaps the solution to one of those minor mysteries can be found on the nearby dock: a scallop drag lies there, rolled up in its own weighty chain and mesh “bag.” Apparently, it has been repaired or is in need of repair.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 10 [house and boat] and 13 [dock and drag], 2023.)

In the Right Place: Happy Hearts Day

It began as a holy and sad day to celebrate the death of an obscure priest named Valentine who was martyred on February 14th many centuries ago and later canonized as a saint. It is now a commercial but happy day to celebrate romance and love.

The modern Valentine’s Day celebration comes with a profusion of “hearts” being delivered on cards; in notes; as candies, cakes and helium balloons, and displayed in supermarkets and many other public places.  

Yet, the “heart” is a man-made symmetrical symbol that has become a computer emoji and looks nothing like a human blood pump. But, as they say, it’s the thought that counts and thoughts of love are good any way that you can get them.

The image that you see above is a neighbor’s roadside banner that lightens our ride down to the harbor. In the image below, you’ll see what may be a romantic on the way to his girlfriend’s cave.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 [banner] and 13 [candy man], 2023.)

In the Right Place: Visibility

Here you see yesterday’s early morning moon on the rise over Great Cove. When the conditions are right, we can see the moon during the day for the same reason that we can see it on many nights: it’s nearby and reflecting sunlight, which makes it brighter than the surrounding sky, hence visible to us. Although the moon does not create any light of its own, the reflected sunlight makes it our second-brightest celestial object after the sun.

When this image was taken Sunday, the moon was in a waning gibbous phase and about 236 thousand miles away from the camera lens. As you probably know, the moon is “waning” when its lighted area is in the monthly process of getting smaller; it is “gibbous” when it is more than half lighted, but not full. Gibbous is from the Latin for hunch-backed. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Deft

Here you see what appears to be a nonbreeding adult American Herring Gull, acting the part of a tailored gray and white bird on a clouded gray and white day last week.

This Gull (Larus [argentatus] smithsonianus) is commonly called a Herring Gull because herring are one of its favorite foods. However, the bird is not a very good fisherman, and often needs more calories than it can catch swimming in water. It then relies on scavenging and stealing to survive. It seems that it will eat just about anything dead or alive that looks edible, can be caught, and can fit into a beak whole or in bites.

While not an expert fishing in water, the Herring Gull is one of the deftest sea birds in the sky. It “is a master of the air,” according to the late Edward Howe Forbush, who continued: “It can fly forward or backward, veer gracefully in any direction, soar with stiffened pinions or shoot downward like an arrow, sail on steady wing against the wind and perform numberless evolutions with grace and ease.”

(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on February 9, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Breaking News

February, with its wild weather swings, is a month to be careful of ice of all kinds. The sea ice in Patten Bay is breaking up again, as you see in this image taken Thursday:

The bog ice in Brooklin is shrinking again:

Because of its salt content, the water in ocean and brackish areas freezes at lower temperatures than fresh water in bogs. That sea ice can be very thick and seem to be safe to walk on, but temperature swings and tidal action can cause hidden faults that crack open suddenly when you walk on it.

Bog ice in cold weather also can shatter from your weight and make you stumble into freezing wet goo with disastrous results. Last month, a man in Cutler who was in the woods alone reportedly fell through bog ice. He got soaked, became extremely cold and disoriented, lost his way, and started to get hypothermia. A Maine Warden Service rescue team found him in time to save his life. (Images of sea ice taken in Surry, Maine, on February 9; image of bog ice taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 10, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Tough Love

With Valentine’s Day soon to come, you might wonder about Doves, one of the ancient symbols of love. This image of a Mourning Dove appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American:

To read the column about doves and the problems they have being symbols of love and peace, click here:  http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Lids and Light

We awoke yesterday in one of those big sky days. About an inch of new snow was covering the ground and billowing layers of blue-gray clouds enclosed us. Soon, a crack of sunlight appeared over the Atlantic on our southwestern horizon.

It was as if a lid was being lifted from our boxed day.  As the lid lifted higher, the sun spread to the snow, melting it slowly. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 8, 2023.)