In the Right Place: Golden Globe Reward

Here you see the visually full moon as massive clouds swirl in the sky at a little after 1 a.m. today. The slightly golden or reddish hue is caused by the orb’s unusually low position as viewed through our atmosphere. Gaps in the clouds allowed a clear sight of the golden globe this morning:

The June 2025 full moon technically will occur (be at its fullest) after most sane people go to bed here tonight (3:44 a.m. June 11, to be precise). It is the lowest full moon that we’ve experienced since 2006 due to a “lunar standstill,” which is a complex phenomenon involving views of the moon’s tilted orbit relative to the celestial equator.

The June full moon traditionally is called the Strawberry Moon because it coincided with the Algonquin strawberry harvest season in the northeastern United States. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, June 10, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Almost Time to Howl

Our wild lupines are nearing peak, when their pea-like flowers will have fully crested the plants’ mountainish flowerhead:

The perennial wild plant’s scientific name is Lupinus perennis. Lupinus means “of the wolf,” an indication that the lovely plants tend to run in packs that ravage the areas where they grow. They’re also known as quaker bonnets and bluebonnets for those who want to be sedate.

Lupins are members of the legume/pea family, as their flowers indicate. However, they also have large, spectacular radiating leaves at the end of long stalks. The leaflets and stems initially are hairy and can become smooth with age.

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

In the Right Place: How Dry I Am – Not

Here you see cascades of freshwater flowing from Patten Stream into salty Patten Bay at low tide yesterday. Sprinkling light rain is bringing out a damp lushness to the surrounding green leaves and orangey rockweed and rock lichens there. However, within minutes, everything turned much darker, and a monsoon-like shower strafed the area, drenching Yours Truly:

But all was well. Here in Down East Maine, we’ve recovered from last year’s moderate drought and abnormally dry conditions. Only a small area in the southeast part of the state remains abnormally dry as of last week’s report. A little drenching now and then is better than wells going dry now and then. (Images taken in Surry, Maine, on June 7, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Thanks a Bunch

As you see, the bunchberries have been collecting at a rate that soon will make them into “multitudeberries.” The plant’s scientific name reflects its abundance north of us, Cornus canadensus, but it’s also commonly called dwarf dogwood, rabbit berry, and pudding berry. It’s early summer flowers boost the species chances of survival by spraying pollen out when insects land on them.

The plant, itself, is a unique organism, not a shrub or tree. The pectin-rich red berries that will replace the flowers later in summer can be eaten by humans raw or cooked and are often made into puddings, jellies and sauces. Birds, bears, deer, hares and rabbits are known to snack on the berries when they come. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 4 and 6, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Distinctive

Here you see the windjammer “Angelique” tucked into Great Cove as her passengers were awakening to a hazy day yesterday. Her passengers visited the renowned WoodenBoat School there. She’s still on a six-night cruise that includes exploration of nearby Acadia National Park. Here she is a bit later when her passengers were returning from WBS and helping to raise the longboats and sails:

“Angelique” is a 130-footer out of Camden, Maine, that was launched in 1980. Although all the coastal cruisers have their distinct characteristics, she is perhaps the most distinctive. She’s the only gaff-rigged ketch (primarily meaning, mainmast forward) in the Maine fleet, which is mostly schooner-rigged (primarily, mainmast aft).

She also is the only one with “tanbark”-colored sails. In days of yore when sails were cotton, they were dipped in vats of tannic acid, tallow, and red ocher, which turned them reddish and protected against mildew. (In yesterday’s haze, sun, and shade, they sometimes appeared brick- red, then burgundy-purple, and even black.)

Her original owner and designer revealed two secrets about “Angelique” in an interview: First, although it is true that the vessel was named after a long-limbed beauty, those limbs weren’t female legs. She was named after one of the purple/brown hardwoods imported from French Guiana and Suriname that are used in boat and ship construction: “Angelique wood” (Dicornya quianensis). There is some in “Angelique’s” cabin. A significant irony here is that the vessel has a steel compartmentalized hull.

