JOURNAL
Here you see the specimen weeping beech tree at Amen Farm as the rain eased off yesterday afternoon. Beech’s usually hold onto many of their leaves until after Thanksgiving here. For example, here she is last Tuesday:
But now, this famous landmark is a filigreed version of herself after last week’s wind and rain, and she seems to be in a frantic fit of grief about her uncomely condition. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 19 and 24, 2024.)
This week’s rain and wind completed the denuding of many of our deciduous trees, including this young, 40-foot sugar maple that we planted in 2007, when she was about four feet tall:
Here you see her on rainy Friday morning after a night of rain and wind. This morning, it’s still raining and windy, and she’s not wearing a single leaf.
On November 1, however, she was just starting to signal her leaves to make themselves into her usual stylish fall outfit:
She is, of course, beautiful when she’s dressed, and seems to know it.
Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) have been known to live 400 years and reach 120 feet in height. They’re native to the hardwood forests of Maine and other northeastern states and perhaps best known for being the primary source of maple syrup. They also are excellent shade trees when they have their summer and fall outfits on. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, On November 1 and 22, 2024.)
Here you see part of a Maine coast moment in Great Cove yesterday afternoon. It had stopped raining temporarily and storm clouds had filled the sky above Big and Little Babson Islands. The entire scene was virtually dark. A good nor’ eastern wind came up and thinned the clouds into a narrow veil that exposed blue sky above and allowed the lowering sun to peek through and throw a glittering glance my way.
The glittering glance lasted about 30 seconds and the surrounding brightness lasted about 10 minutes. Then, reinforcements came to the aid of the storm clouds, which charged back, abruptly shut the show down, and turned the day back into darkness and rain:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 22, 2024.)
It’s raining steadily as I write. Finally. A constant rain fell through the night and is continuing to drum pleasantly on our roof. We haven’t had an effective rain since the summer. We’re so dry that I bet a 40-day and 40-night soaker would not motivate any of our many capable ark builders here. The situation in Maine is serious and even dire in other northeastern states, as you can see from yesterday’s weekly U.S. Drought Monitor maps:
Most of Maine is experiencing moderate drought and the rest of the state remains abnormally dry, creating brush and wildfire dangers in this highly-wooded state where most people rely on wells for drinking water and, often, on ponds for fire truck water:
Our ponds have been drying up:
The situation is worse in some other northeast states, according to the Drought Monitor: “[E]ssentially from north-central Maryland northward and eastward, little or no precipitation fell [during the week]. *** As a result, conditions continued to deteriorate in [many] areas. *** Severe drought (D2) expanded to cover much of the East Coast Megalopolis and the western suburbs. Unusual brush fire activity and wildfire danger has been frequent for the past couple of months, and a few municipalities have mandatory water use restrictions in place ….”
(Photograph taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 21, 2024.)
November can be fickle with her weather. She seems to like to try on days that are a little gray now, a little sun later, more gray, more sun, very dark, very bright; relatively warm, relatively cold; sprinkles, downpours, and even moderate drought as we have now. But November’s fickleness can provide opportunities to see familiar things differently.
Above. you see Conary Cove under Monday’s wintry gray sky. As she always does, she’s allowing the cold, fast-rising tide to cover her. Below, you’ll see Naskeag Point on the next day under a cloud-scudded, sunny-blue wintry sky. She’s slowly disappearing, as she always does, under the same fast-rising tide that has become a day older.
(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on November 18 and 19, 2024.)
As you may know, I visit this deformed little old lady regularly. She lives on the WoodenBoat campus with a number of similar old ladies who originally were part of an apple orchard that apparently was planted more than 100 years ago. They’re a miserly group that holds onto some of their apples until ice, snow, and gravity slowly force them to let go.
What type of apples they hold onto has been a mystery to me. Perhaps you can tell:
Yes, I have John Bunker’s massive “Apples and the Art of Detection” (400+ pp.) on how to identify old Maine apples. But, I must confess that I became more confused after consulting that fascinating tome than I was before I risked a hernia and picked it up. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 18 and 19, 2024.)
Today is the first day of our sea scallop fishing season – but only in certain zones for divers’ scallops. These are hand-harvested from the sea bottom by Maine’s relatively few licensed divers who wear wet suits and self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses (SCUBA equipment).
Above, you see “Tarrfish” yesterday; she’s owned and captained by diver David Tarr. His boat already is sporting a blue and white international diving flag (“code alpha/alfa”). The flag signals that the vessel, when circling in open water, has a diver down and other vessels should keep clear and proceed slowly.
