In the Right Place: Winter Visions

Take a cold and bright January day that makes you zip up all the way; spread untrammeled snow that makes you squint; drop in naked trees that hallelujah into blue-glazed skies, and add a familiar old structure that seems to have been there forever – and let your eyes feast.

Here you see the Friend Memorial Public Library in the shadows of two immense sugar maples whose leaves shade the lawn in summer and bejewel the area in fall. The main structure (approximately the front half) of the Library was built in 1912, when the trees apparently were planted as ten-foot teenagers. The building has been extended and there are plans to further enlarge the Library.

In the first Comment space you’ll see a snow-covered lawn and a workshop amidst a crowd of wild paper birch trees: white-on-white-on-white. The shop was built in the early 1900s and reportedly was used to make wooden decoys for duck hunting, among other things.

According to the literature, sugar maples can live 300-400 years and wild paper birches can live 80-140 years. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 13 [shed] and 14 [Library], 2025.)

In the Right Place: Local Boat Sheds, V

Here’s a January – very wintery – view of the classic red boat shed (boat house) at Conary Cove that travelers on Rt. 175 look forward to seeing as they approach the Cove. As many of you know, we monitor this site (and sight) regularly. Below is a slightly sunny image from the same day:

There’s an irony here – this probably is the most beloved boat shed in the area and it apparently hasn’t housed a boat for many years. I guess you don’t have to work when you’re a popular landmark.

This boat shed reportedly was built in 1924 and was painted white for many years. Old photographs reveal that It also had a pier protruding into the Cove from its north (left end) side. The property was sold to several subsequent owners, all of whom maintained the boathouse at least for the public view, according to reports. It was painted red in the 1950s and has remained so since. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: January MDI View

Here’s yesterday’s view of the western mountains on Mount Desert Island making their own weather again. As usual, this regularly-monitored view is from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge across Blue Hill and Jericho Bays.

MDI, as many of you know, is Maine’s largest island and it is accessible by bridge. About half of MDI is occupied by the very popular Acadia National Park, where Mt. Cadillac, the tallest mountain on the east coast of the U.S, rises as a landmark and seamark.

Acadia National Park is not limited to MDI. It also includes the spectacular rockbound point of Schoodic Peninsula on the nearby coast of Maine, where often-wild surf crashes onto beautiful, huge ledges of pink granite that have been cut through with black basalt dikes. In addition, the Park includes a good part of Isle au Haut out in the Atlantic Ocean, and parts of 16 smaller outlying islands. (Image taken from Brooklin, Maine, on January 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Local Boat Sheds, IV

We continue exploring the variability of local boat sheds (boat houses). Here you see a classically spare boat shed tucked into a stand of spruce. It’s a relatively recent construction by a neighbor to enclose a special vessel.

When the door is swung open, you see the trimaran SYZYGY sitting there contentedly like a huddled ptarmigan with her “wings” tucked in:

There’s a lot to say about this boat, so please bear with me. First, there is her name. As the star-gazers know, syzygy (““SIZZ-uh-jee“) is an English language word derived from the Greek. It means the alignment of three or more celestial bodies, such as a syzygy of the sun, moon, and earth that sometimes leads to our seeing an eclipse.

Second, as the sailors know, a trimaran is a three-hulled vessel that differs from a catamaran by having one more hull, but both names are derived from the ancient South Asian Tamil language. In that area, the south Pacific islands and landmasses were in large part first populated by exploring Polynesian sailors who came in multi-hull vessels (usually two-hulled outriggers, some huge).

Third, many (if not most) multi-hull boat owners still refer to the major parts of their vessels by using the Polynesian terms for them: The “vaka” is the main hull, an “ama” is an outrigger hull, and an “aka” is the support connecting an outrigger hull to the main hull, according to the literature.

Finally, back to the petite SYZYGY (her on-the-hull name is in all capital letters). She’s 21’ long by 16’ wide when the amas are fully spread. She was designed and built by the famed multi-hull pioneer John Marples, who now resides in Penobscot, Maine.

