In the Right Place: Harbingers of Spring, VI

We know spring is almost here when these neighbors, Wallace and Gromit, are out in the sun and smiling. They’re very friendly miniature donkeys that come to their pen’s fence for some nose-petting and a little chat when you come by.

Wordsmiths have a lot to consider with these animals. A “donkey” is NOT the same as a “mule,” which is the sterile offspring of a horse and a donkey. However, a “donkey” IS the same as an “ass,” which is derived from the Latin word “asinus,” meaning the age-old  “donkey.” (The scientific name for a donkey is “Equus asinus.”)

 A “Jackass” is a male donkey that also is called a “Jack,” while female donkeys also are “asses,” however, they usually are called “Jennies.”  Both male and female donkeys also are “burros,” the Spanish word for donkeys that also is used in English. Finally, the English word “donkey” is thought to be derived from the Middle English word “donekie,” meaning a miniature dun (brown) horse.

Thus, to be imprecise and drive wordsmiths crazy, Wallace and Gromit might be considered to be miniature-miniature horses. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 13, 2025.)

In the Right Place: A March Fog, Part II

The fog down here crawls haphazardly in from Great Cove behind me. When it reaches the fire pond, it rises to full height and strides confidently straight up the north field. The snow around the pond and the ice within it are as soft as vanilla sherbet and soon will be gone. But now they provide a pleasing contrast to the blurry, winter-browned landscape. The silence is penetrating. I feel like I’m inside an immense bell jar.

Once again there is the consternation of feeling I’m alone when I know I’m never alone here. My senses are just too dull for me to perceive my surroundings adequately. I search the woods’ edge with a long lens; sweep too quickly over a color change that triggers an instinct; move the lens back slowly, refocus. There!

The resting doe stares at me with what appears to be quiet disdain. She seems to know that my awareness skills are not as good as hers, here in her world. She also apparently has learned that I’m a member of an invasive predator species. She looks calm, but her ears and steady gaze tell me that she’s alerted and, if need be, she could spring up and be gone in a second.

She apparently has come to terms with predators. She was born with evolved instincts and has been taught by elders how best to deal with predatory behavior. Lately, I’ve come to realize that human education is lacking in that regard. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 16, 2025.) See also the image in the first Comment space.

In the Right Place: A March Fog, Part I

The fog has stopped at the wetlands, encircling them, but not fully entering. I infiltrate through and enter the bog. A damp chill is the first sensation. It’s colder than cool, warmer than cold.

The slow, sloshing sounds of my boots in the darkened vernal pools seem too loud and discordant, evoking memories of long-lost arpeggios. I head for where I know there’s an invisible curtain of balsam fir scent, and I boldly trespass through it with deep breaths, each a small thrill.

The surrounding fog suddenly decides to ease its way through the trees, seemingly searching silently for me. The movement triggers a prehistoric impulse that only occurs when I’m alone and realize my insignificance: Beware But Behold!

And then it starts to rain fat drops that I can hear gulp giddily as they dive into the pools and become spreading targets. The mood is broken.

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 16, 2025.) See also the image in the first Comment space.

In the Right Place: Harbingers of Spring, V

Eastern skunk Cabbage spathes have been emerging through the ice and frozen ground for at least a week here. As usual, these are the first wild annual plants of the new year to break ground.

However, the above yellow variation is not usual; the usual color of the spathes is a mottled purple, as shown below. The Jester hat-like spathes are protective housings for the plant’s flowers, which grow out of a pin cushion-like growth (a “spadix”) hidden inside the hat.

The plant (Symplocarpus foetidus) is one of a very few plants that has evolved the ability to metabolically generate considerable internal heat, which enables it to get a jump on competitors before spring arrives.  Skunk cabbages have been reported to have raised 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 as well as protection, then leave and help propagate the species. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 15, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Harbingers of Spring, IV

In Conary Cove, the ice finally is out, the snow on the shore is virtually gone, mallard ducks are courting on calm waters, and – for the very sharp-eyed – Canada geese are V-ing home high in the sky. The light, depending on your perspective, also is of several moods:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 12, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Red March

Here’s a merger of three images of the total lunar eclipse early this morning that created an unusual Blood Full Moon:

(Merged mages taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 14, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Harbingers of Spring, III

Here you see Canada Geese immigrants returning home after being fired for causing fraud and waste, subjected to a 25% tariff, and deported as national security threats.

