JOURNAL
Here’s one of the centenarian apple trees on the WoodenBoat campus that we monitor monthly; it’s basking in yesterday’s bright sun like an octopus standing on its head.
Down the road at Amen Farm, another old tree that we monitor, a weeping beech, was having its usual bad hair day:
The beech dates from before 1958, based on old photographs. Both of these iconic trees are a reminder of the value of loving care. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7, 2025.)
Here you see yesterday’s snowstorm in action. We received not quite two inches of snow, despite some predictions of six inches or more. It was an insistent, but very polite, storm of millions of baby snowflakes, so small that they created a snow fog at times. But, the storm did not disturb our power, blow down trees, or make road plowing difficult, as far as I can tell.
The forecast for today is an optimistic “mostly sunny” with a high of 34-5° F. Dawn’s first light this morning seemed to confirm that prediction:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 6 and 7, 2025.)
Here you see “Christopher-Devin III” anchored in Center Harbor in yesterday’s cold weather. She’s the only Novi (“NO-vee”) in our local fleet of lobster boats that are fitted out as scallop draggers in the winter. That is, her Novi nickname reflects the fact that her basic design originated in Nova Scotia, where you’ll apparently find more Novies than New England-style lobster boats.
Usually, these Canadian vessels have stepped up hulls, utilitarian cabins with banked windows, and rounded hull bottoms. They’re angular compared to the more swept-back New England boats such as “Captain Morgan,” shown below with a temporary shelling hut behind the cabin:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 2 [CM] and 6 [C-D III], 2025.)
Here’s a peaceful, winter-darkened scene complete with mallard duck. It shows high tide at the mouth of Patten Stream, where it empties into the Bay of the same name. At low tide, the rocky shore makes it virtually duck-proof there:
(Images taken in Surry, Maine, on February 1 [high] and 4 [low], 2025.)
In this post, you’ll see two Maine coast scenes that have interesting parallels in the sense that they both show a boat and a distinctive house, but under different circumstances.
In this case, the house is the only summer residence on Harbor Island and the boat is a working vessel that fishes for scallops:
In this case, you’ll see an abandoned shack and a now-dormant skiff that collects snow:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 2, 2025.)
Here you see sea ice scattering in shards across Conary Cove on Saturday afternoon as a 11.7-foot tide crests over the foundations of the boathouse. It’s been cold here:
Sea ice forms, of course, when seawater freezes, but that water needs a lower temperature to freeze than fresh water due to the seawater’s salt content. Sea ice floats because it is less dense than the surrounding water.
The reflective nature of sea ice in the polar oceans is an important coolant for planet Earth. The increasing losses of that ice there and elsewhere should be a matter of concern for those who care about future generations. (Image taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 1, 2025.)
Here you see our region’s answer to Mt. Fugi, as seen yesterday. It’s not exactly a mountain, no less a volcano like Fugi, but it’s our looming natural presence. It’s a very high hill called Blue, as in Blue Hill. It presides above the Town of Blue Hill and Blue Hill Bay.
The Bay is choked with saltwater ice now that has trouble staying intact due to the fast rising and lowering tides there.:
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 1, 2025.)
January is the month of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, the god of the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one. This year, January’s seasonal transition here on the Maine coast was seamless and even lovely at times. It stood in stark contrast to troubling times elsewhere.
We hope that a few postcard-quality images that share Down East Maine’s good fortune will offer a bit of relief to those who need it. As with many postcards, these are meant to carry with them the friendly message to some of you of “We wish you were here” and, to others, the message of “We’re glad you’re here.”
We begin as usual with our monthly record images of the western mountains of Mount Desert Island, as seen across Blue Hill and Jericho Bays from Brooklin’s Amen Ridge; then, there is the harbor house on Harbor Island, which protects Naskeag Harbor; followed by Blue Hill and Blue Hill Bay’s sea ice being erupted by a rising tide, and, finally, the landmark red boat house in Conary Cove on a dramatically dark and icy winter’s day:
January here was punctuated by several polite snowstorms and freezes that caused little damage, but created visual delights that helped protect against the winter “blahs”:
As usual, the country lanes and rural roads here were beautified by January’s snowfalls and quickly plowed with little diminishment in their beauty:
Of course, the bright suns of January that follow its dusky snows allow us to see familiar landmarks and everyday objects in a different, almost purified, way:
One of the more intriguing games that can be played in January is guessing what the smaller sheds and shacks — the winter storage structures — contain; it’s not always obvious:
Winter wildlife sightings in January include shy white-tailed deer bucks that have survived the hunting season, yearlings that frolic openly, and their mothers who pose in their new, thick winter coats. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of over-wintering robins frantically invade the winterberry bushes and pick them bare during the month, while our resident take-things-as-they-come herring gulls often huddle and nap without complaint on cold days.
While our seagulls huddle, some of our more adventurous fishermen go out on the cold waters and “drag” (with a dredge) for Atlantic scallops or dive in scuba equipment to the sea bottom to hand-harvest them. Some also dive for Atlantic sea urchins. For dragging, lobster boats are equipped with masts and booms that control the dredge; they also usually are temporarily equipped with protective shelling huts behind the cabin. The smaller urchin diving boats also often are equipped with temporary shelling huts, but no masts and booms.
Finally. we come to the January skies, where the cold air has less moisture and dust to blur our vision. The sun’s lower angle in relation to us in January this year provided several spectacular “blue hours” (which often last only minutes) and many glorious sunsets. There also were some fascinating views of January’s “Wolf Moon” phases, including a good number of “morning moons” that lasted well after daybreak.
(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during January of 2025.)
Where’s the best place to find baby-blue gates and baby-blue playhouses? Why, it’s the town that also has a blue hill, of course.
