In the Right Place: Color Me Wet

Yesterday was sunny, as you see, but today it’s raining again as this is being written. We don’t need more rain.

Atlantic Storm Lee not only filled up our ponds to the brim, as you see here, it filled some of our bog areas, making them unusually wet for the fall season:

Our streams also are flowing strongly:

What this precipitation and moistness means for fall leaf coloration is being debated, with no consensus. We’ll have to do what we always do – we’ll wait and see. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 17, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Eerie & Cheery

As far as I can tell, the skirts of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Lee caused no major damage here yesterday. Part of the reason was that many protective measures were taken by residents and business owners along the Maine coast. We’ll use two images from the two sunny days prior to yesterday to illustrate and commemorate those measures.

Above, you see the almost eerie image of chrysanthemums and fall asters that were stored for protection inside shelters at Surry Gardens Nursery, like hidden jewels. Below , you’ll see the cheery images of a few of the many small boats that were brought ashore for protection at the WoodenBoat School, like displayed jewels:

(Images taken in Surry and Brooklin, Maine, on September 15 and 14, 2023.)

In the Right Place: So Far, So Good

We’ve experienced several short power outages and we’re subject to all sorts of weather alerts – wind, rain, flood, etc. We’ve had continual rain, but wind gusts generally have been under 40 miles per hour. So far at least, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Lee has not committed any outrageous act here in Brooklin, although at least one tree has come down across Naskeag Road:

The first image below is of Naskeag Harbor; the second is of Center Harbor. Both were taken within 10 minutes at about 8 a.m. today.

Note that there are no significant whitecaps. Fortunately, both Harbors are protected reasonably well from North winds, which is what we’re getting, and the tide is low.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 16, 2023.)

In the Right Place: A Short, But Fair, History

Here you see oxen in a distance-pulling contest at the Blue Hill Fair. The image appears in my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American.

To read the column about “country fairs” in Maine, click here: http://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: A Moment

Here are a few thoughts about one of the many moments of fog and rain that we’ve been having lately. I’m on the rain-swept waterfront where the fog was rolling in steadily.

The weak sun was trying to pierce the fog, but all it was able to do was produce an almost fluorescent glow. The scene was silent and there was a sense of solitude -- I and that fast-disappearing herring gull on the hoist were the sole signs of warm-blooded life.

The geometry of the Town Dock and Landing – its rectangles and rhomboids, cubes and columns – became dominant when the harbor and its boats vanished. The stolid shapes seemed to be the only things holding the moment together. There can be stability within change. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 11, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Fog-, Rain-, and Chill-In

The 34th annual Maine Windjammer Association Sail-In happened yesterday afternoon at WoodenBoat despite the fact that the weather converted it into a Fog-, Rain-, and Chill-In.

Nine windjammers and their remarkably happy passengers appeared: American Eagle (launched 1930); Angelique (1980); Grace Bailey (1882); Heritage (1983); J&E Riggin (1927); Ladona (1922); Lewis R. French (1871); Mary Day (1982), and Stephen Taber (1871).

American Eagle

American Eagle

Angelique

Angelique

Grace Bailey

Grace Bailey

Heritage

Heritage

J&E Riggin

J&E Riggin (Lewis R. French in background)

J&E Riggin and Mary Day

Ladona

Ladona

Lewis R. French

Lewis R. French

Mary Day (Lewis R. French in background)

Mary Day

Stephen Taber

Stephen Taber

Stephen Taber and Heritage

By mid-afternoon, the coastal cruisers were selecting anchorages and putting passengers ashore for a celebration:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 12, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Crop Predictions

Here you see the state of some of our “wild” (abandoned) apples on an ancient tree. This wild fruit usually has been a rough predictor of the annual cultivated apple crop from Maine’s well-tended orchards. And, the prediction from what we see is not good, nor are predictions from University of Maine specialists.

A late-August report from one of those specialists indicates states that extreme cold in February and late frosts in May have done serious harm to this year’s apple crop (and even more damage to the peach crop). One specialist estimated that the May frosts precluded more than half of the state’s expected apple crop from maturing, even though there were some orchards that suffered little or no damage.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 9 and 11, 2023.)  

