October here on the coast usually is our most colorful month and this year was no exception. However, this October was exceptionally dry and warmer than usual, which seemed to make the month’s color crescendo shorter and less intense than many in prior years. Nonetheless, the month was beautiful, as you’ll see.
We begin the Postcards, as usual, with images of the familiar scenes that we document monthly for seasonal records. In Brooklin, those are the views of Mount Desert Island from Amen Ridge and of the House on Harbor Island (which we show this month in sun and rainy fog):
In Blue Hill, we always document the iconic red boathouse in Conary Cove and Blue Hill, the almost-mountain, brooding above Blue Hill Bay:
October’s “fall foliage” this year was pleasant, sometimes subtly so, with occasional outrageous flares of color:
In the gardens and homes, the combinations of forms and fall colors were alluring, especially groupings of different varieties of plants showing glimmering colors in light rain.
Many of the ancient “wild” apple trees that produce fruit that’s never harvested lost their leaves early, but hung tightly onto their apples during the month, while a great variety of harvested apples were featured in the local supermarkets:
October (and September) is when fallow fields here are mowed to prevent their being taken over by fast-growing trees and brambles. Here are “before and after” images of an October field being mowed, as well as some of our local ponds and streams at their October best:
Among October’s variety of offerings were a few mornings of high winds that chased whitecaps in the coves, hard rains that created liquid explosions on rain chains, and a special sudden shower on a sunny day that produced an infinite rainbow:
On the fauna front, October is when the resident white-tailed deer, red squirrels, and common loons change their wardrobe and don dull gray winter coats, while winter bufflehead ducks arrive in white and black formal wear:
October also is the time when we see the last of our many migrating species, small and large, including great blue herons, monarch butterflies, greater yellowleg (and other) sandpipers, and Canada geese:
On the working waterfront, October is the last full month for “lobstering” for many fishermen (male and female). The fishing vessels come and go and some carry hauled-up lobster traps that soon will be trailered to storage as a season’s ending. Some of these boats and other seasonal working boats were pulled from the waters and put “on the hard” during the month.
On the sailing side, we saw our last windjammer in October, the “Angelique,” hosting a beach party early in the month before ending her season.
Other sailboats were being hauled out of the water and power-washed, drying in the sun, and causing traffic jams when being driven to their winter storage facilities:
Skiffs and other small boats were plentiful in the harbor waters during the first half of October, but also were being taken to their winter sheds during the second half of the month:
October, of course, is the Halloween month. It’s when we get some very strange tourists who dance in the woods, wear strange clothes or no clothes at all, and captain boats that sail day and night on grass; it’s also when pumpkins of varying types, some ghost-like, go on sale in supermarkets.
Finally, we consider the October sky. As our view of the setting sun moves south, the afterglows become more colorful, often a thick stroke of burnt orange:
The October Hunters’ Moon this year was a slowly developing supermoon that became — literally — fantastic:
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during October 2024.)