JOURNAL
This is Valentine’s Day, so my monthly column in the current Ellsworth American is about passionate courtships that are occurring here and now – but by owls and what their love life can teach us.
(This image is a merger of two photographs; the owl shown is a captive, injured bird.) To read the column, use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column
It’s snowing again, as I write – another of those polite, itsy-bitsy-flaked snow showers that slowly and diligently fills the much-plowed driveway and tops-off the rest of the snow build-up elsewhere. These snow “storms” are getting boring. I’m almost ready for a good old-fashioned, tree-toppling blizzard. Almost.
Instead, let’s just look at two historically important buildings that look better after the snow stops. Eden Chapel in the foreground was dedicated in 1900 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This late Victorian church contains distinctive wooden design features, including a decorative diamond on the second stage of the tower and wave-cut shingles on the third.
To the left of the Chapel, you’ll see what once was Naskeag Schoolhouse No. 1. When Brooklin was incorporated in 1849, that was one of nine one-room schools to which local children walked. The school was closed in 1937 and the building reportedly was reconfigured as a an automobile repair garage that was run by Arthur and Arlene Smith, a husband-wife team of mechanics. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 7, 2025.)
This Brooklin house and, especially, its barn are local icons. The original structures on the property were built about 1850 and owned by the Bowden family who farmed the land for many years and later even operated a long-gone roadside gas station here.
By 1958, the property reportedly was run down. And then Joseph “Roy” Barrette and his wife Helen came along looking for a fixer-upper retirement place. They bought the property and constantly worked on improving it. They named it Amen Farm, perhaps because they had found their dream and/or because of its breath-taking view across Blue Hill and Jericho Bays. (Yes, Roy was the legendary author-horticulturist-gourmand and wine expert who kept writing during his “retirement” in Brooklin. He died in1995.)
Subsequent owners have kept up and improved the property, especially the completely renovated barn. As with many barns in New England, it no longer houses farm animals. It reportedly has a modern great room with fireplace and large windows overlooking the back pasture, as well as a separate exercise area. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine. on February 7, 2025.)
Our outrageous hibiscus is peaking now during the coldest, snowiest part of the new year, as it always does. Its short-lived mission is to make us remember summer Italian ices – especially scoops of lemon and watermelon – on a hot, bee-buzzing day, and to imagine a phantasmagoric volcano erupting in impossible colors:
Hibiscuses are the result of continuing cultivation into new colors and forms, starting from ancient Polynesian experimenters. (One form is the state flower of Hawaii.) Each hibiscus flower has male and female parts. The most prominent is in the middle of the flower; it’s the “style,” which looks a bit like the Seattle Space Needle. It’s a long tube through which pollen travels to the ovary that’s hidden in the bottom of the flower.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 9, 2025.)
The Super Bowl wasn’t the only cool thing to see yesterday. During the early morning snowstorm, the seven adults shown below took a “cold dip” in the waters off Brooklin’s Naskeag Point to raise funds for Finding Our Voices:
FOV, headquartered in Camden, is dedicated to breaking the silence surrounding domestic abuse in Maine. The event was organized by Sarah Havener of Brooklin and reportedly would have had more “dippers” if the weather had not made driving to Brooklin so difficult. These wet seven seemed to enjoy themselves, however:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 9, 2025.)
It’s snowing seriously here as I write, but yesterday was a fine day to see this Light that is no longer on. It’s the Pumpkin Island Lighthouse, which is a stone’s throw off the northern tip of Little Deer Isle. The station was created in 1854 and was decommissioned in 1933. The Island and lighthouse have been privately owned since then.
Captain John Chester of nearby Brooklin reportedly sold the Island to the federal Government and was appointed first lighthouse keeper there at an annual salary of $350. In 1870, Charles Leroy Babson, also of Brooklin, reportedly took over as a one-legged lightkeeper. (He lost his left leg fighting for the Union in the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg.)
When and why the less-than-two-acre Island was named Pumpkin seems to be a mystery; it’s not shaped like a pumpkin, nor can I find any history of pumpkin-raising there. (Images taken from Little Deer Isle, Maine, on February 8, 2025.)
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.)
