In the Right Place: Weather or Not?

We’re bracing for what might be some of the nastiest winter weather here for many years, according to the weather sayers. I have to wonder about what it would be like to experience such a storm on the summit of our beloved near-mountain called Blue Hill. Its south face during our recent clear weather is shown here. It may disappear from view tomorrow.

January usually is our coldest month and there are few hikers on Blue Hill during the month; but there often are some on clear days and maybe a skier or two. The average daily temperatures there in January usually are not too bad; they reportedly range from highs of 31° to lows of 17° (F).

But there always is the windchill and a potential for extreme cold. High winds exceeding 60 MPH and significant snow accumulation with drifts exceeding 20 inches have occurred there in January, according to historical weather summations. It may get worse than that tomorrow, I hear.

As for the present, the temperature in Brooklin at 7 a.m. this morning was 06° Fahrenheit with West-Southwest wind gusts of 12 MPH. Windchill must have been below zero. Something’s coming. Tomorrow will be a good time to stay home and watch the Pats play the Broncos in Denver’s frigid weather. Go Pats!

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 20, 2026.)

In the Right Place: High and Dry

You’re looking at Patten Stream where it empties into Patten Bay. But the Bay is at high tide yesterday; its cresting salt water is smothering the Stream’s usually dramatic finale of fast-falling freshwater rapids cascading down the rocky shore. But that’s not nearly the most important part of the story.

Lately, that Stream’s flow has not been as dramatic as in prior years due to an extraordinary and persistent phenomenon that apparently is associated with Climate Warming. As the Washington Post of this January 20 reported: “More than two-thirds of the country is facing unusual dryness or drought, stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast, touching every state except California.”

We’re in an unusual winter drought and dry spell; the snow and rain that you’ve seen has not been absorbed. Maine is the most affected state in the Northeast:, according to yesterday’s federal U.S. Drought Monitor:

Maine is one of six states nationally with the largest percentage of their territory consumed by severe drought or worse:

The other five states are Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico and Virginia.

(Photograph taken in Surry, Maine, on January 22, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Winter Green and Red

There was new snow and ice this week at Conary Cove, creating yet another look for the ever-changing historic scene. On the left you see the green federal style house in an architectural magazine pose. Its original sections probably were built in the 1880s on the site settled in the 1760s by Joseph Wood, one of the founders of Blue Hill.

On the right is the Cove’s jaunty boathouse that has a separate history. Built in 1924 with a pier, it originally was painted white and one of its prior owners regularly taxied into the Cove in his seaplane, which he parked beside the boathouse. Its personality was boosted when it was painted a congenial red in the 1950s.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 20, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Two If by Sea

Here’s “The Lookout,” one of Brooklin’s most historic structures in one of the Town’s most beautiful settings overlooking Blue Hill Bay and the ocean beyond. The original, two-story 1760 Colonial style house and property were part of a land grant from the King of England to William Flye and the property has remained in the family since.

The original structure was named The Lookout in the 1760s because it served as a sentry point to detect hostile seafaring Native Americans who were, let us say, not unreasonably displeased with Europeans granting their land away. In the late 1800s, a third floor and west wing were added as part of a conversion to an inn.

Today, the whole area is called Flye Point and The Lookout property is popular for outdoor weddings and other open-air events, while the Inn portion has summer rooms with breathtaking views. The same views and fine meals are available in the summer to the public in The Lookout’s dining room.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January18, 2026.)

Snow Postcards From Brooklin, Maine

The first significant snow or 2026 began on Saturday, the 17th, but it began insignificantly. At first there were a few small, lazy flakes that seemed to have lost their way in a dark, windless sky. They wandered where they liked and clung to what they touched.

But their friends and family kept coming overnight and slowly knitted a thick white blanket that made Sunday’s first first peek out of the bedroom window a pleasant surprise:

It was easy to drive around during the gray day and see what Mother Nature was up to. Plowing the roads and private lanes during and after snowfalls is a major priority here, and public roads also are “sanded and salted” with an environmentally-safe substance.

