In the Right Place: A Proud Daughter Returns

This is an unusual winter sight: BLACKFISH, a highly-regarded racing and cruising sailboat, is out of storage and on the move, apparently from Massachusetts. She was built here in the Brooklin Boat Yard in 2017 and is being transported back to her birthplace for a new paint and varnish job. She home ports in Nantucket. It was a joy to see her again.

BLACKFISH is well described in her WoodenBoat Profile: “While Blackfish has a modern keel, rudder and carbon fiber mast (faux painted [as wood]), designer Jim Taylor is proud that she accomplishes what she was specified to do and be: drop-dead gorgeous above and a race boat below.”

Here’s her data for you serious sailors: BLACKFISH’S length overall is 49’ and she’s 35’2” at the waterline, with a beam (widest part) of 11’7” and a weight of 16,600 pounds. She’s rigged as a sloop and has a sail area of 973 sq. ft. Her engine is a 45 hp Yanmar diesel. She races in the Spirit of Tradition Class and reportedly clubs at the New York Yacht Club.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17, 2025.)

In the Right Place: (Snowy) Form Follows Function

This post about three distinctive structures is the last of our Fantastic February Snow series. Here are the virtually imperceptible final flakes of the February 10-11 snowstorm falling on “The Lookout”; It’s an operational inn with parts built in the 18th and 19th centuries:

Below you’ll see an image taken as the snowfall was breaking up and the sky turning blue; it’s a residence that was built in 1899 and appears to be in the American Four-Square Arts and Crafts style:

Finally, as a bonus, here’s an image of a large New England connected residence of unknown age; the image was taken on the last sunny day before the February 10-11 snowstorm started.:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 and 8 [connected house], 2026.) Click on the images to enlarge them.

In the Right Place: Enchanted Country Lanes

Continuing with our Fantastic February Snow series: Snowfalls can enchant the many private lanes that lead to hidden driveways of really hidden coastal residences here, and these lanes look good even after they’re plowed. Most seemed to be plowed almost immediately after a snowfall and sometimes during it. The images here are all from Hope Lane.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Split Personalities

Continuing with our Fantastic February Snow series: A good snow seems to bring out the personalities of trees. Above you see the noble young spruce. Below, you’ll the caring old Camperdown elm and the tormented old weeping beech.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11, 2026.) Click on the images to enlarge them.

In the Right Place: Red, White and Cold

Continuing with our Fantastic February Snow series: Above and below are old red barns that have been converted into new living spaces and that look great in snow.

Below, you’ll see a hot seat (color-wise) in a cold place.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 and in Surry, Maine, [chair] on February 12, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Valentine Visitor

This handsome fellow paid us a visit on Valentine’s Day yesterday, but it wasn’t an act of love. He’s a barred owl, our only black-eyed owl. Owls his size (up to about two feet long) and smaller ones struggle to hunt in crusty/icy snow of the type that still blankets most of the land here.

This shy raptor apparently has been forced to take risks by not only hunting during the day, but by hunting in a garden near our house in bright sunlight where his movements caught Barbara’s eye as she glanced through a window. (“Dick, you’ll want to see this!”)

He looked thin and his impatient flitting from perch to perch indicated that he might have been desperately hungry. (Most owls that I’ve known sit Buddha-like on their perch during the day, only slowly moving their heads. They see more people than people see them.)

Barred owls can hear voles and other small mammals in their frozen tunnels up to two feet under light snow. However, a thick crust of ice or excessive snow depth apparently makes capturing their prey virtually impossible.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2024; sex assumed.)

In the Right Place: Snowy Boats and Pre-Boats

Continuing with our Fantastic February Snowfall series,above you see ALL-IN; she remains all in the waters of Naskeag Harbor. Below, you’ll see SHERRY-ANNE II and two friends who are not all in the water, but are “on the hard” at the Atlantic Boat Company:

Also at ABC was what appears to be a 38-foot hull mold, perhaps a form for building a Duffy or Blue Hill Marine-style lobster boat:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11, 2026.) Click on the images to enlarge them.

In the Right Place: The Pending Question

In the Right Place: Snowy Shops and Sheds

February’s first significant snowfall ended on Wednesday after having brightened our area nicely. This ITRP may be the first of a series of intermittent posts on that beautification. Above, you see an old workshop snuggling amid a stand of white birch. In the early 1900s, a wood carver made duck decoys there.

Here’s the Brooklin Boat Yard’s pier shed perched over Center Harbor; it replaced a much older equipment shed that was ruined by a nor’easter in 2024:

Below, you’ll see a little gray boat shed that seems to like hiding among a crowd of big, tough spruce trees. That shed was built in 2024 by a neighbor to store a small trimaran in winter.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Love-Gifting, From Sweet to Strange

This composite image of Valentine’s Day gifts appears with my monthly column in today’s Ellsworth American. To read the column about the history of love-gifting and some of today’s strange Valentine’s Day gifts, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: “Smile, Though Your Heart Is Aching”

It’s been snowing again and I’m worried about Harry, the odd porcupine. Here you see him plowing crusty snow with great difficulty yesterday; he’s apparently looking for  greens and their roots.

 In the winter, porcupines are known for their adoption of a woody diet of bark and branches, especially eastern hemlock branches. Harry apparently isn’t following that regime and appears to be losing more weight than most porkies do in winter. (They all lose some most winters, according to the literature.)

It’s hard to make a case that porcupines are more needed than harmful in our ecosystem nowadays. We’re losing hemlocks and other trees to invasive insects as well as to porcupines now. Nonetheless, Harry sure can make you smile, and that must be worth something.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 10, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Limited Menus

Here you see a white-tailed deer browsing on the branch tips and terminal buds of a star magnolia bush in freezing temperatures early yesterday. It’s probably not this yearling’s favorite meal, but she can’t be choosy during the kinds of cold winter spells that we’ve been having.