Well, actually, Canada Geese are fairly common in Maine as both residents and migrants. It’s always a thrill to have a V-shaped gaggle fly overhead loudly honking advice to each other. They’re good seed dispersers, beautiful birds, and (I’m told) good quarry for hunters.

On the other hand, excesses of these tundra nesters, sometimes caused by misguided humans feeding them or creating geese-friendly habitats, have been harmful to the geese and created disgusting, unhealthy situations. Maine wildlife officials have issued online advice on controlling them. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 11 [flying] and 13 [standing], 2025.)

In the Right Place: Restoring Magnificence

Here you see a peregrine falcon that has been trained to catch and kill on command by the master falconer on whose glove the bird sits:

The image appears with my monthly column in the current print edition of the Ellsworth American (and in the March 6, 2025, digital edition).  Click on the image to enlarge it. To read the column about Maine’s restored peregrines – the cheetahs of the sky – use this link: https://www.5backroad.com/montly-column

In the Right Place: Harbingers of Spring, I & 2

1.    Some Down Easters know that spring is coming when the first sailboat comes out of hibernation and causes a traffic jam in front of the Post Office:

2.    For others, it’s when the Holey Ritual of the Healing of the Driveways starts with the Laying on of the Sands:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine on March 4 [boat] and 11 [potholes], 2025.)

In the Right Place: Old MacDonald Had a Garage

“Traditional” red Maine barns are popular with photographers who enjoy historic sites, including yours truly. However, many, if not most, barns here are more likely to shelter cars and trucks than cows and goats, or contain summer apartments and party rooms rather than grain and hay:

A sobering story is told in the 2024 Maine Census of Agriculture (based on the most recent [2022] data). The number of farms in the state has been decreasing over the years. As in many states, Maine farms are mostly (82%) individual- or family-run operations.

A remarkable 57% of Maine farmers have a primary occupation other than farming. And, most of our farmers are old. About 12.5% of Maine farmers are over 75 years old, about 26% are in the 64-to-75-years-old category, and about 23% are in the 55-to-64 category.

Maine’s principal agricultural products are potatoes, milk and other dairy products, chicken eggs, blueberries, and (somewhat surprisingly) floricultural items (flowers and ornamental plants). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Dock- & Pier-Peering, IV

There’s no question that, at the center of this image, that is a “dock” and not a “pier.” It’s officially the Brooklin Town Dock. I’ve heard that some think it’s squat and ugly. In isolation, maybe so. However, within its chosen place, it’s a valuable feature of a picturesque Maine working harbor.

When a Maine lobster boat is tied up to that Dock, a very pleasing composition is completed. The Dock is bordered by a small recreational and picnic area, a beach that provides good summer sunning and bracing swimming in very clear water, and a parking lot with a portable restroom facility. There also is a float docking system that is launched beside the Dock in the summer for small boats to tie up.

Note that, unlike many piers, this hard-surfaced Dock is wide enough and strong enough to accommodate trucks for loading and unloading lobster-trapping and scallop fishing equipment. It also can support heavy, mechanized grapple trucks that can install and remove booms, masts and chain-net “drags” (dredges) on fishing vessels.

The Dock is at Naskeag Point, the end of a beautiful peninsula that, itself, is on a beautiful peninsula named the Blue Hill Peninsula. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 8, 2025.)

n the Right Place: Dock- & Pier-Peering, III

Above and below are images taken yesterday of what is left of the Atlantic Boat Company’s traditional pier in Herrick Bay.

The pier was destroyed by the extraordinary winter storms of January 2024. Perhaps these wooden “bones” have been left as a memorial or a reminder not to take Mother Nature for granted.

The Company replaced this old pier with a modern, retractable floating dock system that is launched when the weather warms up and stored ashore in winter. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 8, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Dock- & Pier-Peering, II

Here’s the WoodenBoat School pier, which also is intriguing in a good Great Cove fog. It comes ashore adjacent to the School’s classic boathouse and probably is the most substantial pier in the neighborhood. It has a very long, heavy-duty wood span that rests on massive, old granite pilings. In the summer, it’s extended by a gangway and a fairly large docking float where visitors tie up boats.