The death and taxes area of Town was closed, as were the Baptist Church, Library and Morning Moon Cafe, but of course the General Store was open for business and serving a lot of its delicious roasted coffee:

A short distance down Reach Road, the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard at Center Harbor also was closed over the weekend. Old, uninhabited seaside boat yards have their own good spirits, especially with fine snow drifting down:

Center Harbor was still and devoid of the many beautiful sailing and power boats of summer:

A few miles down the coast, the working waterfront at Naskeag Harbor also was vacant and its waters quiet. The sun was trying (unsuccessfully) to break through the clouds. All local fishing vesels apparently were sheltering elsewhere, but the old summer house on Harbor Island was still seemingly keeping watch.

Interesting structures, artifacts and flora become more interesting after a good snowfall, especially those that have a brilliant color to glow through the monochromatics of a snowfall:

Finally, we come to today, Monday, January 19, 2026. It’s a holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the sun is trying (again, unsuccessfully) to break through the overcast while a few gypsy flakes wander in the woods. Here’s an image taken this morning of the same area where we started this post to show the first flakes falling:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 17 through 19, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Congregations of the Quacking Kind

Yesterday’s cold snap began icing in Blue Hill Bay again. This apparently was a signal for the local mallards to come and seek shelter and sustenance in the running fresh water below the dam at the mouth of Mill Stream.

Being mallards, they went into auto-quack mode upon seeing so many old friends and potential mates. You could hear the din through closed windows while driving across the Main Street bridge. I stopped trying to count the sleeping, swimming  and flying mallards when I reached 70.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 16, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Moody Blues

Okay, I admit it: I’m obsessed with the many moods of the near-mountain called Blue Hill. Please try to bear with me.

Above, you see her Tuesday – serenely remote as the lowering tide pancakes the sea ice in her waters, Blue Hil Bay. Below, you’ll see her stoically maintaining her dignity while insolent storm clouds and rain try to torment her yesterday:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 13 and 15, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Life with Harry, V

Harry, the unusual porcupine, still wanders about in sun and snow during daytime instead of sleeping in a tree or otherwise being inconspicuous. He waddles into the underbrush when he sees me, but generally doesn’t erect his quills defensively if I stay a respectable distance away. Below are some interesting facts from scientific reports about those quills.

Porcupines reportedly have a coat of up to about 30,000 quills, which actually are modified hairs. The quills cover the rodent’s back, sides, and tail. When relaxed, they lie flat, mostly hidden under regular guard hairs and a thick, woolly underfur that is great for insulation.

However, when a porcupine feels threatened, it goes on alert and uses special muscles to erect its quills, making it look larger and (it hopes) frightening. The quills are only loosely attached and detach easily into the skin of any being that touches the porcupine or that is within range of a powerful tail swat that can drive quills deeply into skin. But porcupines do not shoot quills like arrows, as some myths maintain.

The quills have very sharp tips and very small backward-pointing, fishhook-like barbs. Thus, they penetrate skin easily but are extremely difficult and painful to remove, often requiring pliers for the quill and a sedative for the victim. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 11 and 13, 2026.)

In the Right Place: The Baths of Blue Hill

Mallard ducks gather and quack loudly at the mouth of Mill Stream and other streams in winter where there is vital open, fresh water. These communal baths provide safety from ice-hunting predators, food to dabble and a place to rest and conserve energy.

They’re also good places for pairs to form and strengthen bonds, increasing the odds of later breeding success.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 13, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Do I Smell Peyote?

If I didn’t see last night’s sunset afterglow with my own eyes, I would think that the photographs here are interpretive paintings by an artist who has been smoking cactus again.