(Images taken in Brookin, Maine on January 9 [open door] and 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Snowmophilia

We had a gentle snowstorm over the weekend, which left a legacy of Maine coast winter scenes. Here are a few for our snowmophiles:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 13, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Local Boat Sheds, III

We continue with the variability of boat sheds (boat houses). This handsome structure might look like an old barn to some, but it’s a relatively new private boat shed put up by a neighbor. It has solar panels on its roof and small boats in its loft, neither of which can be seen from this view.

On the ground floor, however, where the doors slide easily open, you’ll see a 1986 18’ Pete Culler cat ketch built at the Rockport Apprentice School on the left and a 1953 14’ Lyman runabout out of Camden on the right:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 9, 2025.)

In the Right Place: L’Heure Bleue

Here’s the very beginning of one of those magical celestial moments. It’s the time called “the blue hour,” which is a translation of the French characterization “l’heure bleue.” Despite its name, however, the phenomenon sometimes lasts only minutes.

According to the literature (and if I’m reading it correctly), the blue hour can occur when the sun is far enough below the horizon and the ozone layer is in position to help filter and absorb the remaining radiating sunlight, so that our star’s blue wavelengths dominate what we see.

That is, the sun’s red wavelengths at that moment shoot “up” high and escape through space, while its blue light is scattered in our less clear atmosphere and seems to paint everything varying shades of the color. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 7, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Local Boat Sheds, II

This crammed-in entrance is to a structure at the Brooklin Boat Yard. The shed is thought to have been part of a sardine and clam canning company that was there in the very early 1900s. It’s now a BBY storage shed for small vessels and related gear. Small boats stored in the shed are stacked three-high under hanging masts and amid piles of buoys and other marine paraphernalia:

The shed is long and narrow, with a sliding door on this shore-side end and gaited access to Center Harbor’s waters at the other for launching the boats.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Of Eagles, the Regal and the Now-Legal

This image of a golden eagle appears with my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American.  It’s an injured, captive bird. To read the column about a Christmas gift for bald eagles and a New Year’s resolution for golden eagles, click here: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-lumn

In the Right Place: Munchies of Last Resort

We still have plenty of winterberry bursts along the roads and woods’ edges. That’s probably a good sign, indicating a low-stress winter so far. The berries and twigs are usually a food of last resort for most wildlife.

The berries are low in fat and protein and relatively high in carbohydrates. When they first appear, their taste is unpalatable – apparently an evolved trait to assure that they are available to wildlife late in the winter, when their taste improves and feeding conditions can get difficult.  (Winterberry fruits generally are considered toxic or at least not healthy for humans, especially children.)

Many winter birds will eat the winterberry fruits and seeds when times are hard, as will raccoons and some smaller rodents. Rabbits, deer, and moose reportedly will eat winterberry plant twigs as a meal of last resort. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 6, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Morning News

It was the gray dawn hour yesterday, before the sunlight rose and streamed over the ridge to pour onto our north field. The thermometer registered 13°F. As usual, while I dressed, I was looking out the window into the dimness for something interesting along the field’s edge. Suddenly, there appeared to be movement there.

The wary white-tailed buck that I had not seen since November emerged slowly through a curtain of spruce branches and tall grasses into the half-light, ghost-like. He had made it through the hunting season and was in excellent shape. So was his eight-point rack of antlers.

I tossed on a robe, jammed on some slippers, grabbed a camera with a long lens, and snuck out onto the upper deck. (Brrr; don’t tell Barbara.) I got off three, quick 500 mm “shots” in the twilight. He didn’t see me, but he apparently heard the shutter and eased back into the woods, like a passing thought. The day had begun with good news.

In Maine, white-tailed deer bucks shed their antlers during January through March, for the most part. Exactly when they shed them depends on a number of factors, including the following: Age (older bucks usually shed before younger); Stress (the more, the earlier shedding); Nutrition (the better, the later); Testosterone Levels (the higher, the later), and of course that wildcard, Genetics.

(Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Attention Span Department

Here you see one of those blue-skies-over-blue-waters sights that can tempt you to sit down and spend an hour or so taking it all in and trying to get your mind balanced – but not yesterday, when this image was taken at Blue Hill Bay. That’s ice forming just beyond the small granite ledge.

The day had reached its maximum ambient temperature of 29° (F) with a wind chill in the teens. It would be high tide within 30 minutes and the water temperature was a recorded 41° at the time here. That is, the water was warmer than what your nose was feeling.

(Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 4, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Precipitation Paradox

We’ve had some good rain, our ponds are full and icing back up, and our wooded streams are swollen and flowing fast.

More than half of Maine is in moderate drought and most of the rest of the state remains abnormally dry. The precipitation is not soaking down into the earth enough; it’s becoming runoff that is taken by the streams to the ponds and sea. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2 [stream] and 3 [pond], 2025.)

In the Right Place: Hooligans

Here you see what was going on at Naskeag Point yesterday. It wasn’t like William Wordsworth’s poetic inspiration by a lonely cloud – most likely a lost puff of cumulus – wandering over his beautiful English Lake District.

It was Maine, where countless artists are inspired by the celestial celebrations of crowds of stratocumulus clouds that, from time to time, take to the skies like happy hooligans after their home team wins a match. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Last Look

This calming image was taken on the last day of 2024. You’re looking north from the northern end of Litte Deer Isle. Pumpkin Island had shed its snow and the Lighthouse seemed to be basking in the winter sun. Looking southeast, you’ll see a healthy colony of rockweed softening the rugged coast, leading to one of those old “grand cottages with a view” (and a pier):

(Images taken in Little Deer Isle on December 31, 2024.)

December Postcards From Down East Maine

Here’s the best of our photographs that record the spirit of December 2024 along the Maine coast. She was a well-tempered month, bringing us some brilliant sun and needed rain and a few decorative snowstorms. They were all delivered during some bitterly cold and some unseasonably warm days, with a few epic fog days thrown in as a change of pace.

Of course, December is the month of holiday spirit here. The most memorable of many, wide-ranging examples of this spirit were night scenes of Brooklin’s annual lobster trap tree and its welcoming General Store, as contrasted with a sunny view of Deer Isle’s huge wish for peace on earth featuring an ironic mix of soldiers (albeit toy soldiers) and heavenly angels congregating in a memorial traffic splitter:

As you may know, our monthly Postcards always include record views of four iconic scenes for long-term comparison: Mount Desert Island, as viewed from Brooklin; the Harbor Island house in Brooklin; and, in Blue Hill, the near-mountain called Blue Hill, and the red boat house at Conary Cove:

Here’s a bonus showing more of Conary Cove’s serenity on a still, cold day:

December’s snow falls this year were manageable and often gave the landscape a rejuvenating facelift:

Sheds of all sorts, including stand-alone garages that are full of things other than vehicles, became obvious in December. That’s when their utility is most needed to protect boats, equipment, workshops, and wood, although sometimes there was an overflow:

Similarly, country lanes, roads, and highways took on new identities after December’s snows and in the month’s clear sunlight when the snow had melted:

Indoors, tropical poinsettias and wood stoves warmed many households here during December’s frigid days:

Yet, there are those who don’t shelter on cold and windy days. On the working waterfront, December is the month when coastal lobster fishing ends here and the traps and buoys are brought ashore for storing. Some of the lobster boats then don masts and booms to drag for Atlantic sea scallops with iron-and rope-net “drags” (dredges):

Fishermen are not the only ones who brave December’s wind and cold when icicles are forming. There are some who enjoy frigid recreation:

In the December skies, sometimes the sun shone through snowfalls:

Not to be outdone, the moon went through its phases until it became — appropriately — what is known as the Cold Full Moon, after which it became a waning gibbous morning moon in the early blue sky:

Near the end of December, former President Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100. President Biden and Maine Governor Mills ordered that federal and state flags be flown at half-mast for 30 days to honor him.