In the Right Place: Imposters

Well, if you don’t have many Monarch Butterflies, maybe you’ll settle for Monarch mimics. Here you see a Viceroy Butterfly (Limenitis archippus) that visited us last week. It’s a mimic of the Monarch (Danaus plexippus) that also protects itself by signaling its toxicity. Both have colors and patterns that are virtually identical.

The Viceroy is smaller than the Monarch, but that may not be obvious when the two are not seen together. However, there is one small, but easily-observable, difference. As you’ll see if you compare the circled areas of this Viceroy with those on the archive image of a Monarch shown below it, only the Viceroy has a thin band across its hind wings.

The mimic is well-named. A “viceroy” in diplomatic circles is a replacement ruler that is exercising authority on behalf of a sovereign (e.g., monarch). The Viceroy Butterfly is known as a “Müllerian mimic” (named after scientist Fritz Müller) because it’s one of two or more toxic (or otherwise dangerous) species that mimic each other’s warnings of toxicity (or danger) to predators.

There also are “Batesian mimics” (named after scientist Henry Walter Bates), which are harmless species that mimic warning signals of harmful species. Before extensive research, the Viceroy Butterfly was thought to be a Batesian mimic, and some reports wrongly describe it as such. (Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 8, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Cult Items

It seems that improvements to mobile homes have been continuing steadily since horses dragged Native American tipis and wigwams around. Among the latest developments are miniaturized, often relatively luxurious, two- person mobile campers. They’re about the size of a two-person tent and are more wind-, rain-, and bear- resistant. However, they can cost anywhere from $5,000 for a basic to $20,000 for a luxury model.

The one that you see here is a T@B Teardrop camper with New York license plates that has been lighting up a WoodenBoat School campus field for a while. These well-designed two-person RVs, manufactured in Ohio, reportedly have become cult objects in some regions. They’re as compact as a pocket cruiser sailboat.

This Teardrop is 15’3” long, 6’8” wide, and 7’8” high, according to the manufacturer’s website. Among the many items listed in the “Basic Package” for the camper are a wet bath with a built-in sink, refrigerator, two-burner stove, outside shower, and an expandable split bed. Among the luxury options are air conditioning, central heat, and a Bluetooth® Media Center with a 19" TV.

Henry David Thoreau might be aghast (as am I, a little), but developments such as these may be allowing more and more people to enjoy and understand the importance of the outdoors. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 8 and 9, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Old and New

Here you see passengers of the schooner “Heritage” returning to her on Wednesday morning after touring the WoodenBoat School campus. She still has her tarps up from overnighting in Great Cove.

She soon had had her tarps stowed and her sails and anchor up. She sailed north into the wind, half in sunlight and half in the shadow of her own big sails, backlighted modestly to those of us stuck on shore:

The “Heritage” hails from Rockland, Maine, and is one of our largest schooners; she’s 145 feet long counting bowsprit with a 24-foot beam (widest part). Despite her name, she’s advertised as our “newest” coastal cruiser, having been built in 1983 for the tourist trade.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6, 2023.)

In the Right Place: T-Time

At least 20 Ford Model Ts were displayed yesterday at the WoodenBoat School. It was part of a show by the Down East Chapter of the Model T Ford Club of America, one of the largest chapters in the country.

The Model T was sold by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927, and was the earliest effort to make an automobile that most people in the rising middle class could afford. It revolutionized human culture, among other effects.

Why was it called the “Model T?” The answer is as straight-forward as Henry Ford and his methods: The first design of what was to be an affordable car was Model “A.”  By the twentieth design, Model T, the creators got what they hoped for.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine. on September 7, 2023.)

In the Right Place: A Dignified Lady

The dignified schooner “Grace Bailey” slipped into Great Cove for several hours yesterday.

She was launched in 1882 and now is out of Camden, Maine. She’s 118’ long with a nice broad beam:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Keeping Our Cool

Many of us consider summer to be over after Labor Day, but yesterday was so hot, humid, and hazy that it belonged in mid-August. It reached at least 86 degrees (F) here on the Brooklin peninsular and in nearby Blue Hill, according to the weather tellers. Today is supposed to be hotter. I suppose that we’re “Indian summer.”

