In the Right Place: Sweet Times

It’s maple sap collection time. When temperatures are below freezing at night and above freezing (preferably in the 40s F) during the day, the thawing creates enough pressure to allow sap to flow by gravity out of a tapped tree. Here you see part of the process at work yesterday on the big maples in front of the Friend Memorial Public Library:  

Maple syrup can be made from the sap of any maple tree, but the highest sugar concentration is found in – you guessed it – sugar maples. Nowadays, it seems that most maple sap is collected here with a plastic tubing system that can be connected to multiple trees. The clear, sweet sap in the tubes drains drop-by-drop by gravity into a large, central collection container located at a lower level.

The traditional way of collecting maple sap to make maple syrup is to bore a hole into the tree and hammer a metal spike-like spout (a “spile”) into the hole, A can or bucket is then hung on the spout to collect the dripping sap. This process requires tending to each tree and its bucket individually, rather than having a central collection container fed by tubes on multiple trees.

Leighton Archive Image

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 26, 2024, except as indicated.)

In the Right Place: Inappropriate Winter Landscapes

Here are two February scenes that Andrew Wyeth probably would not choose to paint as Maine winterscapes. This one involves a super-high tide at Naskeag Point that actually got an inch or two higher than what you see; however, apparently no harm was done.

(Fishermen here usually come to work with a small boat on a trailer and use that skiff/dingy to motor to/from their vessel in the harbor.)

Below you’ll see our two-person L.L. Bean kayak wintering on the bank of Great Cove during low tide. The kayak has a color scheme that looks like slatherings of ketchup and mustard – not exactly the decor best suited for guests who get seasick. The lost lobster buoys and other nautical gear under the kayak provide different additional colors that seem outrageous in a winter landscape. (We collect this flotsam from the beach and notify any identified owners to come and get their gear, which they often don’t.)

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12 and 17, 2024.)

In the Right Place: The Moon of Many Names

Here you see February’s full moon rising over the mountains on Mount Desert Island yesterday evening. As usual, while viewed at a long, low angle through Earth’s lowest (and dirtiest) layer of atmosphere, the moon appeared as an irregular molten globule.

As it rose into the stratosphere, it began to take on its familiar geometric shape:

Once it reached a good sailing height, it was polished silver by the sun’s full light:

This full moon commonly is called The Snow Full Moon or The Hunger Full Moon, based on Native American names for the weather and scarcity of food at the time around what White people called February. Perhaps we also should call this particular full moon the Odysseus Full Moon in honor of the United States spacecraft that landed autonomously in the moon’s south pole region two days before (Thursday, February 22).

As you may know, yesterday’s full moon also is called a “micro moon,” which is the opposite of a “supermoon.”  That is, it was passing Earth at the farthest distance in its orbit (its “apogee”), making it the smallest type of full moon we see with the unaided eye. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 24, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Extremes

Inlets here are among the most dynamic places, especially during recent winters when we’ve had extreme weather changes. Here you see one of our favorite inlets during a lowering tide in Great Cove on a cold day this month:

This is a place where Native Americans sheltered and drank from its meandering stream. Sea birds still shelter in and around there during bad weather.

On the day that this image was taken, as you can see, the sand, pebbles, and sea grasses there were sheeted with sea ice that had a thin covering of snow. Three days earlier, during a much warmer time, we had a super-high tide that flowed into the inlet and devoured the stream:

We expect a huge tide today with the arrival of the full moon.  (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11 and 14, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Those Were the Days

Part of this structure was Naskeag Schoolhouse No. 1 – the 19th Century part with the symmetrical roof and nice tucked- back roof ends (known as “cornice returns” or “eaves returns”). The shed attached to the structure’s left side apparently was added sometime after the schoolhouse closed in 1937, when the building was converted into an automobile repair garage. Axles replaced axioms.

I haven’t been able to pin down exactly when this schoolhouse was built, but records indicate that Brooklin had nine one-room schoolhouses in 1849 and this may have been one. By 1900, the schoolhouses were numbered 1 through 9, and this one apparently was included. Why so many schools? So children could walk to school from home.

