In the Right Place: Rural Politics Department

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, the day of presidential primaries in 15 states and American Samoa. As the late House Speaker Tip O’Neil liked to say, “all politics is local.”  In our little town of less than 1000 full-time residents, election voting is held in the Town Office conference room, which you see here:  

We have four cardboard “voting booths” for filling out paper ballots while comfortably sitting down. There is no more hand-counting of those ballots. There’s a sealed and computerized ballot box to do that. It’s that dark gray container with a computer screen on its top, behind the good-looking voter in the image (who just happens to be my wife, Barbara).

You slip the end of your filled-out ballot into the gray ballot box and it grabs and swallows the submission with a slurp. It checks the ballot for errors, counts and tabulates it with the other votes, and stores it securely inside, just in case it might be needed for a recount. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 5, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Shell Shucked

The Atlantic Sea Scallop “dragging” (dredging) season ends this month and our all-season fishing vessels will then get a rest until they go out for lobster trapping in June or July. Here you see a shucked sea scallop shell.

That hard housing is more about camouflage than color. It looks somewhat like the living and operations area of TV’s famed Starship Enterprise, but it is a shape that helps the mollusk “swim.”

Sea Scallops swim by slowly opening their shells and rapidly closing them. They look a bit like a skipping stone, but underwater, not above. They have up to 200 miniscule eyes along the edge of a “mantle” just within the shell rim to see where they’re going.

These bottom-resting animals can live up to 20 years. Their shells usually are not much longer or wider than six inches, but there is a report of one that was about 9 inches long. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 4, 2024.)

In the Right Place: A Beckoning

We had a hint of spring yesterday. The temperature reached the comfortable mid-forties (F), the rain eased off to a botherless sprinkle, and the skunk cabbage shoots were so excited that they did their famous dolphin trick. The bog beckoned.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 3, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Recklessness

Here you see the waters of Patten Stream yesterday afternoon as the skies darkened with rain clouds.

I find that, the older I get, the more I become drawn to freshwater streams such as Patten, no matter what the weather – the cold, clear water running fast and recklessly through wooded, rock-strewn courses. How I wish I could run fast and recklessly through the woods once more. (Image taken in Surry, Maine, on March 2, 2024.)

In the Right Place: The Blues

Here you see one of the small, apparently unnamed, islands in Blue Hill Bay’s clear waters yesterday. When the tide gets just a little lower, that nubbin of land is accessible by foot and a good place for children to play in the real, three-dimensional world.

Blue Hill, for which the Bay and Town are named, broods in the left background of this image; it’s virtually mountain-sized and gets a blue cast to it at times. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 1, 2023.) Click on the image to enlarge it.

February Postcards From Down East Maine

Fickle February couldn’t make up her mind whether she would bring us more winter or the beginnings of spring. So, she brought us a little of each, and added her own special touches. She also gave us an extra day of herself this leap year to remember her by.

There were sunny February days that froze the on-and-off snow cover into ice and unseasonably warm sunny days that melted the snow away and softened the ice in ponds.

There were surprisingly high and low February tides and some of her winds were worthy of the March lion.

February followed the examples of December and January and was stingy with snow, but generous with sea ice, fog, and rain.

As for flora, most of the vegetation remained in winter deadness, but we still had winterberry fruit on the branches throughout February and the skunk cabbage (which produces its own heat) was burning its way through the snow and ice.

In the fauna department, our resident white-tailed deer flourished during February and our annual winter convention of common eiders, Maine’s largest native duck, prepared to leave us in March.

On the waterfront, it was Atlantic sea scallop season all of February with the winter fleet bearing masts and booms to dredge (“drag”) for the tasty mollusks. Meanwhile, the WoodenBoat School’s summer fleet remained in hibernation while its mooring gear was left to live with the elements..

February’s diversity was well-suited to the diversity of structures here on the Blue Hill Peninsular.

There were two unique events here this February: repairs of the damage done to our shoreline during December’s and January’s extreme storms and a “cold-water dip-in” (a mostly Maine thing) in the frigid waters of Naskeag Harbor to raise money for abused women.