The term “Indian Summer” is now recognized as an unseasonably warm, calm period of weather that occurs during autumn or winter. The origins of the phrase go at least back to early America, where a French visitor to Mohawk territory wrote this in January of 1778: “Sometimes, the rain is followed by an interval of calm and warm which is called the Indian summer.” Several researchers have speculated that he was referring to a period of unusually warm weather that allowed Native Americans to resume summer-like hunting in the fall or winter months.

Returning to the here and now, at least some of the scenery remained cool yesterday, including the almost-mountain Blue Hill rising above Blue Hill Bay, as you see above. (Image taken in Blue Hill on September 5, 2023.)

In the Right Place: An Ancient Art Used Today

Here you see a neighbor performing the ancient art of “sculling” off the back of a nutshell pram through the byways of a large lily pond on Sunday:

(Technically, he’s performing “one-oar sculling,” since “sculling” is a synonym for “rowing” and a “scull” is an oar; but, most people seem to call such one-oar propulsion “sculling” and call propulsion with two or more oars over the boat sides “rowing.”)

Sculling with a single oar off the transom (back end) of a boat involves propelling a vessel with a figure 8 or "falling leaf" motion. A proficient sculler, such as the one here, can maneuver boats intricately, bring them to a stop, and even scull them backwards. It’s a very good way to propel a boat in a delicate environment, if you know what you’re doing.

To preempt questions from sharp-eyed Brooklinites: “Yes,” that’s Jon Wilson, founder of WoodenBoat, and “Yes,” he’s in the WoodenBoat pond, where he has been trying to use humane diversions to thwart a family of energetic beavers. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 3, 2023, and published with permission.)

In the Right Place: Bear Sighting

This is Little Bear revisiting Great Cove yesterday. She’s a replica of a North Sea fishing trawler with ketch-rigged sails for stability, according to reports on her.

She’s quite different from the Maine vessel also designed for fishing that’s moored near her, a Friendship sloop named Belford Gray:

Research indicates that Little Bear was built in Scotland in 1964 and named after Ursa Minor (Latin for “lesser bear”), the northern sky constellation. She reportedly was built as a recreational vessel for a professor of classical arts at Cambridge University. That is, below deck she’s fitted for cozy human comfort, not oily, slithering fish. The last time that we checked, her home port was Rockport, Maine.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 2, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Monarch Mystery Theatre

Something strange seems to be going on. As of yesterday, our little butterfly bushes had monarch caterpillars on them, including the one shown here; the bushes have hosted monarch cats all summer. Yet, I’ve seen no monarch chrysalises here or in my favorite spots all summer.

AND, in general, I’ve seen relatively few butterflies, especially monarchs and swallowtails. I saw the female monarch shown below on Friday, and it was the first one I had seen in eight days. I have yet to see a swallowtail (tiger or black).

I wonder if it’s the above average rain and long-lasting fog that we’ve been having all summer. Increased numbers of wasp or other butterfly predators/parasites? (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 1 and 2, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Velvet

Here’s a wary young white-tailed buck yesterday before the camera click.

After the click, I got one more decent shot and then a good view of buck butt; here’s the decent view:

This buck is likely finished growing his antlers and soon will be shedding that velvet covering to reveal the hard bone. State wildlife reports document that Maine bucks usually begin growing antlers in April. The growing bones are encased within the velvety skin tissue and blood vessels that nurture them.

The velvet is shed when growth is complete in late August and September.  The hardened, polished antlers remain until they’re shed sometime in late December through early March, depending on conditions. A buck’s first true antlers usually appear at the end of his first year, but the nubbin bases for these bones usually appear on male fawns by one month of age, according to the reports.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 1, 2023.)

August Postcards From Down East Maine

August is high summer here in “Vacationland,” but we’re having one of our wettest summers ever this year. August was a monsoon-with-fog month in which the rainfall sometimes was a raging torrent and the fog often visually impenetrable.

Nonetheless, there were sunny days and they often were sparkling examples of great-to-be-alive experiences that will provide enough summer memories to carry us through the winter. We’ll begin here with those good times and note that, here on the coast, water always is a good place to start anything, especially if its glistening in a snug harbor or lazing under puffy stratocumulus clouds.