Second, although she resembles a 19th Century North Atlantic fishing trawler, her design was inspired by early pilot sailboats and early large sailing yachts. She was designed specifically for passenger traffic, not for fishing or commercial hauling along the coast.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Coughing It Up

Horse chestnut tree candles are now blooming and attracting many pollinators. The trees are not true chestnut trees and they’re not native. They originally came to North America from Greece and Albania. But they are attractive and their compound leaves are unique palmate formations:

These trees reportedly live up to 300 years, but their “buckeye” nuts are inedible to humans. In days of yore, however, those nuts were fed to horses to treat coughs and congestion, which is why many researchers think that the tree is called a horse chestnut tree. Or, is that horsechest nut tree? (Images taken in Brookin, Maine on June 3, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Good Vibrations

It seems appropriate for American bumblebees to play their kind of music on this bugleweed (ajuga). Unlike other insects, bumblebees perform “buzz pollinations” – they grab the flower anther with their jaws (mandibles) and buzz by vibrating at the right frequency until the pollen floats free.

They probably play mostly “Taps” on these bugles because the typical pollinating bumble bee reportedly lives only about a month, while their queens live much longer to start next year’s colony, usually underground. They’re good pollinators, but (unlike honeybees) they don’t produce and store honey.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 3, 2025.) Apologies to the Beach Boys, creators of the hit ‘60’s song “Good Vibrations,” which had nothing to do with insects.

In the Right Place: Idle (But Colorful) Thoughts

It’s hard to tell whether the purple lilacs or orange azaleas are more outrageous this year. These are complementary colors on the color wheel, meaning that they’re opposites that can create interesting vibrance or jarring contrast together, depending on the beholder.

Case in point: the Clemson Tigers’ purple and orange uniforms; some say they’re awesomely impressive, others say they’re intended to make opponents throw up. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine on June 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Honor of Being First

Here you see the schooner “Mary Day” in Great Cove very early yesterday before her passengers awakened and before it rained. The chilling rains came, the winds didn’t, and “Mary” departed the Cove with only her two mainsails up and a push from her yawl boat. She has no internal engine.

The “Mary Day” is 125 feet overall and hails from Camden, Maine. She was built in 1962 and is a regular visitor to the renowned WoodenBoat School in Great Cove. She may have been on a private charter yesterday; her official schedule shows her beginning trips on June 8. She has the honor of being the first windjammer to visit the Cove this summer.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 1, 2025.)

May Postcards From Down East Maine

May, true summer’s appetizer, was a little wetter and foggier than usual here on the coast this year. But she still managed to be her usual gorgeous and generous self: bringing us lush green grasses and leaves, coaxing out colorful buds and petals, and soothing us with warm days.

As usual, we begin our “wishing you were here” Postcards with the four iconic scenes that we monitor to record seasonal changes — the mountains breaching from Mount Desert Island; the island house peering down at Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor; the “Blues” of the near-mountain called Blue Hill above the Town of Blue Hill, as seen across Blue Hill Bay, and the old red boathouse in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove:

Our woods and waters appeared to rejoice in their spring-to-summer passage through sun, rain, and fog:

As usual, May was a very active time for our fauna. Our fur-wearers of most interest included a young white-tailed deer buck who seemed sad for recently losing his first set of antlers, a cottontail rabbit that tried to burgle our house, a North American river otter who was tuckered out from impregnating as many females of his kind that he could find, and a pregnant doe sleeping late as the early morning sun rose:

As for feather bearers, the big drama in May was the repeated attacks by a young rogue male osprey on the nesting pair of ospreys that we monitor every year, a mature couple whom we’ve named Ozzie and Harriet. The jealous youngster who invaded the nest (and tried to do so to Harriet) was nearly killed by Ozzie, who repeatedly chased the invader off, after ripping out most of the youngster’s tail feathers and gashing him in the chest. Afterward, Ozzie and Harriet sat together in silent vigilance.

More patient males visiting the neighborhood included red-winged blackbirds who staked out territories and magnolia and other warblers who were deciding whether to stay or continue north. A great blue heron established a home base near one of our ponds; mallard drakes tried to attract mates by showing off their iridescence, and some bufflehead ducks that overwintered here decided to stay awhile.