There was no electricity originally in these schools; students read by sunlight and kerosene lamp light. A wood-burning stove provided heat and parents originally contributed stove wood until the Town budgeted for that expense. Due to the lack of regular transportation, teachers often lodged in nearby homes and also walked to school.

The International truck to the right of the structure also appears to have some age on it, based on its headlights. I wonder if it was built before 1986, when International Harvester Company became Navistar International. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Night and Day

February sunsets and afterglows from Great Cove ridge are not as spectacular as those in December and January when the sun is lower and more southerly to our view. But the more subtle February day-enders can be very satisfying. They often have delicate nodes of pale green and yellow intersecting above a burnt orange base, as you see in this image of Tuesday’s afterglow:

On the other hand, high noon on a clear February day can be an almost painful, eye-squinting experience when the snow glares back at the sun and millions of pieces of shattered mirror float on the sea. See the image below from yesterday at WoodenBoat (that contraption in the lower right is a mooring raft and hoist):

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 20 and 21, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Snow Shows

Here you see what I think is a dried stalk of dormant woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus), the bulrush that Native Americans reportedly weaved into mats and bags.

(The stalk in that image is hanging over snow-covered ice in a pond, which gives it a silhouette effect, even though the photo is in full color and not edited, except for cropping.)

Below, you’ll see self-heating eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) burning its way through snow-covered ice in a bog yesterday. Native Americans reportedly used this plant for treating coughs and headaches and even used a wash of its powdered roots for an underarm deodorant.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17 and 20, 2024.)

In the Right Place: All’s Well

Here you see the WoodenBoat School’s post-and-panel boat shed yesterday, when I did my monthly monitoring of the small boats that are stored there.

I’m happy to report that all appeared shipshape inside. (See the image in the first Comment space.) It was good to see the boats again and be reminded of what summer will be like when they and others like them return to Great Cove.

That big-tailed boat in the foreground of the above image is Whimsey, a 12-foot Beetle Cat. That form of boat is not named after a bug and feline duo. The name comes from the Beetle boatbuilding family of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who were famous for their commercial Beetle Whaleboats.

The Beetles designed and built the original Beetle Cats in 1921 for their children, using the production techniques used for their Whaleboats. Traditional Beetle Cats are now built by the Beetle Cat Boat Shop in Wareham, Massachusetts. The boat reportedly is the oldest wooden boat design that has been continuously produced. It has been competitively raced for more than 100 years.

These small cat boats are very good for instructional sailing. They’re wide for stability and are gaff-rigged far forward to “come up” and face the wind if the tiller is released, so the boat will stop rather than continue sailing uncontrolled. Large, but not deep, “barn door” rudders usually help steady the boat in the wind and allow sailing in shallow waters. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 19, 2023.)

In the Right Place: Magnificence

Today is designated federally as “Washington’s Birthday,” but known in various states as “Presidents’ (or President’s, or Presidents) Day,” among other names, according to Wikipedia. In Maine, the day reportedly has been declared “Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day”; in our first President’s home state, Virginia, it’s reportedly “George Washington Day.”

I’m not ready to celebrate the birth of all of our Presidents, some of whom I’d like to forget. But I do feel that our first President set a high standard for integrity and national leadership that never was achieved subsequently. His significant heritage bears the ugly scar of slave ownership, of course. He is not to be remembered as perfect, but he was magnificent at times and in many ways.

One of George Washington’s underappreciated accomplishments was his creation and management of Mount Vernon, his estate and farmland in Virginia. He inherited the land and a small house there and spent 45 years improving them. He supervised the design and construction of numerous expansions of the house into what became known as the estate’s “Mansion.”

I find the most interesting aspect of that Mansion to be its “Piazza,” the ancient name for a veranda when used to describe a structure. (You see here some of my old images of it.) It’s the full length and height of the back of the two-story Mansion.