The sky was filled with swirling, molten, ever-changing color – like the northern lights, but better in its own cloudy way. It was a performance that lasted until darkness, which was almost a relief.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 12, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Old and New

Here you’re looking down the Center Harbor Road. It’s lined with the cars and trucks of the boatbuilding artisans, designers and business people of the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard at the bottom, on the Harbor waterfront:

On the left of the image is the seaside end of BBY’s old three-level workshop and offices; on the right is its relatively new pier and pier shed. Behind that workshop, there’s a walkway to the pier, which has had its floating docks removed for the winter:

The workshop originally was a fish processing factory in the 19th Century. It went through several ownerships that eventually specialized in canning sardines. In about 1938, the site was bought and transformed into a boatyard. In 1960, the site was bought by the famed naval architect (and son of E.B. White) Joel White, who started BBY there. And the rest is a history of success.

In January of 2024 the wooden BBY pier and pier shed were significantly damaged and partially destroyed. The replacement has composite and light metal gangways but continues to sit on the original granite pier pilings. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 8, 2026.)

Go Pats!

In the Right Place: Diffraction Action

January sunsets on the Maine coast can be spectacular and their afterglows surprisingly different, as you see below.

That’s the sun “going down” behind Deer Isle. In the foreground. You can just make out Great Cove and various islands in Eggemoggin Reach, a windy channel that basically runs between Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

As you may know, that nice starburst effect is not a natural phenomenon; sunlight does not get emitted like that. Photographers will tell you that the radiating veins that create such a sunstar are “diffraction spikes” that are caused in photographs by circular sunlight being diffracted by the edges of a non-circular camera aperture. The same effect can be seen by the naked eye when eyelashes and/or eyelids diffract the light.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 8, 2026.)

In the Right Place: A Few Friendly Fauna Facts

We’ve been having some snow-ice-rain-sun-thaw cycles, which seem not to bother the furry creatures who think they own this property. Bernie and Bernice Beaver haven’t come out when I can see them since “their” pond has been virtually iced-in, but their tracks tell the tale of nighttime adventures.

Also, as you see above, our white-tailed deer remain happy and even seem to like imitating Doctor Dolittle’s Pushme-Pullyu. Harry the porcupine is still not behaving like the rest of his kind; he’s now digging through snow in the daytime to munch vegetation when he should be snoozing in a tree:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 5 and 6, 2026, respectively.)

In the Right Place: Living in Loony Times

This image of a common loon in winter plumage appears with my monthly column in the current edition of the Ellsworth American.  To read the column relating to the recent good news about loons and Maine’s also-recent warning to loon lovers, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Curb Your Appeal

It’s rare to see a driveway gate around here. It’s even rarer to see two driveway gates within about a mile of each other on the same road, as you’ll see posing here during a recent snow flurry. They’re certainly fun to see, but I wonder what their owners are trying to say with them.

The above metal tubular gate looks to me like a cow pasture dual swing gate and fence – except it’s powder blue and almost always open and the fence doesn’t fence in anything. The metal dual swing gate ibelow looks to me like an elegant Los Angelas estate gate.

The principal purpose of these driveway barriers doesn’t seem to be privacy. The respective properties are not fenced-in; they can be entered easily by walkers and, when the gates are opened, could be entered by an unimpeded Putin tank convoy. At least one of the properties also is accessible by water.

When closed and locked, of course, either gate would provide security against vehicular traffic for those who detest Amazon deliveries and the like. But two wooden posts and a locked chain would be all you’d need for that, and it wouldn’t be unusual here. Maybe the primary value of these is what real estate agents call “curb appeal.” But wait –  there are no curbs in their neighborhood.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 6, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Life and Death

Locally, we have vibrant landmarks, such as this structure, and dying landmarks that we’ll call sadmarks.

Here you see the BarnCastle Inn and Restaurant in Blue Hill, a distinctive example of Shingle Style architecture that was built in the late 19th Century up and around an original 1830s Cape Cod house. I hear that its popular restaurant is going to transition from Alsatian to Italian Cuisine this winter.