In the meantime, many lobster fishermen are bringing in their traps and ending their seasons:
A good number of the fishermen soon will install masts, booms, “drags” (dredges), and weather-protective shelling huts on their “lobster boats” to drag sea bottoms for scallops in the winter.
The scallop-dragging season opens here in the first week of December. Some of the fishermen already are taking orders from drooling neighbors for the delicious, off-the-boat mollusks. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 14 [traps] and 18 [boat], 2024.)
Above, you see the boathouse in neat and tidy Conary Cove during the golden hour of a bright November afternoon. It’s under a proscenium of oak branches, with a Blue Hill Bay background.
Below, you’ll see a rough and wild “corner” of Great Cove on a gray November morning. As the incoming tide meets spruce tree reflections, it turns a soothing green:
(Images taken in Blue Hill and Brooklin, Maine, on November 9 and 15, 2024.)
Here’s the November full moon through some clouds very early today. It was slightly (but not noticeably) fuller the two days before, when overcast prevented me from photographing it.
Native Americans and early Colonists apparently called it the beaver moon. That’s because it rises when it’s time to trap beavers before stream and pond ice make it too difficult to do so. On Thanksgiving, the moon will be a very thin, waning (getting thinner/losing illumination) crescent moon. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 17, 2024.)
Interesting background: Yesterday morning, I was waiting covertly for a slow-browsing white-tailed doe to come into the clear so I could “shoot” her entire new winter coat. But, she suddenly stopped, alerted, and stared intently – not at me. I looked where she was looking.
At the woods’ edge, this magnificent creature that you see also was staring – at me, then her, then me. I immediately pressed off several “shots” at him and he quickly chose caution over lust and disappeared without a trace.
The doe? She just put her head down and continued to browse calmly again where I couldn’t get a good angle on her.
Yes, it’s the first full week of the major deer hunting season here and I got me my buck, an 8-pointer with excellent markings. One good thing about hunting with a camera: I’m not limited to one antlered deer. I may get another, if I’m lucky. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 15, 2024.)
This image of a wild turkey appears with my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American:
To read the column about how turkey became a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, concerns about those domestic turkeys, and the history of the wild ones that were the ancestors of our supermarket turkeys, click here: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
How vicious is Asian bittersweet? As you see from this image taken yesterday, the invasive tree killer even attacks guy wires that stabilize utility poles:
I suppose that it can’t hurt them, but I wonder what will happen if it ever reaches the primary wires and insulators. My guess is that it won’t go that high, although this example reached over 10 feet high. It remains active in taking over large swarths of vegetation:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 13, 2024.)
Great Cove in the winter is transformed from a busy summer recreational boating anchorage to a quiet haven for winter ducks, loons, and our resident seagulls. One of the most noticeable changes occurs when the piers get “winterized.”
The piers are built to be tall and sturdy to withstand our significant tides and winter storms, including occasional sea ice. They have long gangways down to docking floats where small boats can tie-up and larger ones can pick up and discharge passengers.
In the winter, the docking floats are detached and stored ashore and the disengaged gangways to those floats are stored atop the piers. The high piers probe into the Cove like abandoned bridges to nowhere and seagulls take adverse possession of them to sun themselves.
Here you see the WoodenBoat School pier yesterday in its winterized state as the tide is rising and soon will cover most of its stolid granite pilings. Its docking float was hauled up nearby:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 12, 2024.)
Above, you see a young white-tailed deer buck that was born in the spring and was “shot” by me in Sunday’s first morning light. Technically, he’s still a fawn, as is his twin sister who was nearby in the shadows:
Generally, a deer is considered to be a fawn until it becomes a year old; then, it’s called a yearling until it matures into an adult and is called a doe or buck.
Speaking of being shot, we’re in firearms hunting season now until November 30. The limit is one antlered deer per year. Although this buck has fur-covered “buttons” on his head, he and his sister are considered to be mostly protected as “antlerless deer” under Maine’s regulations: “Hunting of antlerless deer (a deer that has no antlers or has antlers less than 3 inches in length measured from the skull) is prohibited except by special permit during both the firearms and muzzleloader seasons.”
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 10, 2024.)
I salute my fellow veterans with these stirring images taken at Arlington National Cemetery. They show the military funeral ceremony of a close friend and professional colleague, Donald Green, formerly a Lt. Colonel in the Marine Corps.
Don received “Military Funeral Honors with Funeral Escort,” including a caparisoned (riderless) horse with reversed boots in the stirrups to symbolize a leader who always looks back on his troops:
This Military Funeral Honors with Funeral Escort ceremony is one of the three military ceremonies offered veterans at Arlington. It includes a casket team (bearers/pallbearers of body or ashes); flag-draped coffin on a wheeled caisson; firing party; taps bugler; folding and presentation of the U.S. flag to family or other designees; a military band, and a military marching element of troops from the deceased’s service, the size of which varies by rank of the deceased. It is reserved for the highest enlisted military members and officers and service members regardless of rank who receive the Medal of Honor, who were prisoners of war (POWs) or who were killed in action, may receive military funeral honors with funeral escort.