Lately, many of our deer have limited their movement and “yarded up” much of the time in communal deer yards within stands of dense, wind-breaking coniferous trees. We still have somewhat deep, frozen snow that hinders their movement, makes it harder for them to avoid predators, and covers their best food.

Harsh winters often are part of Nature’s way of culling deer herds by causing high mortality rates for fawns and bucks. (Yes, bucks: They lose a lot of their fat reserves during the rigorous rutting season, when their body weight plummets.) Frankly, our white-tail herd appears to have gotten too numerous for the animals’ own good and ours. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 9, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Keeping Watch

Here’s “The Lookout,” still keeping watch yesterday over local bays and the Atlantic ocean beyond. It’s perhaps Brooklin’s most historic structure, with original sections that have sheltered people since about 1760.

It was a colonial sentry point that gave warning of unwelcome visitors from the sea, hence its name. The original house was expanded in the 1800s into an Inn and has remained one since then. Its fine restaurant is open to the public in the summer, and its extensive grounds with sea vistas are popular for weddings and other outdoor events.

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

In the Right Place: Thoughts on White Magic

Snow is a transformative emotion in Maine’s winter moods. It comes happily on little white parachutes during somber gray days and creates a new, pure land.  When the cold winter sky turns blue and the sun shines after a good snowfall, the now-firm crystals seem to be trying to hold everything in place to prevent harmful change. Yet, there’s movement along the plowed and chemicalized roads, and the once-white silk parachutes become soiled mounds of our dirty laundry.

Above you see the snowy south face of the near-mountain called Blue Hill on Friday, as viewed from Beech Hill Road (Route 175). Two views of the face from across Blue Hill Bay, taken the same morning, are shown below We record these iconic views monthly for local records.

Snow in this area typically arrives in November and can continue into March. The snowiest season on record in the Blue Hill area apparently was 2014-2015, in which 150.8 inches of total snowfall were recorded here by the Blue Hill Conservatory & Science Center. During that winter of 2015, a still-held monthly record was set in February, when 79.9 inches of snow were recorded. 

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 6, 2026.)  GO PATS!

In the Right Place: High-Stepping

Pity the wild turkeys that have to high-step slowly through snow. These birds walk on their clawed toes rather than their shanks (feet) and keep at least one foot on the ground when they travel on the ground. They bend their legs in the middle at what looks like a knee, but really is an intertarsal joint (ankle). On solid ground, they can run up to 18-25 miles an hour; in snow, they creep.

Also pity the high-stepping, slower-running herring gulls when their inshore sea territory turns to snow-covered ice. (See the image in the Comment space.) But seagulls have some advantages: their webbed feet can act like snowshoes in snow and slush, they’re more comfortable with populated spaces, and they’re smarter than turkeys. (What mammal or bird isn’t?) In very cold weather, seagulls often descend on roofs, parking lots, or other surfaces that absorb and give off heat. (Images taken in Brooklin and Blue Hill, Maine, on February 5 and 6, 2026, respectively.)

In the Right Place: Seasonal Beauty

Here are February images of the iconic Conary Cove scene that we monitor monthly for the local records. The snow, ice and apparent cold shown here will only be distant memories by June or July.

But they’re very real now, and the little discomfort that they create is far outweighed by their addition of an intriguing layer of seasonal beauty to this always-picturesque little cove.

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

In the Right Place: Night and Day, You Are the Moon

The February has been cold, but generous with her sunlight and moonlight so far. Her full Snow Moon is waning, but still ample while getting more and more gibbous (“hunched”) as it loses sunlight. Here you see the moon rising over Blue Hill Bay on Tuesday evening:

Below,, you’ll see it going down over Great Cove as the sun is rising on Wednesday morning:

(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on February 3 and 4, respectively.)

In the Right Place: Lovely Mystery

This mysterious frozen sculpture appears bright in the sunlight on the Nub and glowing in the candlelight at night:

It gets you thinking.

Is it a reminder that Valentine’s Day is near? A memorial to someone who was loved? An inspiration from the statement that “God is Love,” as was Robert Indiana’s famous “LOVE” sculpture? Or just one of those exuberant and unexplainable artistic expressions?

This sculpture will never be famous, but it’s a good (and possibly needed) reminder for those of us who drive by of that incredible and mysterious thing called love. Thanks to its anonymous artist(s) and keepers. Click on the images to enlarge them. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 2 and 3, 2026).

In the Right Place: Snow Thrills

Here’s February’s full moon rising over the Naskeag peninsular Sunday, a big start for a short month. This full moon traditionally is called the Snow Moon, based on the Farmer’s Almanac records of mostly Native American terminology.

Native Americans, especially their children, loved to play in the snow, according to the literature. In fact, the toboggan sled reportedly originated from the Algonquin people; it originally was designed for hauling, but children used it for thrilling slides down snowy hills. The Lakota and Dakota children reportedly used sleds made from buffalo rib bones, leather, and wood for their winter thrills.  

With that history of wonderful times in mind, I thought I’d see what the Snow Moon would look like with one of today’s native (small “n”) Americans having similar fun on it:

(Real moon images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 1, 2026; merged image based on Leighton Archives material.)

In the Right Place: Fire Alarm

The first day of February decided to make a dramatic exit in flames yesterday. Here you see the beginning of the afterglow just as the sun descended below the horizon at Naskeag Point:

About five minutes later, the sky above Great Cove was still on fire:

The apparent irony is that cold winter air has less moisture and grit, so it produces hot colors. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 1, 2026.)