Of course, February is when maple trees are tapped for their sweet sap and the full Snow Moon rises.

Finally, February sunsets and afterglows — when the weather allows us to see them — can be almost as good as January’s clear day-ends. There’s an intriguing subtlety in the February evening green and yellow nodes that mingle with the burnt orange glow of the last light.

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during February 2024.)

In the Right Place: Happy Leap Day!

Today is February 29, usually known as a Leap Day in a Leap Year. Today is when one custom calls for a woman to propose marriage to the man she wants to marry. Scientifically, it’s the day added to February every four years because Julius Caesar (and subsequent calendar controllers) determined that we had to make up for the gradual loss of seasonal time in our imperfect calendar.

Where’s the “Leap”? A standard year consists of 365 days, which (oddly) is 52 weeks (of 7 days each) plus 1 day. If your birthday were on a Sunday one standard year, it would be on a Monday the next standard year. In a Leap Year, your birthday would “leap” over that Monday to Tuesday because of the extra day.

However, if you were born today, on February 29, you would be a “Leapling” and have an actual birthday only every four years. (Most Leaplings celebrate birthdays on February 28 or March 1 in standard years; some claim with a smile to be much younger than their contemporaries because they have fewer birthdays.)

As for that marriage proposal custom, it supposedly started in Ireland, where St. Brigid reportedly negotiated with St. Patrich for the right of women to propose to the man of their choice, but only on Leap Day so that the situation didn’t get out of hand. The idea allegedly was to provide a little countervailing balance to the powers of the sexes the way a Leap Day provides a little balance to the length of the seasons.

Speaking of balance, in some areas, reportedly, if the man refused to accept a woman’s serious offer of marriage, he had to give the woman something of significant value. (Leighton Archive Image taken in Brooklin, Maine.)

In the Right Place: The Fix Is In

They talk about Maine’s “rockbound coast,” but lately some of that is no longer original. The extreme storms of December and January caused considerable erosion along Maine’s coast and Naskeag Harbor suffered its share. Here you see the just-repaired northeastern sweep of the Harbor area:

The bank has been shored-up with fill dirt, a layer of containment fabric that is covered with medium-sized stone riprap, and a nubby blanket of larger rocks, which makes it more rockbound than ever. The boat launching area also has been enlarged with the addition of more interlocking cement launch slabs:

( Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17 and 26, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Sweet Times

It’s maple sap collection time. When temperatures are below freezing at night and above freezing (preferably in the 40s F) during the day, the thawing creates enough pressure to allow sap to flow by gravity out of a tapped tree. Here you see part of the process at work yesterday on the big maples in front of the Friend Memorial Public Library:  

Maple syrup can be made from the sap of any maple tree, but the highest sugar concentration is found in – you guessed it – sugar maples. Nowadays, it seems that most maple sap is collected here with a plastic tubing system that can be connected to multiple trees. The clear, sweet sap in the tubes drains drop-by-drop by gravity into a large, central collection container located at a lower level.

The traditional way of collecting maple sap to make maple syrup is to bore a hole into the tree and hammer a metal spike-like spout (a “spile”) into the hole, A can or bucket is then hung on the spout to collect the dripping sap. This process requires tending to each tree and its bucket individually, rather than having a central collection container fed by tubes on multiple trees.

Leighton Archive Image

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 26, 2024, except as indicated.)

In the Right Place: Inappropriate Winter Landscapes

Here are two February scenes that Andrew Wyeth probably would not choose to paint as Maine winterscapes. This one involves a super-high tide at Naskeag Point that actually got an inch or two higher than what you see; however, apparently no harm was done.

(Fishermen here usually come to work with a small boat on a trailer and use that skiff/dingy to motor to/from their vessel in the harbor.)

Below you’ll see our two-person L.L. Bean kayak wintering on the bank of Great Cove during low tide. The kayak has a color scheme that looks like slatherings of ketchup and mustard – not exactly the decor best suited for guests who get seasick. The lost lobster buoys and other nautical gear under the kayak provide different additional colors that seem outrageous in a winter landscape. (We collect this flotsam from the beach and notify any identified owners to come and get their gear, which they often don’t.)

