JOURNAL
Here you see the heavy ice in Blue Hill Bay breaking up and melting yesterday, despite the day’s temperatures in the teens and low 20s (F):
Just four days ago, there was much more heavy ice there:
Apparently, March 1’s rain and above-freezing temperatures got the melt going and its inertia was too much to reverse the process for saltwater ice. It’s cold today; re-icing has started; spring is being patient. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 2 and February 26, 2025.)
Here you see yesterday afternoon, March 1, a miserable, raw day of rain and occasional small hail that melted several inches of snow and revealed that we still have some sorry-looking grass:
Yet, the day provided hope for those optimists who believe in that famous 18th Century proverb: “If March comes in like a lion” (meaning bad weather), “it goes out like a lamb” (meaning good weather). Most Mainers seem to believe in that even older proverb: “We’ll see.” (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 1, 2025.)
February, our shortest month, generally is considered to be the last month of winter. But, up here, you never know. Nonetheless, February is named after the Roman festival of Februa, which was a time of cleansing. In that sense, this February lived up to its name.
It was filled with polite, purifying snows followed by bright sunlight, with a few gray. rainy, and bitter cold days tossed in so that we don’t get spoiled. Although a short month, there were plenty of sights worthy of sending “Wish You Were Here” postcards about.
As usual, we begin with our four iconic sights on the Blue Hill Peninsula, which includes the towns of Brooklin and Blue Hill: The mountains of Mount Desert Island, as seen from Brooklin: the summer house on Harbor Island in Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor; the near-mountain called Blue Hill, as seen from across Blue Hill Bay in the Town of Blue Hill, and the red boathouse in Blue Hill Bay’s Conary Cove:
February’s plentiful snow flurries often were visitations by the tiniest of flakes that floated this way and that before collecting in crowds on trees and on the ground. When followed by bright sunlight, the effect could be dazzling and tempting for those who like to be creative.
The month’s freezes and thaws and occasional high winds had a dynamic effect on our many bays, ponds, and streams.
For the ducks that depend on those waters, the calms were wonderful, but the freezes caused fruitless treks across ice looking for a swimmable space to dive for food. Ducks weren’t the only swimmers this month; a group in Brooklin took a “cold dip” in Naskeag Harbor to promote donations to Finding Our Voices, an organization that aids survivors of domestic abuse.
We did a lot more driving than swimming this February, thanks to our tradition of fast and frequent plowing. Country roads and lanes can be very attractive framed in snow.
On the waterfront, February is a time for fishing for scallops for some vessels and for resting until summer for others. The scallopers are lobster boats that are fitted out with masts, booms, and shelling huts. Many of the summer vessels are fitted out as mummies in shrink-wrap. Hardy lobster traps don’t need to be fitted out in anything while they wait for summer.
February’s purifications were well applied to rural structures, from sheds to barns and to dwellings, lighthouses, and chapels.
If you go into some of those dwellings, you’ll find tropical flowers in full bloom during February, including hibiscus flowers that seem to be sherbet volcanoes.
Finally, we come to February’s moon. Some Native Americans called it the Snow Moon for obvious reasons; others called it the Hunger Moon because snow made it difficult to hunt. We’ll just call it magnificent this year because it rose full during and above a snow-storm-in-the-making and was fascinating as it passed through its other phases.
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during February 2025.)
Yesterday we had another damn beautiful snow flurry! And, there may be more on the way.
Just as our driveway was emerging yesterday from the ice coating left from its last snowplowing, pretty white sprinkles began descending from heaven, covering us again with several hours’ worth of flakery. Here’s the beginning:
This most recent burst wasn’t that much, and it wasn’t furious, and it wasn’t harmful, and it eventually turned slushy in cleansing rain at mid-afternoon. BUT … there’s just so much beauty you can take before it gets boring, if not annoying who bet that, if most people were Hollywood-beautiful, it would be those we now think of as plain and ugly who would be most attractive. )
Also, these winter flurries have a particularly bad effect on compulsive-obsessive photographers like me – we’re compelled to capture the damn things for the record even though we already have many hundreds of snow images so far this year. Here are a few more from yesterday:
I do have to admit, however, that working in a many-windowed office among spruce trees while snow is flurrying around is a neat experience. (That’s Barbara, below, working on the taxes while I engage in my obsessive frivolity.)
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 27, 2025.)
It’s time for a winter maritime image to remind everyone that the right place (for me, now) is the Down East coast of Maine.
Here you see some summer vessels that have become winter mummies. They gather in the shoreside snow and, sometimes, are joined by an unwrapped sister who is for sale and needs to be accessible to potential buyers.