A positive side of having plenty of precipitation is that our streams flowed fast, our woods stayed lush, and our fields remained mostly green the entire month, unlike many previous Augusts.

Many of our homes here on the coast are hidden in the woods and accessed by very long driveways or country lanes that often are made of dredged “rotten rock”" or some other semi-soft surface. These drives and lanes can provide a soothingly beautiful homecoming. However, after the kinds of violent rains that we had in August, they also could become a jarring path of potholes. Many lanes got several new gradings, often the old-fashioned way.

Well, I suppose that we’ve come to the precipitation part of August. We had many days of plain gray rain, sometimes raging; plain gray fog, sometimes seemingly impenetrable; rain and fog combinations of gray variations, and dark days of fine drizzle in which some color shone through.

Some of our wildlife appeared to be affected by the August rains, especially some of the more delicate insects. It seemed that we saw fewer monarch butterflies, monarch caterpillars, and dragonflies than last August, and many of those that we saw were not in the best of shape. On the other hand, green frogs smiled contentedly in their full ponds.

Our larger winged migrants seemed to fare well. The three osprey nestlings that we monitored since spring fledged in August, although the youngest one sat in her nest alone for days (where her Dad fed her) before she dared to fly off. The great blue herons returned in good numbers this year and concentrated intensely on their fishing in August’s rain and sun without seeming to notice either.

Our major resident wildlife, white-tailed deer, seemed to have no problem with the weather, although the fawns sometimes needed reassuring neck hugs from loving Moms.

On the commercial waterfront, despite foul weather, the lobster season progressed acceptably through August, reportedly better than last year, not as good as the year before.

On the recreational waterfront, the passengers on the schooners and other classic coastal cruisers suffered in some of the bad weather. Sailing in the rain is different from dancing in it, but that show went on rain or shine. On the other hand, when the weather was glorious and the wind was up, there were few better places to be than sailing on a big-masted vessel in Maine waters.

On the educational waterfront, sailing lessons at the WoodenBoat School were not only inhibited by fog and rain, there was at least one day that the wind decided not to attend class and some sailors became rowers. But there were many good sailing days as well, even in fog and rain.

As you would expect, the Down East flora flourished in August’s dampness, especially mushrooms. In the berry aisle, wild blackberries ripened during the month, bunchberry remained bright, and viburnum berries grew profusely.

Water lilies and arrow arum had a good month, as did such August staples as thistle, Queen Anne’s lace, daisy fleabane, and goldenrod.

In the gardens, heather and yarrow stood up and tiger lilies parachuted down.

Finally, and perhaps most memorably, this August was a historic moon month. It had a magnificent full moon that began the month, a dramatic crescent moon in mid-month that lit up Great Cove (shown below), and a huge second (“blue”) moon that was a near-orbit “supermoon” in the early hours of its last day (also shown below). The next blue super moon will be in 2037. This may be the last one for some of us.

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during August 2023.)

In the Right Place: Interval

Most of yesterday’s weather was a fugue of thick and thin fog intervals with raging and light rains providing the counter-rhythms. When the fog and rain dominated, we were cocooned by gray and silver. When the fog rolled out and the rain slowed to a steady drizzle, some color crept back into our darkened day.

What you see above and below are images of one of the calmer intervals at Conary Cove yesterday, when the fog had rolled out and the rain was steady, but light:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on August 30, 2023.)

In the Right Place: The Devil Is in the Details

We seem to have more dragonflies flying around this month than butterflies. Here you see what I believe is a male Seaside Dragonlet (Erythrodiplax berenice), the only species of dragonfly in the Western Hemisphere capable of propagating in salt water:

Below, you’ll see one of the many species of small, red Meadowhawk Dragonflies that apparently were put on earth to drive me crazy trying to identify them:

I think it is a Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum internum), based on the black legs, colorless wings, and darker head.

There are several theories about how dragonflies got their names. A leading one is that the English name derives from the Romanian word for dragonfly, which translates to Devil’s Horse or Devil’s Fly. (“Drac” reportedly means “devil” in Romanian). The Romanian designation, in turn, apparently was inspired by the story of the devil changing St. George’s horse into a giant flying insect. (A horse-size insect is easy to identify, I bet.)

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 24 and 27, 2023.)