In the Right Place: Severity

Here you see an image taken last week of a bog that usually is a good-sized vernal pool by now. Despite numerous rain and snow showers since late February, a long-term drought of varying intensity persists for much of the Northeast.

We here on the Down East coast have been in the “Long-Term,” “Severe Drought” category since last summer, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor:

The hope is that we’ll at least improve to “Moderate Drought” by end of spring. Seems to me that’s a pathetically weak hope, as hopes go. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 13, 2026.)

In the Right Place: A Piering Locally

Our two most renowned piers stand patiently in March on their ancient granite pillars. They’re unfinished roads to nowhere now, with their floating docks disengaged and stored on land.   But they provide faint memories of summer and boats and ropes and the mixed sounds of lapping water, creaking gangways and warm weather laughter.

Above is the Brooklin Boat Yard pier and shed in Center Harbor. Below, you’ll see the WoodenBoat pier and boathouse in Great Cove:  

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 10 and 13, 2026.)

In the Right Place: The Heat Pump Plant

It snowed again last night, and now we’re getting ice-cold rain. But the eastern skunk cabbage plants don’t mind; they’re born with built-in heat pumps. More on their thermodynamics later.

Skunk cabbage spathes have been surfacing through snow, ice, standing bog water and frozen ground for at least a week here. Most plants have sported the common purple-red and red-mottled spathes, as shown above. However, we’re also getting a few of the uncommon yellow-spathed varieties:

As usual, these are the year’s first flowering annual plants to break ground. A cluster ball of pinhead-sized flowers (a “spadix”) is hidden inside the jester-hat-like spathes:

Leighton Archive Image

This amazing plant (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of a very few plants that has evolved the ability to metabolically generate considerable internal heat. It uses intense cellular respiration to convert starch into heat-energy. Skunk cabbages have been reported to have raised the temperature of the flowers in their spathes to 71.6˚ F (22˚C), even when the surrounding temperatures are freezing.

This heat enables the plants to get a jump on competitive plants before true spring arrives.  Being warm and cozy is thought to attract and shelter the earliest pollinators, which crawl into the side openings of the spathes for a little refreshment (nectar and pollen), as well as protection from the elements. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 12 and 13, 2025, except as noted.)

In the Right Place: Advice Worth Bearing in Mind

This image of a black bear appears with my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American. The column is my annual report on last year’s human fatalities from black bears and the latest advice from experts on what to do if you encounter a black bear. Click on the image to enlarge it. To read the column, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: In Shop and Shed

Above, you see the two boats now being constructed in the Brooklin Boat Yard shop, both designed by BBY designers. The racing sailboat in the foreground is DYLAN, an Eggemoggin 47+ (47’ 6” overall); it’s the third of its type to be built so far at BBY. In the background, you’ll see a power boat; she’s going to be a custom 47’ Express Cruiser. She may not have a name yet.

Meanwhile, in the old BBY storage shed, small boats and mooring gear await their return to the water in late spring and early summer, when Brooklin begins to bustle:

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

In the Right Place: Crimes of Dispassion

Here you see the fleeing sun committing aerial arson after it burned off most of the snow in the fields Monday. Below, you’ll see the sun briefly returning to the scene of the crime this morning.

I hear that he’s going to be in his hideout most of today. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 9 and 11, 2026.)

In the Right Place: White Flight

Above and below are images of Conary Cove before the snow and sea ice melted away in the past couple of days. I hope they’re the last images I take in March of the beautiful Cove wearing a white shawl. But history warns that they might not be.

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 5, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Turkey Troubles

Recent warmer weather and rains have melted much of the snow down, easing somewhat the troubles our wild turkeys have been having finding food.Above, you see a mature bird that was part of a group (a “rafter”) of turkeys that was foraging in turkey-accessible snow last week. Below, you’ll see one of the group’s immature turkeys trying to keep up.

When the ground is covered with snow, wild turkeys try to eat tree buds, conifer needles, dried berries, mosses, lichens, and seeds from weed stalks. They also rely on stored body fat, scratch through shallow snow for hidden acorns and nuts, and scavenge agricultural fields. Sometimes they lose a feather or two in the process:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 6, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Dressing for the Weather

March often can’t make up her mind about what weather she’s going to wear. Yesterday, she tried on one fog after another, including famous brand fogs such as Fogs by Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach Fogs, Ltd., even Fogs Are Us. 

Then, she decided to try different styles of rain instead of fog, such as drizzle drapes and wet wraps. Next, she tried wearing fog with an accent of rain and then wearing rain with hints of fog.