The concept of shrink-wrapping a boat appears simple, but the task takes skill and special equipment. Stated another way: It’s probably a job that should be left to professionals. As for the basics, from what I’ve seen and read, a backbone support (or posts) is (are) first installed atop the vessel along the centerline. A previously measured sheet of industrial-strength, shrinkable plastic is then draped over the entire boat.
Then, the plastic is secured by straps and bands, especially at the bottom. Working from that bottom up, a powerful heat gun and tension tools are used to shrink the plastic tightly over and around the boat’s contours, pulling and tucking as progress is made. Excess is trimmed away. And vents and access passages are added as needed.
(Image taken in Surry, Maine, on February 25, 2025.)
Here’s another iced-in bay being melted at low tide by our warmer weather and a freshwater feeder stream. It’s Patten Bay yesterday with Patten Stream flowing in the foreground.
Six mallards there were hopelessly waddling on webbed feet over slick ice cakes, perhaps in a quest for enough swimmable water to hold a sorority luncheon and dabble for aquatic plants. (They were all female.)
(Images taken in Surry, Maine, February 25, 2025.)
We’re having a heat wave with a reported high temperature yesterday of 34°(F) in Blue Hill and warmer weather today. It’s starting to melt the freshwater ice in driveways and the salty sea ice in the coves and bays.
Above, you’re looking (basically) north-northwest at the northern shore of Blue Hill Bay, from Blue Hill Harbor Dock. Fresh water from Mill Stream is cascading under Main Street’s Village Bridge, the granite-faced, 19th Century structure at the center of your view. (That’s Blue Hill, the near-mountain, on the right edge.)
Mill Stream enters onto the Bay’s sea ice and helps weaken the sea ice’s hold, but sometimes freezes on top of the Bay ice when arctic temperatures suddenly swirl down. (The salty sea water freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater.)
If you turn around on the Dock to look at the Bay as it opens toward the Atlantic Ocean, you’ll see that there’s a long way to go before the sea ice will be totally out of the Bay:
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 24, 2025.)
People who don’t live in Brooklin likely won’t be able to identify these images casting shadows on pure snow. This large blue ball is a toy for two miniature donkeys who live here:
The holiday wreath shown below is propped up against the stone bench in Naskeag Harbor (to avoid being blown away, apparently). The wreath has been there all winter and likely will continue to express its “Happy Holidays” wish until we get tired of looking at it, which may be late March or even April.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 [ball] and 21 [wreath], 2025.)
Here you see Blue Hill looming yesterday in a bluer sky, behind a reddish barn-stable, which is sitting in a corral filled with white, icy snow. It looks a bit like a Montana ranch, but you’d have trouble trying to gallop your horse over the horizon here. Maybe a miniature Montana ranch. Maybe a miniature Montana dude ranch. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 22, 2025.)
Our old and young apple trees seem to be bearing up stoically so far under pressure from freezing polar vortex temperatures. The trees’ cells apparently are adapting by producing arboreal “antifreeze” that allows water to freeze safely among cell walls and prevent harmful ice crystals.
The big danger, as I understand it, is that the cold can get so extreme and prolonged that the water in dormant tree sap freezes, expands, and creates a bark explosion that can wound or kill a tree. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 19, 2025.)
Around here, some residential driveways are long and some are short. Some are used daily in the winter by full-time residents and some are used occasionally by owners who make winter visits. And, of course, some are not used until summer by some owners. But, seemingly. most residential driveways are plowed no matter what.
Plowing not only facilitates the delivery of fuel for heating systems and packages from UPS and FedEx trucks, it is a safeguard for emergencies. It allows fire trucks or other emergency vehicles better access to a residence in case of fire or other danger (such as medical emergencies or burst pipes in non-drained structures).
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7, 2025.
I’ll arbitrarily name these sculptures “Snowmom and Child.” They got me thinking about the popularity of art that shows a mother and child, a subject that I looked into for an article a while back.
History is replete with masterpiece sculptures depicting a mother and her child. One realistic ancient example is Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Virgin and Laughing Child” (1472). It depicts his idea of a Virgin Mary looking down with a warm smile at a playfully laughing baby Jesus – an unusually human moment that can make a sacred subject lovable.
On the other, more obtuse and modern end of the spectrum, there’s Henry Moore’s “Mother and Child: Hood” (1983). It’s an abstraction of a woman conceiving, gestating, and tenderly holding her child – all in one marble piece without realistic anatomical details. You have to let your imagination loosen its grip a little before you realize the work’s ambitious magnificence.
But, back to our less ambitious snow art, “Snowmom and Child”: We have a fairly abstract mom beside a somewhat realistic (albeit not laughing) child. I like to think that mom is taking her child out to the road to put her on the Brooklin School bus, after which mom will finally relax with a cup of coffee. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 15, 2025.) Click on the image to enlarge it.
