In the Right Place, Hanging On Category

Here you see one of our local “wild” apple trees that is older than 100 years trying to get some sun yesterday in the chilly morning.

Note that she’s still hanging onto a few apparently edible fruit, even though the morning temperature reached the day’s low of 31 degrees (F).

Below is another old, abandoned apple tree that is holding onto a few red apples.:

Apples are high in sugar and have a hard skin. They don’t start to freeze until the temperatures fall to about 28-28.5 degrees for several days, according to the literature. On the other hand, the reports indicate that temperatures of 22 degrees and below will freeze the apples solid, breaking down their cells into something that you probably wouldn’t want to eat.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 14, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Golden Fog Category

 Here you see one of the last of this year’s fully fall-foliaged Tamarack trees, just before several days of torrential rains and strong winds scattered the trees’ needles in what sometimes looked like tumbling wisps of golden fog.

Rest in peace, Tamaracks. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 11, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Weather Drama Category

Yesterday afternoon, after a night and morning of howling winds and sheeting rain, the sun inched sideways through crowded clouds, the temperature rose into the humid 60’s (F), and mists steamed through the softened woods.

As the sun went down over Great Cove in the evening, the clouds were crowding again, preparing to bring the rain that again came to us last night and this morning.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 12, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Bringing Them In Category

Lobster fishermen continue to winddown their season at Naskeag Harbor, bringing in their traps to be trailered to winter storage.

One technique, shown above, is to place their trailers in Naskeag Point’s shallow water as the tide is coming in and run their boats up on the shore next to them. The traps then can be transferred to the trailers without hoisting and the emptied boats can later slip away in the higher water of the incoming tide.

A fully-loaded trailer of traps — colorful rectangles within rectangles — can be a work of abstract art to those with a little imagination:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9 [on pier] and 11 [on shore], 2022.)

In the Right Place: Strange Traditions Category

This image of a Wild Turkey appeared yesterday in my monthly column in the Ellsworth American.

To read the column about the origins of the strange Turkey-On-Thanksgiving Tradition, click this: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place, Weather or Not Category

We live on a ridge overlooking the wooded islands of Eggemoggin Reach, a windy channel that starts as an offshoot of Penobscot Bay to our north and empties into the Atlantic Ocean to our south.

As you might expect, weather is a factor in our lives here. As you might not expect, one of the best predictors of our weather happens to be a mountain about seven miles out to sea, which we can view (sometimes) on our south-south-west horizon.

On a clear day, such as yesterday, we see Mount Champlain on Isle au Haut (“High Island”) looming into our view from the sea behind some of the Reach islands. Her presence is one of the first things that we check for in the morning. When we can’t see her, it usually means that bad weather is on the way or already here.

For eons, Isle au Haut reportedly was a popular summer fin-fish and shellfish harvesting island for the Wabanaki tribes of Native Americans. It was put on European maps under its French name in 1604 by its “discoverer,” Samuel Champlain, the famous French explorer of Northeast America. After their Revolution, newly “American” farmers, fishermen, and boatbuilders claimed and began “settling” the island; they soon established a robust community.

In 1943, heirs of the founders of that community donated about 60 percent of the Island to Acadia National Park for its preservation (and maybe in hopes of attracting nature-loving tourists). To this day, Park officials manage that part of the Island and the entire island has become a popular summer tourist attraction. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Pollution Sponging Category

Below you’ll see images of yesterday’s sunset, as viewed from within a polite crowd of mostly spruce and balsam fir trees. The images were inspired by an article in yesterday’s Boston Globe on an important new report relating to New England’s forests, which are sponging-up tens of millions of tons of carbon-based greenhouse gas pollutants annually. The report urges policy makers to increase the trees’ protective roles by taking certain dramatic actions.

Titled “New England’s Climate Imperative: Our Forests as a Natural Solution,” the important report was produced by Harvard Forest, the University’s 4000-acre laboratory-classroom, and two environmental groups. It details the carbon benefits of five complementary pathways that, taken together, “can greatly enhance the forests’ contributions to mitigating climate change.” These five pathways are:

·         Avoided Deforestation: Change developmental practices to reduce annual rates of deforestation by 75 percent.

·         Wildland Reserves: Designate at least 10 percent of existing forests as forever wild.