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 23, 2025.)
We had another snowstorm of a few inches yesterday, this one as mild and polite as the last – no tree-killer winds, no icy rain, no mountainous drifts, no power outages (that I know of). The harbors remained calm and receptive to being gently touched.
Here you see the Brooklin Boat Yard’s relatively new pier and gear shed enjoying the calm and soothing snow in Center Harbor:
Below, you’ll see the old Town Dock in Naskeag Harbor doing the same:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 29, 2025.)
It’s snowing again as I write, with 1-3” more of the white stuff predicted for here. Nonetheless, here’s one of the quirky results of the snowstorm a few days ago:
These are displaced picnic/classroom tables whose space in the WoodenBoat School boatshed is now taken by stored boats. The tables are hidden behind the shed and are stacked like the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense on the one-yard line. They produce the kind of shadows that can be turned into mythic stories.
The waterside view of the boatshed hides the tables completely:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 27, 2025.)
Here you see an attractive structure on the Flye Point ridge that apparently was a working barn at one time, but now reportedly contains living quarters. There’s a similarly-painted red and white structure across the road that appears (from the undisturbed snow) to be a winter storage shed, perhaps for boats or farming equipment:
White-trimmed red barns and other rural “outbuildings” are traditional in New England. However, that tradition was not started because the red helps cows find their way home in a snowstorm or that the red distracts bulls from charging farmers, as some of the myths told to tourists allege.
The red-painting practice here reportedly started in the 1700s. That’s when New England farmers dug up rust-colored iron oxide and mixed it with linseed oil and lime to create a reddish varnish that protected structures against fungus. When red and white paint became commercially available later, they were used because the red had become a traditional color and red and white paints usually were the cheapest available.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 26 [storage] and 27 [“barn”], 2025.)
We were jealous of all the recent sightings of snowy owls in the region – until we had this sighting in Brooklin. I venture to say that it’s the only LITERALLY snowy owl recently sighted. And it’s probably the rarest – being a one-of-a-kind.
Well, maybe I’m rationalizing. But, this owl IS one of the last completed granite sculptures by the famed Cabot Lyford (1925-2016), who titled it “Grey Mouser.” He continued wood sculpting when he got too old to handle the weight and other difficulties of sculpting in stone.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 22, 2025.)
Here’s the WoodenBoat School campus lily pond Friday. Our ponds and streams remain full, frozen, and snow-covered. Yet, we also remain in moderate drought despite the snow and snow-mix that we’ve received recently.
That heightens wildfire danger. Frozen ground does not absorb moisture well; much of our precipitation runs off into streams that feed the ponds or that empty into the ocean. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 24, 2025.)
We have discovered where the Abominable Snowman sleeps and where he eats his breakfast of a dozen cold, raw eggs with shell.
Don’t tell anybody. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine on January 22 [ hammock] and 24 [eggs], 2025.)
Here you see a deep-winter view of the near-mountain called Blue Hill as it rose above Blue Hill Bay yesterday. Snow flurries had just ended and the sea ice in the Bay was breaking up under the strain of a fast-rising tide:
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on January 23, 2025.)
It’s good to see this old house being fixed up, albeit slowly and perhaps mostly by only one talented person in his spare time. See the new clapboards on the old addition:
The house has good Maine character and very nice dormers have been added lately. It also is visible from the road, which makes a fix-up more important. The tree shadows on the snow in the foreground seem to be pointing at it and saying, “Look at this place!” (Images taken in Brooklin. Maine, on January 22, 2025.)
The intense, low light of sunny January afternoons enters our screened porch at an oblique angle that can create intriguing shadows and contrasts. This sometimes proves to be an irresistible metering and framing challenge for a student of photography who is stuck mostly in the house due to the cold and snow.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 15, 2025.)
Here you see a desperate American robin devouring the last of our winterberry fruits – among the bird’s least-preferred foods – as the barometer sinks. This was the day before the “Inaugural Storm” that laid down 3-4 inches of snow and made our cold spell colder.
More robins (and some other species) reportedly have been overwintering in Maine in the past few years as the winters get milder. This may be beginning to strain the availability of suitable foods for all our feathered friends during the cold months.
Robins seem to like crabapples, holly, juniper, and hawthorn best in winter when earthworms and insects are not available, but will eat low-energy foods such as winterberry and burning bush (euonymus), if those are all that’s available.
Unlike in the spring and summer, when robins are very territorial, they often feed in flocks in the winter when they’re more visible to hawks – the herd defense of more eyes and ears and a mathematically less likelihood they’ll be singled out when the predator dives. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 19, 2025.)
The snow storm and freezing temperatures that intruded boorishly into yesterday’s NFL Divisional Playoffs in Philadelphia and Buffalo arrived here last night in a better mood and displayed better manners. The storm gently deposited a little more than three inches of pure snow without disrupting our power or toppling any trees. After a little early morning encore, it left us alone and allowed the sun to showcase the purified landscape.
Here’s the gray end of the storm early this morning before the sun showed up with any strength:
Sunlight, tentative at first, eventually crept though the woods and illuminated fields:
Some private lanes were plowed early, some plowed after I arrived, but all town streets were well plowed early in the morning:
Residences and other structures seem to be refreshed by a snow like this:
Snowstorms are especially capable of cleaning up working harbors, even at low tide:
One of the joys of a gentle storm is getting up in the morning and walking through the house in your pajamas, looking at the different views of peaceful scenes, while being contentedly warm:
Outside artworks adopt new personalities in gentle snow storms, including one-of-a-kind handrails by blacksmith Doug Wilson of Little Deer Isle and urns and a birdbath by Lunaform’s artisans in Hancock:
Finally, the day ended with a fitting sunset:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 20, 2025.)