Tri-colored bumblebees and other pollinators were very busy tending to all the new blossoms and black-capped chickadees — Maine’s state birds — complained about all newcomers:

As for our most ardent sun worshippers, painted turtles and bull frogs emerged from their murky winter quarters to enjoy the beginnings of the year’s warming radiance:

Of course, May is perhaps best known for its spectacular flora. In terms of trees and large bushes., the earliest bloomers were the subtly-hued shadblow trees with their burnished copper leaves and delicate white flowers:

Next on the color spectrum might be the gnarly old apple trees with their articulated branches and pink-cheeked buds and blossoms:

The color intensified in the plum trees, with their pink blossoms and reddish leaves, as well as in the crabapple trees with their thickly-studded branches of reds, pinks, and purples:

More subtle, yet still striking, were the less common yellow magnolia and white star magnolia flowers:

Of course, trees can be startling for reasons other than their colorful blossoms. Speciman trees such as the Camperdown elm in the Brooklin Cemetery and the weeping beech at Amen Farm leafed out fully in May:

While the yellows of forsythia flowers dropped to the ground before the end of May, the purples and whites of lilacs were emerging:

Similarly, the yellows of daffodils withered away, while the yellows of dandelions swept in:

In the sunny fields and dark woods, the bold, radiant leaves of lupine plants spread, while the delicate petals of the little star flowers searched for light:

In the bogs, the shy wild azalea known as rhodora made a modest appearance in purple while ferns and skunk cabbage boldly emerged:

In the gardens, begonias blossomed and allium buds were about to burst into flower:

The waterfront is an important area recreationally and commercially here, and much of it needs to be prepared in May for true summer’s activities. Docking floats need to be reinstalled at the ends of piers, mooring gear needs to be cleaned and returned to the depths, and boats need to be prepared and returned to where they belong.

On the commercial waterfront, May is a hiatus between scallop fishing and lobster fishing in coastal waters. Some vessels won’t take down their scallop-dredging masts and booms until June, when lobstering starts in earnest.

Finally, we consider the May full moon, traditionally named the Flower Moon for obvious reasons. This year, it was a “micromoon” — it’s orbit took it very far from us. But she still drew our tides to her and shone on trees that flowered in the darkness:

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during May of 2025.)

In the Right Place: It Isn’t Easy ID-ing Greens

This seemingly happy little guy is my first frog of the year. Initially, I thought he was a green frog. But then I noticed that he had no ridges (no “dorso-lateral folds”) running all the way down his back from directly behind his eyes, the way green frogs do. His folds just curved behind his eyes and down around his big ear (around his “tympanum”).

I now think that he may be a young American bullfrog. The ears of male bullfrogs are larger than their eyes, while those of females are equal to their eye sizes.

If and when he becomes a full-sized bullfrog, he’ll have no problem identifying green frogs – as meals. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on May 28, 2025.) Apologies to Kermit.

In the Right Place: Slightly Wild

The lilac blossoms are starting to reach their prime here, both in pebbly beauty and intense fragrance. They’re an old-fashioned and long-lived plant, especially loved by those who like their beauty erupting in slightly wild crowds.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson reportedly were lilac fans. (Images taken in Brooklin. Maine, on May 28, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Hometown Girl

Summer sailing in Great Cove officially may begin.

Legendary “Martha” returned to her mooring there on Tuesday. She was the first sailboat to return to her summer home in the Cove, which soon will be colonized by many vessels. But none with her fascinating history.

Martha was built here in 1967 by the famed Brooklin naval architect and founder of the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard, Joel White. Joel built it for his even more famous father, the New York- and Brooklin-based author E.B. White (“Charlotte’s Web,” etc.). The vessel was named after Martha White, Joel’s daughter, the granddaughter of E.B. (“call me Andy”).

There’s more for those of you who are fascinated by man-made things that wander over water by wind. “Martha” is almost 20 feet long overall (19’ 9”) and has been designated as a sloop-rigged Crocker-inspired pocket cruiser. A “cruiser” is built to sail on multi-day trips; that is, it’s not just a “daysailer.” Among other things, cruisers usually have at least one berth to sleep on, a stove to cook on, and a head (toilet) to sit on. 

But, being a “pocket cruiser,” “Martha” has all of the above amenities in miniaturized form, which requires exquisitely well-designed and finely built accommodations. The “pocket” designation derives from the practice of applying that term to objects that are smaller versions of usually larger things (e.g., pocketknives, pocket watches, pocket battleships, etc.).  

Martha is Crocker-inspired because, when he designed it, Joel admittedly was influenced by the designs of naval architect Samuel Sturgis Crocker. S.S. Crocker, another highly-regarded naval architect, created many small and stout cutters with sharply sweeping bows. (Take another look at Martha’s magnificent bow.)