Washington added the Piazza to capture the view and shaded breezes of the nearby Potomac River. Tea would be served to visitors who liked to sit in Windsor chairs there and talk while viewing the river roll in the vale below and the tamed animals stroll in Washington’s adjoining 18-acre deer park.

In the Right Place: Elegance

White-tailed deer seem to belong in our woods more than any other mammal. They just look “right” all of the time, especially during first light when they’re slowly on the move over snow-covered ground:

There’s an easygoing elegance to them in the woods that I find hard to find in red squirrels and other small rodents, weasels, bob cats, coyotes, bears, Moose, or (especially) that increasingly chair-dependent species, humans.

White-tails often act as if they own the place and will engage in staring contests with a careful human who has entered their territory. But most are also woods-smart and know when to show you why they’re called white-tailed deer:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 17, 2024.)

In the Right Place: O&O Mode

We had one of those shy, off-and-on snowstorms yesterday. But it was diligent and eventually deposited a little more than two inches, maybe three, here on the coast. At about mid-day it had nothing left and the sun decided to show us that it also could perform in off-and-on mode. Here are a few local scenes taken during and after the snow.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 16, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Language

It snowed a nice snow last night, but I haven’t been able to get out yet. So, I offer this image of Great Cove on Wednesday, which was a beautifully bright, wildly windy, and bitterly cold day:

Extending outward into the whitecaps is the WoodenBoat School’s “pier” or “dock,” a word choice that may depend on your point of view. I always wondered what the difference was between a pier and a dock, and I finally put the question to Google.

It turns out that most language experts apparently say that, for American English, there is no meaningful difference between the two words; either is proper in common discussion. However, there are some regional American word preferences in which a “dock” is any simple floating structure for securing (“docking”) one or more boats, while a “pier” is larger, built on vertical supports, and is more of a public place from which to fish or even enjoy recreational enterprises, whether or not it has an area for docking vessels.

On the other hand, for British English speakers, piers and docks apparently always are distinctly differentiated. For them, a dock refers to an enclosed body of water separated from the surrounding water; it is used primarily for trade-oriented activities such as loading, unloading, and repairs. British piers are known as the structures that jut from the shore into the waters, often for public recreation.  

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Weather Zoo

It was sunny yesterday, but the temperatures never got out of the 20s (F) and there were wind gusts of nearly 40 miles per hour. It was a beautiful – but uncomfortable – Valentine’s Day to walk along the shore. As you see here, Great Cove was flecked with whitecaps:

We even had some minor surf at Naskeag Harbor:

That’s fickle February for you. It can imitate spring or winter. It even can imitate both at the same time, as it did yesterday, when the wind came in like a March lion and the cold arrived like a January polar bear. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 14, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Secret Valentine Bouquets

It’s Valentine’s Day and, for those who like their Valentine’s flowers secret and from a wild hothouse, this is the time for you. As you see here, the first plants of the year have been emerging through the snow and ice for at least a week, but their flowers are hidden in their comfortably heated housings.

Yes, the missile-like spathes of eastern skunk cabbage are melting their surroundings and rising despite freezing temperatures. Hidden within each of them is a round bouquet (a spadix) of the plants’ minute flowers:

Leighton Archive Image

It’s one of the most amazing processes in nature. Eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of a very few plants that has evolved the ability to metabolically generate considerable heat, which enables the plant to get a jump on competitors before spring arrives. Skunk cabbages have been known to raise the temperature of the flowers in their spathes to 71.6˚ F (22˚C), even when the surrounding temperatures are freezing.

Not only does that heat keep the flower from freezing, but it also is thought to attract and shelter the earliest pollinators, which crawl into the side opening of the spathe for a little refreshment, then leave and help propagate the species. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 12, 2024, except as indicated.)