This went on all day! She drove her snow audience mad, much of which snuck away during her antics. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 7, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Inn-Side Story

As you can see, snow doesn’t become the Brooklin Inn, at least old, plowed snow. But everything else about the Inn’s winter season has been fine. The Inn, a community hub, has operated as an inn and restaurant since the 1980s.

The structure was built in the 1920s as a private residence and now features guest rooms, a pub, restaurant (with dining expanded to a screened porch in summer), and outdoor dining in the summer. Its current owners took over in 2019 and introduced a fine food menu and good wine list, which seem to be doing well. Try the halibut.

 (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 4 and 5, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Ice-Orama

Blue Hill Bay was still mostly iced-in yesterday, although some of it is melting. Above, you see the Bay view of the near-mountain called Blue Hill. Below, you’ll see the Bay where it greets Mill Stream:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 5, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Exaggerations Anonymous

Images of parts of Brooklin’s two largest boatbuilding operations are shown in this post. Brooklin is the self-proclaimed “Boatbuilding Capital of the World.” This may be somewhat of an exaggeration, but there is considerable reason to be proud of Brooklin’s maritime craftsmen (male and female).

There are at least seven or eight fairly substantial boat-designing and boatbuilding operations in Brooklin, plus the WoodenBoat School (where students build boats under the direction of experts). There also is an unrecorded number of individual master boatbuilders.

Above, you see Brooklin Boat Yard’s four-story main construction shop/shed. It reportedly is 120-feet-long and 60-feet-wide. Inside, it has a huge full-height bay designed for building, repairing and restoring large custom vessels. It’s here that BBY blends classic wooden craftsmanship with modern technology and composite materials to make extraordinary (and often very expensive) yachts and other boats.

Below, you’ll see some of the heated storage and work buildings of Brooklin’s Atlantic Boat Company. Some of these building doors are 28 feet high to accommodate tall sailboats and flybridge cruisers without removing masts, Bimini tops, or hardtops. ABC designs, builds, maintains and repairs fiberglass Down East-style lobster boats, commercial vessels, and yachts.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 1, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Beauty Pollution

March delivered her first real snowstorm overnight. It was a beauty, but we don’t need more of that kind of beauty. I’m beginning to think that there’s a beauty pollution phenomenon – just too much of a good thing.

Nonetheless, as you see, Great Cove and Eggemoggin Reach beyond were stunningly gorgeous at first light this morning. Even the woods, before sunlight stroked them, were a study in shadowed beauty:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 4, 2026.)

In the Right Place: WoodenBoat in Winter

The 64-acre WoodenBoat campus seems to be asleep in winter, especially to those of us who know its summer energy, creativity, and bustle. The campus was originally developed in 1916 as a prosperous family estate and bought by Jon Wilson’s WoodenBoat Publications in 1980.

The WoodenBoat Publications building in winter, shown above, usually contains a few people working during business hours on their renowned maritime-oriented publications. Storekeepers also usually are active on weekdays in the WoodenBoat Store, shown below, which reportedly sells most of its popular WoodenBoat-branded materials and related items online.

The separate (but related) WoodenBoat School, established by Jon in 1981, is the reason for most of the summer activity on the campus. It offers unique, hands-on courses in wooden boat building, design, blacksmithing, seamanship and many other maritime-related activities. 

The big brick WBS Workshop (aka Boat Shop),shown above, is not active in winter. This old horse stable now houses classrooms for many of the courses. The historic white house to the left of the Boat Shop in the image is “The Farmhouse.” It originally was “home” for caretakers of the original estate; now, it’s one of the buildings where WBS students lodge.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 1 and 2, 2026.) Click on the images to enlarge them.

In the Right Place: March, Don’t Run

March, the bringer of spring, arrived yesterday and made it clear that she was not yet in shape to present spring to us. She still had the winter chills and suffered an insignificant bout of snow in the morning. Fortunately, she sunned up and, by afternoon, she was able to deliver a golden hour worthy of a new month.

Fortunately, I was walking along Hope Lane then, where I could watch the shadows of afternoon growing long and catch a peek of the seemingly falling sun.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 1, 2026.)