Arlington also offers “Armed Forces Funeral Honors,” which are the same as the above military funeral honors with funeral escort, with the exception that escort platoons from each of the military services participate. These funerals are reserved for the President of the United States (as commander-in-chief), the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and officers granted multiple-service command.
The basic Arlington ceremony is called “Military Funeral Honors” and is for enlisted service members and warrant-officer-level personnel who are interred there. It includes a casket team, firing party, bugler, and the folding of and presentation of the U.S. flag.
“Spouses and Dependent Honors” are available to those of a current or former member of the armed forces who is buried at Arlington. For these, the military service in which the member served will provide a casket team or body bearer and a military chaplain, if requested. No other military funeral honors will be rendered unless the spouse also served in the military.
There are some special exceptions and conditions:
• Only Army and Marine Corps colonels and general officers may be provided a riderless horse, if available.
• Army, Navy, and Marine Corps general officers may receive a battery cannon salute (17 guns for a four-star general, 15 for a three-star, 13 for a two-star, 11 for a one-star), if available.
• Minute guns (guns that fire at one-minute intervals) may be used for general officers/flag officers of the Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy, if available.
• The President of the United States is entitled to a 21-gun salute, while other high state officials receive 19 guns.
• Currently, support from the Army’s Caisson Platoon has been suspended until further notice due to the need to rest and provide medical attention to the horse herd.
(Leighton Archive images taken at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington Va.; Arlington Cemetery fact sheets liberally quoted.)
Here you see a November sky and water view of Blue Hill and Jericho Bays from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge. Under those drifting cumulus clouds lie Flye Island in the middle and Mount Desert Island on the horizon.
MDI is Maine’s largest island and contains most of Acadia National Park. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 7, 2024.)
When I went to the Brooklin Cemetery on Wednesday, I came across this mostly unreadable little marker for a son named “Jacob E.” It was among much larger monuments and near one for “Jacob S. Freethey” in what appeared to be a Freethey family plot area. (That family was among the original settlers here.)
The stone was under a Japanese maple that was creating a scarlet frenzy in this sacred place, wildly flinging her vibrant leaves. Perhaps it was my mood, but I found the sight to be soberly stunning: a very small, gray gravestone – was Jacob a dead child? – in a red rain that covered the burial area with flaming puddles.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6 and 8, 2024.)
November 10, 2024, postscript: According to a gravesite registry found by Lorna Rockwell Grant, Jacob died young (“d.y.’); he was the son of Captain Ellis Edwin Freethey (1834-1910) and Hattie R. Herrick ((1842-1907. They were married on May 24, 1864 in Boston. Captain Freethey may have served in the Civil War.
Our ponds this November look good from a distance, especially on sunny days such as yesterday when this image was taken on the WoodenBoat campus. However, pond water levels generally are down significantly. The situation is not good.
This year’s early winter dryness has put the entirety of Maine into a state of abnormal dryness and moderate drought, according to yesterday’s U.S. Monitor report:
The ground is dangerously hard in many areas. If we get one of those November cold snaps with accompanying heavy rain, much of the rainfall may simply become heavy runoff. (Photo taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 7, 2024.)
I went to the Brooklin Cemetery yesterday to figuratively bury my electoral disappointments and find some solace. Being alone among the old stones and trees and those lying there who no longer can be disappointed helped in coming to an acceptance.
Fittingly, some trees in the Cemetery seemed to be uttering their last beautiful hurrah of the year, such as this Japanese maple and its prodigy;
Others had already done so, such as the Camperdown elm:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 6, 2024.)
Here’s what one of our nation’s most historic Election Days looked like yesterday in Brooklin, Maine, a town of less than 1000 full-time residents. As of early afternoon, there had been a “steady stream of voters” voting in the Town’s four voting booths, according to Town Clerk Heather Candage.
In addition to the significant national and state office candidacy options, there were several state-related questions on the ballot. One was a proposal to adopt a new, minimalistic Maine state flag that won a state-sponsored public contest on the subject.
The winning design consists of a stylized depiction of the state tree (an eastern white pine) and a blue North Star on an off-white background. There are 16 green branches on the pine to signify Maine’s 16 counties. Early voting indicates that the flag proposal may be defeated.
(Primary image taken in the Brooklin Town Office, Maine, on November 5, 2024.)