After E.B.’s death, Martha was sold by the White family to Rich Hilsinger, the long-time former Director of the WoodenBoat School here. He promised to keep her in Brooklin where she belongs and where he still lives. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 28, 2025.) See also the image in the first Comment space.

In the Right Place: Hope Department

Clusters of exquisite, fragrant wild apple blossoms such as these are starting to appear in the gnarly, abandoned fruit trees that grow among weeds and shrubs along old roads and fields here. They seem to be reminders of the persistence of hope, like a pink-cheeked children’s choir in a decaying cathedral.  

Most of the apples from these trees were used to make cider, according to local histories. Today, they primarily feed wildlife.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 27, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Summer’s In

Fittingly, our long spate of gray/foggy/rainy weather broke Sunday evening, the eve of Memorial day’s opening of unofficial summer. As you see here, the sun was sinking in the northwest, burnishing the spruce tops on Babson Island in Great Cove and creating a spruce shadow dusk in the greening north field:

Early the next morning – Memorial Day’s awakening – the rising sun reached the field from the east and revealed one of our neighbors who had spent the night there in the newly-lush wild grasses:

She decided to be lazy on the first day of summer and basked there for more than an hour before ambling away into a beautiful summer’s day. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 25 and 26, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Memorial Day

Today we honor the men and women, known and unknown, who died in military service. A little reflection may be in order about their service being the ultimate protection for the extraordinary privileges and rights that we all-too-often take for granted and abuse.

(Leighton Archive images taken at Arlington National Cemetery of a military honors service and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.)

In the Right Place: Buttoning Up

Here you see a somewhat ragtag white-tailed deer that is a regular visitor. He looks like a youngster that has recently lost his first rack of antlers. I think he may be too old to be considered a “button buck” with protruding pre-antler bumps (“pedicles”), but I may be wrong.  

His coat is in transition to lighter summer furs and he doesn’t yet have the haughty standoffishness of a typical white-tail male. There’s seemingly a sense of “I-didn’t-ask-to-be-a-mighty-buck about him that makes him seem vulnerable. See also the image in the first Comment space. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Bugle Call

Here you see Ajuga reptans flowering impressionistically in yesterday’s rain. This plant also is known by many names, especially as bugle, common bugle, bugleherb, bugleweed, carpet bugle, carpenter’s herb, ground pine, and St. Lawrence plant.

The plant is a ground cover in the Ajugeae branch of the mint family that reportedly has been used medicinally in some cultures. It’s officially listed as invasive in several areas, but not in Maine. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 23, 2025.)

In the Right Place: WBS Report I

Here you see some of the mooring gear – mushroom anchors and their connected buoys – for the WoodenBoat School’s fleet of small boats. The gear has been cleaned and is drying in the image. After it dried, it was reassembled and soon will be set in Great Cove, which is visible in the images.

The first two boats to go into the water probably will be those shown below. On the left is “Babson II,” an 18-foot outboard skiff; on the right is “Geronimo,” an 18-foot Westpointer. These boats are used by the WBS harbor staff to ferry students to their boats and other harbor administrative tasks.

As usual, WBS Alumni have been on campus since May 18 helping prepare classrooms, equipment, and vessels for the School’s 2025 opening on June 1. The renowned summer School attracts students from all over the world. The courses feature building wooden boats, sailing, and many other maritime-related subjects. The return of the Alumni seems to be mutually rewarding for them and the School staff.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 21 and 22, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Seeking Rhodora

Find rhodora in this image.

It may be my paranoid imagination, but it seems that every year I see fewer rhodora plants in areas other than parklands or other protected preserves. Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense), also called Canada rosebay, is one of only two wild azaleas that are native to Maine.

The other native azalea is the unfortunately-named clammy azalea (Rhododendron viscosum). It has been described by Maine officials as a “rare plant” in the state, which is the northern limit of its range. But clammy azaleas are not rare to our south.

To be fair about my concerns for rhodora, she does seem intentionally evasive as well as wayward and wild. She likes wet feet and tangled bogs. Her graceful purple-pink flowers often go unseen by people, which apparently is fine with her.

But, the U.S. is losing her favorite wandering places at an alarming pace, and I worry about whether her lifestyle is disappearing. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 20, 2025.)