In the Right Place: Returns

More than 100 common eiders, Maine’s largest native ducks, returned to the mouth of the Blue Hill Falls in early winter, and stayed there again this year. That’s surprising, since eiders are shy and there have been significant disruptions in that area due to replacement of the bridge over the Falls. All of these big-beaked, loud-mouthed birds usually have left for their breeding grounds before the end of March.

The eiders (Somateria mollissima) are a declining species here; within the past decade, significantly fewer of them have returned each year. It’s like watching the slow death of a friend or a beloved pet who grew up with you. Each year, we wonder whether that winter will be the winter of no return, when their space in the rolling waters remains empty and silent.

The Blue Hill raft of eiders, as usual, consists mostly of females (bronze) with about 10 percent males (white and black). Binocular scans of the birds revealed no king eiders hiding in the crowd, as sometimes happens. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 10, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Dipping for Dollars

Yesterday evening we had an amazing Super Bowl, but the big event here yesterday morning was a an amazing “cold water dip” at Naskeag Point, as you see here. Winter dipping is a fairly recent Maine activity in which groups of people (sometimes an individual) immerse themselves in the sea or other body of water during the winter. They often do it to seek donations and/or publicity for a cause, while inviting others to it to have some cold weather fun.

Yesterday, the sponsoring group was Finding Our Voices (FOV) out of Camden, Maine, which describes itself as “a grassroots movement of survivors breaking the silence of domestic abuse in Maine.” The group reportedly raised more than $4,000. Although FOV’s mission calls up disturbing thoughts, the participants were full of smiles and laughter and the audience was full of happy adults and children enjoying a beautiful sunny day in a beautiful spot. The ambient temperature was 41° (F) when the dip started, and the water temperature was a reported 37°.

It was a fairly high tide when people started collecting for the event on the sand spit at Naskeag Point. A small fire was started to take the chill off and children and dogs enjoyed some exploration.

A little after 9:30 a.m., the dip line was formed and the resolute dippers waded into the water as the warmly dressed audience of all ages watched and gasped a bit. Many were wearing something colored yellow, FOV’s signature color.

Afterward, the dippers took photos, dried off and were served cake.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 11, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Low Tide Tidying

Here you see repairs being done and increased protections being installed along the coast of Naskeag Harbor Friday. The working waterfront there suffered considerable erosion during the extreme storms that hit Maine in December and January.

Two excavators can get a lot done at low tide – laying containment fabric, spreading riprap, and plucking and placing large boulders to form a sea border. But work has to stop at high tide.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 9, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Art Appreciation

Paris has “The Thinker,” August Rodin’s bronze sculpture of a pensive poet, an innovative art form that some think was inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Not to be outdone, Brooklin has “The Shrinker,” a melting snow sculpture of what I like to think is a lazy propane grill enthusiast, perhaps a new art form inspired by the 1957 movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man”:

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7, 2024.) Click on the image to enlarge it.

In the Right Place: A Golden Opportunity

This image of an eastern golden eagle appears in my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American. The column is about these magnificent eagles and a recently-announced opportunity for birders, hunters, landowners, trappers, and other wildlife enthusiasts in Maine to participate in a new state study of these birds. 

(The image was taken at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, where the bird was recovering from a wound; click on it to enlarge it.) To read the column, click here: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Gland Tidings

This young doe is one of “our” white-tailed deer – one of the several groups of does and one buck that consider our property to be within their somewhat circular browsing range. This image reveals two of her important leg glands that are named for their anatomical location and that I was surprised to learn about when I started reading about white-tails.

That dark spot on the inside crook of her left hind leg is her tarsal gland, which works in conjunction with an internal gland to produce a substance on which the deer urinates purposely at least daily. Researchers believe that this function creates each deer’s own, distinct scent by which they are primarily known in the white-tail herd. That is, white-tails usually recognize each other by urine-stimulated smell, not sight.

That tuft of white hair on the outside of the right hind leg about six inches above the hoof is the metatarsal gland. There’s another one on the outside of the left leg. Researchers believe that these glands are cold sensors that activate the deer’s body temperature controls to help conserve energy. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 6, 2023.)