Finally, and on a more optimistic note, December’s southerly view of the sun provided some of the greatest sunsets and afterglows of the year to usher in 2025:

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during December of 2024.)

In the Right Place: An Absence of Aspiration

On this last day of 2024, we’ll take a wistful look at the wannabe mountain known as Blue Hill across Blue Hill Bay and above the Town of Blue Hill, Maine:

At the time those were named, any earthen mound had to be at least 1000 feet tall to be called a mountain, but the mound at the end of the bay there is 34 feet short of that.

The original name of the area was known to Colonists as “Plantation No. 5.” But, by 1778, the Township was known as “Bluehill” and a little later as “Blue Hill.” That’s a lot more pleasing denomination than Plantation No. 5 (and, nowadays, a more politically correct one). Today’s name is descriptive of the blueish hue that the Hill sometimes turns in certain light (or, as I like to imagine, when the Hill is feeling down).

If the Hill had been 66 feet taller, the Town and area likely would now be called “Blue Mountain.” But “Blue Hill” seems more appropriate for a charming seacoast settlement with no alpine aspirations. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on December 19, 2024.)

in the Right Place: Not Seeing the Light

Here’s the Pumpkin Island Lighthouse on Friday. It’s enjoying some sunlight on a cold day, but no longer provides a guiding light to mariners. This beacon was much needed in 1855, when it entered federal service. It was said that the Light then could be seen in good weather with the naked eye from nine nautical miles away.

The Light is just off the northeast tip of Little Deer Isle, near the entrance to Eggemoggin Reach. The Reach is a granite-ledged, island-clogged shortcut from the Penobscot Bay to the Atlantic Ocean. In winter, there can be significant patches of ice jutting from those islands. Some of the best sailing winds in the world are funneled down the Reach. But, on a foul day or dark night, it can be perilous, especially for boats without radar and sonar.

When the Light went into service, there was plenty of traffic in the Reach, but no radar or sonar. Coastal cruisers sailed up and down the coast carrying timber, granite, housing goods, and other commercial cargo; they were the truckers of the time for this area. Pumpkin Island and Light were owned and operated by the federal government until 1933. They were then sold to private owners and have remained in private hands.

Curiously, nobody seems to know why the Island is named Pumpkin; it’s not shaped like one and we’ve found no reports of pumpkin farming there. (Images taken in Little Deer Island, Maine, on December 28, 2024.)

In the Right Place: Mexican Mysteries

Before they wilt, I should credit this year’s crop of poinsettias as being among the best of the holiday flowers that we’ve had over the years. There are traditional red ones, as shown here, and more than 100 other varieties. One of the variegated ones is shown below:

There is some confusion about the plant’s name, Poinsettia. Don’t look for an interesting Latin or Greek origin. It’s just a derivation of Joel Roberts Poinsett’s last name. He was the first United States Minister to Mexico and a botanist during his off hours. In the early 19th Century, he found the plants in their native Mexico and began shipping them to the United States, where nurseries eventually popularized them for the Christmas season.

When the plants first came here, they were called “Mexican flame flowers.” (Their natural, non-manipulated color is deep red.) Giving them Joel’s last name made them intriguingly mysterious. However, there was confusion as to how to pronounce “poinsettia.” Its preferred pronunciation is “POYNE-seh-tee-YAH.” It’s best not to turn that two-syllable “tee-yah” into a one-syllable “tah.” (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 28, 2024.)

In the Right Place: The Day After

Above you see “Dear Abbie:” in below-freezing temperatures on the day after Christmas. She’s in deep shadows cast by Harbor Island and has just come in after a scalloping sortie. Her crewman is about to hang over what may be an icy bow and hook her mooring line. Winter fishing is not for the feint of heart or the cold-averse.

As usual, “Dear Abbie:” unhesitatingly hooked up in one approach, which is not nearly as easy as it looks:

(Images taken on December 26, 2024.)