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12 and 17, 2024.)

In the Right Place: The Moon of Many Names

Here you see February’s full moon rising over the mountains on Mount Desert Island yesterday evening. As usual, while viewed at a long, low angle through Earth’s lowest (and dirtiest) layer of atmosphere, the moon appeared as an irregular molten globule.

As it rose into the stratosphere, it began to take on its familiar geometric shape:

Once it reached a good sailing height, it was polished silver by the sun’s full light:

This full moon commonly is called The Snow Full Moon or The Hunger Full Moon, based on Native American names for the weather and scarcity of food at the time around what White people called February. Perhaps we also should call this particular full moon the Odysseus Full Moon in honor of the United States spacecraft that landed autonomously in the moon’s south pole region two days before (Thursday, February 22).

As you may know, yesterday’s full moon also is called a “micro moon,” which is the opposite of a “supermoon.”  That is, it was passing Earth at the farthest distance in its orbit (its “apogee”), making it the smallest type of full moon we see with the unaided eye. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Extremes

Inlets here are among the most dynamic places, especially during recent winters when we’ve had extreme weather changes. Here you see one of our favorite inlets during a lowering tide in Great Cove on a cold day this month:

This is a place where Native Americans sheltered and drank from its meandering stream. Sea birds still shelter in and around there during bad weather.

On the day that this image was taken, as you can see, the sand, pebbles, and sea grasses there were sheeted with sea ice that had a thin covering of snow. Three days earlier, during a much warmer time, we had a super-high tide that flowed into the inlet and devoured the stream:

We expect a huge tide today with the arrival of the full moon.  (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 and 14, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Those Were the Days

Part of this structure was Naskeag Schoolhouse No. 1 – the 19th Century part with the symmetrical roof and nice tucked- back roof ends (known as “cornice returns” or “eaves returns”). The shed attached to the structure’s left side apparently was added sometime after the schoolhouse closed in 1937, when the building was converted into an automobile repair garage. Axles replaced axioms.

I haven’t been able to pin down exactly when this schoolhouse was built, but records indicate that Brooklin had nine one-room schoolhouses in 1849 and this may have been one. By 1900, the schoolhouses were numbered 1 through 9, and this one apparently was included. Why so many schools? So children could walk to school from home.

There was no electricity originally in these schools; students read by sunlight and kerosene lamp light. A wood-burning stove provided heat and parents originally contributed stove wood until the Town budgeted for that expense. Due to the lack of regular transportation, teachers often lodged in nearby homes and also walked to school.

The International truck to the right of the structure also appears to have some age on it, based on its headlights. I wonder if it was built before 1986, when International Harvester Company became Navistar International. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Night and Day

February sunsets and afterglows from Great Cove ridge are not as spectacular as those in December and January when the sun is lower and more southerly to our view. But the more subtle February day-enders can be very satisfying. They often have delicate nodes of pale green and yellow intersecting above a burnt orange base, as you see in this image of Tuesday’s afterglow:

On the other hand, high noon on a clear February day can be an almost painful, eye-squinting experience when the snow glares back at the sun and millions of pieces of shattered mirror float on the sea. See the image below from yesterday at WoodenBoat (that contraption in the lower right is a mooring raft and hoist):

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20 and 21, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Snow Shows

Here you see what I think is a dried stalk of dormant woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus), the bulrush that Native Americans reportedly weaved into mats and bags.

(The stalk in that image is hanging over snow-covered ice in a pond, which gives it a silhouette effect, even though the photo is in full color and not edited, except for cropping.)

Below, you’ll see self-heating eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) burning its way through snow-covered ice in a bog yesterday. Native Americans reportedly used this plant for treating coughs and headaches and even used a wash of its powdered roots for an underarm deodorant.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17 and 20, 2024.)

In the Right Place: All’s Well

Here you see the WoodenBoat School’s post-and-panel boat shed yesterday, when I did my monthly monitoring of the small boats that are stored there.

I’m happy to report that all appeared shipshape inside. (See the image in the first Comment space.) It was good to see the boats again and be reminded of what summer will be like when they and others like them return to Great Cove.