·         Improved Forest Management: Apply better management to 50 percent of timberlands.

·         Mass Timber Construction: Replace concrete and steel with wood in 50 percent of eligible new institutional buildings and multifamily homes.

Urban and Suburban Forests: Increase tree canopy and forest cover by at least 5 percent in urban and suburban areas.

To read the Harvard release on the report, click this: https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/news/report-informs-policy-making-process-detailing-how-forests-contribute-climate-change-mitigation

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 8, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Splitting and Stacking Category

Many Mainers are now splitting and stacking wood to burn in their fireplaces and wood stoves this winter. In some residences, wood is the primary source of heat, and the number of such homes reportedly has been expanding in Northern New England. The increasing costs of heating oil and heating gas are a big part of that story. Split wood and wood pellets are relatively inexpensive, especially if you do your own splitting.

Another reason for the increase in wood heating is that modern wood stoves must have federally-regulated emission controls, which considerably lessens the guilt factor of burning wood. These stoves also come in a variety of modern and traditional styles. Here’s an example from the Leighton Archives:

Leighton Archive Image

The latest Census data that I could find, as analyzed by the Alliance for Green Heat, show that, as of 2019, Vermont was the state that had the largest percentage of homes heated primarily from wood. Maine was second, followed, in order, by New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, and New Hampshire. (Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Loudmouth Category

Here you see the leader of a band of Blue Jays that recently has been marauding bird feeders and acting like impolite loudmouths in the quiet woods around here.

As with other members of their Corvid family (e.g., Crows and Ravens), Blue Jays are smart, but have a few bad habits. Nonetheless, Blue Jays perform a very important environmental function – they are prodigious acorn hiders, each bird reportedly planting thousands of potential oak trees a year.

Some of our Blue Jays migrate south in the winter, but most of them reportedly stay over the winter, bothering their neighbors and trying to find the acorns that they stored.

There are four subspecies of Blue Jays in the United States, The ones in Maine (and Canada) are the Northern Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata bromia), the largest subspecies. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 3, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Uncertainty Category

This year’s disappointing lobster season is winding down. The lobsters have started their annual winter migration to deeper waters and the fishermen (male and female) are bringing in traps for winter storage:

The fishermen also are working fewer days, which gives us more opportunities to view their handsome vessels in late-fall light:

However, the potential long-term effects of Climate Change on lobsters, the immediate effects of inflation on fishing costs, and pending regulations that will require expensive new equipment that may or may not protect endangered North Atlantic Right Whales make the future of sustainable lobster fishing increasingly uncertain. These are troubling times.

Lobster fishing is more than a job to most fishermen and more than a tourist attraction to many of us who live on the Maine coast; it’s a cultural heritage. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 31 and November 1, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Beaver Deceiver Category

Here you see part of a Beaver Deceiver™ system that was just installed on the WoodenBoat campus to protect a culvert under the only road into the campus.

The culvert carries the water from a stream, under the road, and into a large pond – except when beavers dam up the culvert, the stream rises, and the road is washed out.

Rather than kill its beavers, WB had for years humanely trapped and relocated them. Here’s an image of one from the Leighton Archives:

 And, for years, new beavers arrived to carry on their kind’s mission. Taking beavers for a ride is a very short-term solution, especially with the beaver population increasing.

Beaver Deceiver systems such as this include culvert-protecting fences and protected pond-leveling pipes. They allow the beavers to stay in their area and do their damning on the protective fences or elsewhere if they wish, but the pipe keeps the stream flowing and the water level from rising. A similar system was installed in Acadia National Park.

Left to their damming activities in natural areas, the beavers are a demonstrated net plus for the environment and man. It’s good to see a solution to an interaction problem that recognizes this, allows us to continue to see beavers, and allows beavers to continue to do their important thing. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 5, 2022, and May 13, 2017.)

In the Right Place, Normality Category

Yesterday’s U.S. Drought Monitor reported for the first time in a long time that Maine finally was free of any abnormally dry or drought conditions. That’s what the federal government’s latest meteorological and hydrological measurements showed, as of  November 1, 2022:

As you see from the above tabulation, only one year prior (November 2, 2021), the Monitor reported that 27.58 percent of Maine’s land area was abnormally dry, 11.82 percent was experiencing moderate drought, and 6.56 percent was experiencing severe drought.