February Postcards From Down East Maine

February is our shortest month, but this February also may have been our snowiest month of the winter. The month included our first blizzard of the year, which arrived in swirls of snowflakes being tormented by high-speed wind gusts. It looked like we were in a white dust storm, as you can see from this usually tranquil view of Conary Cove during what probably will become known as The Blizzard of ‘26:

Between snowstorms, we had interludes of classic winter weather that restored tranquil beauty to Conary Cove and the other iconic scenes that we record monthly — the near-mountain called Blue Hill, the vista of Mount Desert Island from Amen Ridge in Brooklin, and the summer house on Harbor Island overlooking Naskeag Harbor:

The snows of February transformed the landscape, especially the trees and bushes, during and after snowfalls:

Sea ice cluttered our bays, except at the mouths of large streams where rushing fresh waters fought the ice:

Typical Down East structures — from old boat houses, to large colonial inns, to small worksheds, to connected houses — also seemed to vary their moods with the February weather:

As you may have noticed, the paved public roads were kept well plowed during February, as were the unpaved private lanes that led to residences:

The snow in the flora may have been beautiful, but the winter fauna struggled to find food in it. Our white-tailed deer had to browse at dusk and dawn on exposed buds and wooden growth and our porcupines had to become snowplows to get food:

Wild turkeys roamed the plowed roads rather than try to plod through deep snow, nocturnal barred owls were forced to hunt in the day in residential gardens because they couldn’t hear and catch their prey under the relatively deep snow in fields, and our tough seagulls often stayed huddled on sea ice.

On the waterfront, vessels that dragged for scallops or that were used by divers to hand-harvest them and sea urchins stayed in the cold water. Others were spending their winter “on the hard” in varying stages of dress, and still others were being transported naked from indoor storage to the Brooklin Boat Yard to be painted for the upcoming sailing season.

Of course, February 14 is Valentine’s Day. For the many Maine outdoor enthusiasts, some of our artistic residents carved coastal hearts out of sea ice and lit them up with candles at night. My monthly column in the Ellsworth American was about Valentine gifts and featured a composite image of some of them, and a Love Card shop suddenly popped up in Blue Hill. Also, Santa hung around so that we could celebrate the gifting times of Christmas and Valentines’s Day simultaneousy.

The various phases of the moon in February were at times extraordinary, especially the month’s full moon. It’s known traditionally as The Snow Moon, a title that certainly was apt this year:

February usually is the last month for spectacular, warm-colored winter sunsets and afterglows and this year’s month followed that tradition:

And so, we say good bye to February of 2026. However, we’re still having a wonderful time and wish you were here.

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during February of 2026, except the composite images that related to Valentine’s Day and the moon, in which some Leighton Archives images were merged.)

In the Right Place: Want to See Red?

I’m giving you time to mark your calendars and get prepared, fellow lunar-tics: There will be an uncommon full lunar eclipse – a Blood Full Moon – visible from the United States on Tuesday, March 3. The next one will be in 2028. It probably will look like this one from a prior year:

The eclipse will be early in the morning and low in the western sky as the moon sets. Those on Eastern Standard Time reportedly will be able to see it in its full, blood red phase at a few minutes before and after 6 a.m. (The reddening/darkening, caused by the scattering of blue light waves, is scheduled to start at about 4:50 a.m.) The full eclipse will be very low in the sky and best seen over the ocean. The image shown here is a composite image from the Leighton Archives.

In the Right Place: Sunlight Becomes You

Sunlight becomes working boats, even when they’re not working. Here you see ALL-IN being struck by a sun ray in Naskeag Harbor. She’s flying an international diving flag, but I’m not sure whether she’s a platform for scallop or sea urchin diving.

Bleow, you’ll see the mummified commercial vessels in the Surry wharf area soaking up the rays:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24 [water] and in Surry, Maine, on February 11 [land], 2026.)

In the Right Place: Mountaineering

We had more snow yesterday. February may be our shortest month, but it may prove to be our snowiest month this year. Our driveway has been plowed so many times that our faithful plow trucker has been having trouble finding space to put all the cleared snow.

Moreover, all the plowing on the roads around here has created mini-mountain ranges of snow along many roadsides. As you see here, these sometimes are higher than a wild turkey’s eye and sometimes induce these birds to walk along the roads to avoid mountain climbing:

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2026.)

In the Right Place: Interludes

We’re about to get more snow, but we’ve been lucky so far. The sunny scenes of new snow in the interludes between snowstorms have almost been worth the inconvenience that the winds and white stuff cause.  

By the time that the Blizzard of ’26 got here on the Down East coast, it seemed like a lumbering giant who had already spent his dangerous rage and had decided to make amends with more of an act of beautification than of devastation. My heart goes out to those who had to suffer the uncontrolled rage. We were fortunate, as we often are.

When the sun greeted the Blizzard’s new snow yesterday, a beautiful tranquility was restored. Below, you’ll see the long view to Mount Desert Island from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge. yesterday, as well as the scene (and perhaps the sense) of what it was like in a stand of spruce trees with dappled new snow all around.

But, of course, we now have to worry about what this afternoon’s predicted snowstorm’s mood will be. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2026.)