That big-tailed boat in the foreground of the above image is Whimsey, a 12-foot Beetle Cat. That form of boat is not named after a bug and feline duo. The name comes from the Beetle boatbuilding family of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who were famous for their commercial Beetle Whaleboats.

The Beetles designed and built the original Beetle Cats in 1921 for their children, using the production techniques used for their Whaleboats. Traditional Beetle Cats are now built by the Beetle Cat Boat Shop in Wareham, Massachusetts. The boat reportedly is the oldest wooden boat design that has been continuously produced. It has been competitively raced for more than 100 years.

These small cat boats are very good for instructional sailing. They’re wide for stability and are gaff-rigged far forward to “come up” and face the wind if the tiller is released, so the boat will stop rather than continue sailing uncontrolled. Large, but not deep, “barn door” rudders usually help steady the boat in the wind and allow sailing in shallow waters. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 19, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Magnificence

Today is designated federally as “Washington’s Birthday,” but known in various states as “Presidents’ (or President’s, or Presidents) Day,” among other names, according to Wikipedia. In Maine, the day reportedly has been declared “Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day”; in our first President’s home state, Virginia, it’s reportedly “George Washington Day.”

I’m not ready to celebrate the birth of all of our Presidents, some of whom I’d like to forget. But I do feel that our first President set a high standard for integrity and national leadership that never was achieved subsequently. His significant heritage bears the ugly scar of slave ownership, of course. He is not to be remembered as perfect, but he was magnificent at times and in many ways.

One of George Washington’s underappreciated accomplishments was his creation and management of Mount Vernon, his estate and farmland in Virginia. He inherited the land and a small house there and spent 45 years improving them. He supervised the design and construction of numerous expansions of the house into what became known as the estate’s “Mansion.”

I find the most interesting aspect of that Mansion to be its “Piazza,” the ancient name for a veranda when used to describe a structure. (You see here some of my old images of it.) It’s the full length and height of the back of the two-story Mansion.

Washington added the Piazza to capture the view and shaded breezes of the nearby Potomac River. Tea would be served to visitors who liked to sit in Windsor chairs there and talk while viewing the river roll in the vale below and the tamed animals stroll in Washington’s adjoining 18-acre deer park.

In the Right Place: Elegance

White-tailed deer seem to belong in our woods more than any other mammal. They just look “right” all of the time, especially during first light when they’re slowly on the move over snow-covered ground:

There’s an easygoing elegance to them in the woods that I find hard to find in red squirrels and other small rodents, weasels, bob cats, coyotes, bears, Moose, or (especially) that increasingly chair-dependent species, humans.

White-tails often act as if they own the place and will engage in staring contests with a careful human who has entered their territory. But most are also woods-smart and know when to show you why they’re called white-tailed deer:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17, 2024.)

In the Right Place: O&O Mode

We had one of those shy, off-and-on snowstorms yesterday. But it was diligent and eventually deposited a little more than two inches, maybe three, here on the coast. At about mid-day it had nothing left and the sun decided to show us that it also could perform in off-and-on mode. Here are a few local scenes taken during and after the snow.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 16, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Language

It snowed a nice snow last night, but I haven’t been able to get out yet. So, I offer this image of Great Cove on Wednesday, which was a beautifully bright, wildly windy, and bitterly cold day:

Extending outward into the whitecaps is the WoodenBoat School’s “pier” or “dock,” a word choice that may depend on your point of view. I always wondered what the difference was between a pier and a dock, and I finally put the question to Google.

It turns out that most language experts apparently say that, for American English, there is no meaningful difference between the two words; either is proper in common discussion. However, there are some regional American word preferences in which a “dock” is any simple floating structure for securing (“docking”) one or more boats, while a “pier” is larger, built on vertical supports, and is more of a public place from which to fish or even enjoy recreational enterprises, whether or not it has an area for docking vessels.

On the other hand, for British English speakers, piers and docks apparently always are distinctly differentiated. For them, a dock refers to an enclosed body of water separated from the surrounding water; it is used primarily for trade-oriented activities such as loading, unloading, and repairs. British piers are known as the structures that jut from the shore into the waters, often for public recreation.  

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2024.)