Above and below, you see recent images of a brimming marsh pond and a burbling woods stream that I monitor several times a week.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 1 [pond] and 3 [stream], 2022.)

In the Right Place, Lumps and Bumps Category

I keep saying that our amphibians have gone into their winter hideaways, yet I almost stepped on this little fellow yesterday. (Sex assumed.) He, of course, is a well-camouflaged Eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus anaxyrus americanus), warts and all.

Actually, those lumps and bumps are not warts. They’re glands of toxic substances that the toad secretes as protection when it feels in danger. The biggest bumps behind the eyes are its paratoid glands, which apparently are the amphibian’s most lethal toxic goo secreters:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 2, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Golden Revelations Category

Here and there, the Tamarack Trees have decided to reveal their hiding places, as you see from this image taken yesterday:

November 1, 2022

They’re late coming out here this year; in prior years, many more were in full incandescence by this time:

November 1, 2018

Perhaps our dry summer delayed the process.

Tamaracks are green-needled in the spring and summer, and often are impossible to distinguish at a distance when they arise among Spruce and Balsam Fir Trees. As are those other trees, Tamaracks are coniferous; that is, they produce and drop cones for propagation.

However, Tamaracks are thinner and wirier than their cousins and – most important – they’re not evergreen. They’re deciduous and, in the fall, their true nature is disclosed when they quickly turn yellow and drop their needles like golden rain.

“Tamarack” reportedly is the Algonquin Tribe’s name for one of the tree’s uses by Native Americans: “snowshoe wood.” Nonetheless, the tree also is commonly called a “Hackmatack” (the Abanaki Tribe’s name) or a “Larch” (from Latin and German names for European pine-like trees). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine.)

October Postcards From Maine

October is one of the more sensational months here on the Down East Coast. It begins with fall foliage that gets better and better as the month goes on then implodes with a cascade of falling colorful leaves. It ends with Halloween, a time of pretended fear and real fun. And, in between, there is the exhilaration of a changing season.

The foliage this October was about average, which means it was beautiful. The colors ranged widely from the reds of blueberry fields to the burnished golds of maple trees, all of which were sometimes transformed dramatically by fog, rain, and the magic light of sunrise. And, of course, the chrysanthemums always delivered their promise.

Sheets of rain and blankets of fog this October overcame the abnormal dryness that has plagued us for over a year. The brooks were gurgling, the ponds were brimming, and freshness pervaded the balsam-scented woods.

The Winterberry fruits this rainy October were more bountiful than they have been for decades, as were the bunched Mountain Ash berries. Unfortunately, so were the yellow husks and red berries of the very invasive Asian Bittersweet vines.

October and September are mowing months. Many of our fields are left fallow for spring and summer wildflowers and wildlife, but need to be mowed annually to prevent their being taken over by such quick-growing things as raspberry bushes and young conifers.

As for our fauna, the heavier, gray winter coats of our White-Tailed Deer are growing in well as are the darker winter coats of Red Squirrels. We still had well-camouflaged Garter Snakes and American Toads slithering and hopping among the fallen leaves in October, but they seemed to disappear into their winter hideaways before the end of the month.

On the waterfront, many of our lobstermen (male and female) were winding down their season in October — bringing in their traps for winter storage and working fewer days. The lobster season was a disappointment this year, especially compared to last year’s record prices and catches.

Recreational boats also continued to be stored in boatsheds for the winter or wrapped in protective plastic during the month.

Of course, October may be best known for its last evening, Halloween. Decorations for Halloween appeared very early in the month and the annual Brooklin Elementary School Halloween parade took place, as usual, on the last school day before the spooky eve.

Finally, October’s less humid, colder air and our shifting view of the sun brings the first of our colorful winter sunsets and their afterglows.

(All above images were taken in Brooklin, Blue Hill and North Sedgwick, Maine, during October 2022.)

In the Right Place, Bedding Category

White-Tailed Deer spend an astounding amount of time bedded down – about 70 percent of their lives, according to researchers. The two shown here were bedded in our North Field when I got within telephoto sight of them early one morning last week; one arose immediately, both were gone in seconds:

White-Tails often groom themselves in bed and relax there while their four stomachs are digesting what they have browsed. Unlike many other grazers and browsers, they don’t sleep standing. Typically, they lay down in a semi- or full curl, with legs folded next to or under them, ready to spring up and gallop at a moment’s notice.