As for sadmarks, below you’ll see a virtually abandoned New England Connected Farmstead in Brooklin. It reportedly was built by Erastus Candage for his wife Mattie, likely in the late 1800s or early 1900s. It eventually housed a post office and became a focal point for community life and a subject for E.B. White to write about when he lived nearby.

(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on January 6 and 3, 2026, respectively.)

In the Right Place: Winging It

Seagulls are among the most extraordinary fliers in the feathered flora kingdom.  They have been inspirations to musicians, painters, aircraft designers (including drone designers), and just about anyone who has seen them fly under various conditions.

The most common seagull along the Maine coast reportedly is the American herring gull, shown here Edward Howe Forbush, the late, preeminent ornithologist, had this to say about that bird : “The Herring Gull is a master of the air. 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.”

Research has shown that gulls, as they fly, change wing shapes by flexing their elbow joints, tucking wingtips in or extending them out. This can create more stable, rounded shapes for soaring or flatter shapes for quick turns. When landing, they twist wings to increase surface area for lift, slow wing beats, and spread their tail feathers to act as a brake:

Seagulls also know how to glide more smoothly by manipulating the cushion of compressed air between their wings and the water's surface. To conserve energy, herring and some other gulls "surf" above the wings of fellow gulls in the moving air there. Also, the darker wing colors on herring and some other gulls help absorb heat, creating warmer air that improves flight efficiency and lift, allowing for better gliding.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Old and Older

Here you see two famous old structures in and overlooking Blue Hill’s Conary Cove:

The frequently photographed red boathouse is a motorists’ landmark. (Seamark? – I don’t want to say “watermark” and confuse people.) It was built about 1924 as a white boat shelter that eventually had a pier and was painted red by a subsequent owner. Along the way, one prior owner liked to run his seaplane up on the shore beside the boathouse.

The less obvious green house, on a separate parcel of land, might be more interesting to historians and architects. The original structure apparently was white and built in the early 1760s by Joseph Wood, one of two first settlers of the town that became Blue Hill. This house may have been rebuilt completely or partially in the 1880s and perhaps the front of it took on its Federal style then.

Although the green house now has Parker Point Road running right in front of it, it has an unobstructed view of the beautiful Cove, which apparently is why Joseph Wood built his home there originally

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine on January 2, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Moon Shots

Above, you see my illustration of yesterday’s Full Wolf Moon, which has a secret photographic fault. Below, you’ll see a daylight image of the area over which yesterday’s first supermoon of the year arose shortly after sundown.

When the Wolf Moon rose, it ascended like a ball ofmolten copper from more than 225,000 miles behind the Mount Desert Island horizon:

When the rising moon is low on the horizon, we see it through hundreds of thousands of miles of the Earth’s gritty atmosphere, which distorts and discolors the orb when it’s seen through our eyes or standard cameras.

As the moon got higher and escaped our atomospher, it got lighter and eventully became seemingly phosphorus-white:

The secret fault in the illustration? That’s yesterday’s moon, alright. But I don’t have any wild wolf closeup portraits (for obvious reasons). So, I used my archive portrait of Freddie, the friendly Alaskan malamute, a former neighbor’s dog that would head-butt you repeatedly to get you to keep scratching the sweet spot between his ears. I also changed the color of Freddie’s eyes to wolf-yellow.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 3, 2026.) Click on the images to enlarge them.

In the Right Place: Yearly Firsts Department

Here are our first 2026 images of the south face of that near-mountain called Blue Hill – the image above was taken over a snowy stable and, below, an image taken over an icy bay.

As many of you know, this nearly-1000-foot lonely land mass gets the blues in some weather. Before this area was settled by Europeans in 1762, the local Penobscot Abenaki people reportedly called this massive mound “Awanadjo,” meaning “small, misty mountain.”

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 2, 2026.)