These images of Conary Cove were taken yesterday for our February 2025 record. There was bright sun, but an unfriendly ambient temperature of 20° F keeping company with downright vicious wind gusts that seemed to penetrate to the brain core.
Nonetheless, if you’re going to shiver, you can’t go too wrong shivering while trying to make a memory of a quintessential Maine coast scene. I suspect that these images will bring a smile when I review them in August. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 18, 2025.)
Sun on snow can be transformative. A rusted anchor and its ever-faithful shadow seem to take up yoga. A fenced-in picnic area seems to become a water-color composition on graph paper:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7 [umbrella] and 10 [anchor], 2025.)
This month, so far, has been one of our more wintry Februarys in terms of wind, cold, snow, ice, and that old favorite “wintry mix.”. But, so far, we’ve gotten no killer blizzards or treacherous ice storms that can make life almost unbearable until they subside and their damage is repaired.
Above, you see the sea ice in Blue Hill Bay on Saturday, just after being seriously stressed by a fast-rising 10.4-foot-high tide. Below, you’ll see Blue Hill, herself, watching motherly over her icy Bay and little Town:
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 15, 2025.)
It’s snowing again as I write. The same band of non-threatening pygmy flakes has returned and is slowly and silently, but diligently, filling up our much-plowed driveway. This has become boring.
Our sunny Valentine’s Day weather was more unusual and threatening, as you can see here:
Those are the island-protected and usually placid waters off Naskeag Point being tormented by gusts of winds in the mid-30s and higher. That’s miles-per-hour. The temperature was in the 20s. That’s Fahrenheit degrees. The powers that be issued a small boat advisory and should have issued a small person advisory. Some gusts almost knocked me down.
On the other hand, white caps (also known as white horses) and rollicking waters are much more interesting in action than pygmy snowflakes at work.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2025.)
Here you see the February full moon rising over Blue Hill Bay on Wednesday, when it was at its fullest. A snowstorm was brewing as it rose, and we awoke the next day to a mix of tiny snowflakes and sleet.
The Farmers' Almanac, which has been publishing continuously in Lewiston, Maine, since 1818, began reporting on translations of Native American names for full moons in the 1930s, and these names still are the most frequently used.
Thus, this February moon is known widely as the Snow Moon or Storm Moon, the most frequent names given to it by the northeastern native nations. February’s heavy snowstorms and other bad weather made hunting difficult, so this moon also was called the Hunger Moon by some of the indigenous peoples, according to the Almanac. (Images taken from Brooklin, Maine, on February 12, 2025.)
This is Valentine’s Day, so my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American is about passionate courtships that are occurring here and now – but by owls and what their love life can teach us.
(This image is a merger of two photographs; the owl shown is a captive, injured bird.) To read the column, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
It’s snowing again, as I write – another of those polite, itsy-bitsy-flaked snow showers that slowly and diligently fills the much-plowed driveway and tops-off the rest of the snow build-up elsewhere. These snow “storms” are getting boring. I’m almost ready for a good old-fashioned, tree-toppling blizzard. Almost.
Instead, let’s just look at two historically important buildings that look better after the snow stops. Eden Chapel in the foreground was dedicated in 1900 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This late Victorian church contains distinctive wooden design features, including a decorative diamond on the second stage of the tower and wave-cut shingles on the third.
To the left of the Chapel, you’ll see what once was Naskeag Schoolhouse No. 1. When Brooklin was incorporated in 1849, that was one of nine one-room schools to which local children walked. The school was closed in 1937 and the building reportedly was reconfigured as a an automobile repair garage that was run by Arthur and Arlene Smith, a husband-wife team of mechanics. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7, 2025.)
This Brooklin house and, especially, its barn are local icons. The original structures on the property were built about 1850 and owned by the Bowden family who farmed the land for many years and later even operated a long-gone roadside gas station here.
By 1958, the property reportedly was run down. And then Joseph “Roy” Barrette and his wife Helen came along looking for a fixer-upper retirement place. They bought the property and constantly worked on improving it. They named it Amen Farm, perhaps because they had found their dream and/or because of its breath-taking view across Blue Hill and Jericho Bays. (Yes, Roy was the legendary author-horticulturist-gourmand and wine expert who kept writing during his “retirement” in Brooklin. He died in1995.)
Subsequent owners have kept up and improved the property, especially the completely renovated barn. As with many barns in New England, it no longer houses farm animals. It reportedly has a modern great room with fireplace and large windows overlooking the back pasture, as well as a separate exercise area. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine. on February 7, 2025.)