The studies show that the deer get their energizing “sleep” by nodding off into a light doze for short periods, often only seconds. Sometimes, they sleep with eyes closed, sometimes with them open. Their ears and nose, however, always remain in the “on” mode, sensitively tuned to pick up anything unusual nearby.

I saw this doe bedded at dawn, asleep:

She suddenly arose, apparently sensing me, although I was hidden down-wind. She apparently never saw me, but abandoned her bed and walked away briskly, making me feel guilty for having disturbed her dreams. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 26 and 28, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Winter's Gifts Category

Here you see the afterglow from Friday’s sunset over Great Cove. The evening skies are starting to get more complex and colorful now as colder, less humid air moves in.

The most dramatic sunsets here occur in November through February, with the peak somewhere in the middle of that period. Why?

The explanation begins with the full rainbow of light waves that the sun always emits. At sunset, those rays are lower relative to us and, therefore, have to travel farther from our star through the atmosphere to light up what we see. For reasons we need not get into now, that longer distance apparently means that more blue and green light is filtered out before we see it. This means that we see things lighted by more red and orange light at sunset. But, there’s more.

Because the light is traveling farther at sunset, it is blocked  by more of the miniscule “aerosols” in the air. These are chemicals from various sources, including human-caused pollution, wind-whipped dust, and vegetation emissions. These impurities attract water (they’re “hydroscopic”), which swells them. Less water swelling due to less humidity means more room for non-scattered light to get through to us. But, there’s still more.

In the winter, especially here in the Northeast, a good portion of our air originates in the icy Arctic, which has cleaner air due to fewer trees, less dust, and scant, if any, industrial pollution. Fewer impurities mean more light. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 28, 2022.)

In the Right Place, Small Town Category

The Brooklin Elementary School Halloween parade wound its way along Bay Road from the school to the General Store yesterday with the usual protective firetrucks in front and back. The marchers scared no one, pleased all, and reminded cynics what old-fashioned community fun looks like.

The annual marchers include not only the students, but their teachers, school staff, some parents, and anyone else who feels like joining the costumed crowd. Nonetheless and as usual, the incredibly cute little tykes got most of the attention.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 28, 2022.)

In the Right Place: Pleasant, Vibrant, Exuberant

Here you see yesterday morning’s sunlight passing pleasantly through a stand of spruce and fir trees. The trees, their trunks wet to the touch, seem proud at having survived the night’s sheeting rain and turbulent winds; the soaked sphagnum moss at their feet, now fully quenched, gives thanks of the vibrant kind.

Our drought conditions have disappeared, at least temporarily. Yesterday’s U.S. Drought Monitor reports that Maine’s water levels are back to normal, except for a relatively tiny spot (0.15%) of abnormal dryness at the tip of our Southeast border, in the Kittery area:

Several days of torrential rains have replenished groundwater and given wooded brooks an exuberance that we’ve not seen and heard for quite some time:  

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 27, 2022.)

In the Right Place: A Blast from the Present

Wild Winterberry fruits here seem to be more bountiful this year than in decades. Some of our shrubbed roadsides look as if they are in the process of being blasted by a shotgun loaded with large red pellets.

Many of the Winterberry leaves have now fallen and, on rainy days such as yesterday, their beaming berries in the gray gloom can be jaw-dropping:

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is native to Maine and grows wild here in acidic soils, especially those that are damp or wet, such as roadside embankments and marsh edges.  The plant’s berries are among the last to be eaten by birds in the winter, apparently because they are less nutritious than the other foods that are consumed first.

However, the winterberry fruits are reported to be the ultimate survival foods for late-wintering American robins, bluebirds, brown thrashers, cardinals, catbirds, cedar waxwings, grosbeaks, and thrushes, among other birds. Mice and raccoons also reportedly have been seen gobbling the berries in winter.

For humans, it’s another story: The uncooked berries may be poisonous to some of us and our pets. However, with thorough cooking, winterberry fruit reportedly can make a good jelly or jam – but check the safety for yourself before you try it. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 26, 2022.) See also the image in the first Comment space.