Above, you see the pier from the south. On the north side of boathouse, there’s a flight of old, lichen-splattered field stone steps that lead directly to the pier:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 6, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Dock- & Pier-Peering, I

Is it a “pier” or a “dock” or either or both? Some people insist that stationary passageways that protrude over the water on piers of wood, stone, or other supporting material should be called “piers.” Only structures that are designed to allow a floating vessel to tie up to them should be called “docks,” they say.

Above, you see the Brooklin Boat Yard’s pier yesterday as a reported 16.5-foot tide rolls into Center Harbor and a dense fog drifts out. Its relatively new and large home-like shed hasn’t weathered yet, but it’s certainly a distinctive feature. It looks a bit surreal (René Magritte-ish?) hanging over moving water:

(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 6, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Battle of the Seasons

It’s foggy, windy, rainy, and cozy-warm for early March (45°F) as I write this morning. It has been that way since yesterday, when the images posted here were taken. We seem to be in the first major battle of seasons between the occupying forces of winter and the invading forces of spring. The sea ice has been unable to maintain its line of defense in many areas and the accumulated ground snow is in full retreat

Above, you see the ice in Patten Bay separating and drifting out yesterday. Below, you’ll see that most of the snow on Harbor Island was disappearing fast in the rain and warmth yesterday and probably is virtually all gone as I write here:

Of course, we dare not get optimistic. Local history shows that there always is a possibility of a spring blizzard or ice storm after a March thaw. (Images taken in Surry and Brooklin, Maine, on March 5, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Seal of Approval

I came out of the dentist’s office Monday morning and got into the car where Barbara was waiting for me. She said, “There’s something moving around in that holly bush that you just passed.” The bush was about 30 feet away from our parking space. We stared at it and saw nothing. I dragged up the camera with a 200-500mm lens that I always travel with. As the focusing blur cleared, this little masked beauty appeared, apparently waiting motionless for us to leave so that he could finish breakfast:

It was a single, stationary Ceder Waxwing, which was unusual; they usually travel and dine in a fluttering flock. He did eventually hop around a little in the bush, which allowed us to see why he is called a “waxwing”: There’s a little daub of red on his wingtips that looks like a dripping of red sealing wax, the kind used to seal important letters in days of yore. You’ll see it slightly better in this image:

(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 3, 2025.)

In the Right Place: The Soft and Hard of It

Above, you see the dappled light and racing shadows in a stand of softwood trees (balsam firs and spruces). Below, you’ll see the full light in a stand of hardwood trees (American white [“paper”] birches):

The images were taken Sunday within five minutes of each other.

Softwoods have evergreen needles that create a shaded canopy all year. My understanding is that the softwoods come from “gymnosperm” trees: trees that have “revealed seed” that is not hidden in a fruit, nut, or other ovule. Hardwoods come from “angiosperm” trees: trees that have “enclosed seed” in an ovule and usually are deciduous, with leaves that fall each year.

Softwood trees can spread their seeds more easily and grow faster than hardwoods can. The faster growth, however, makes their cellular structure much less dense, hence softer than hardwoods. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 2, 2025.)

In the Right Place: Meltdowns of the Maine Kind

Here you see the heavy ice in Blue Hill Bay breaking up and melting yesterday, despite the day’s temperatures in the teens and low 20s (F):

Just four days ago, there was much more heavy ice there:

Apparently, March 1’s rain and above-freezing temperatures got the melt going and its inertia was too much to reverse the process for saltwater ice. It’s cold today; re-icing has started; spring is being patient. (Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on March 2 and February 26, 2025.)

In the Right Place: All-Wet Optimism

Here you see yesterday afternoon, March 1, a miserable, raw day of rain and occasional small hail that melted several inches of snow and revealed that we still have some sorry-looking grass:

Yet, the day provided hope for those optimists who believe in that famous 18th Century proverb: “If March comes in like a lion” (meaning bad weather), “it goes out like a lamb” (meaning good weather). Most Mainers seem to believe in that even older proverb: “We’ll see.” (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 1, 2025.)

February Postcards From Down East Maine

February, our shortest month, generally is considered to be the last month of winter. But, up here, you never know. Nonetheless, February is named after the Roman festival of Februa, which was a time of cleansing. In that sense, this February lived up to its name.

It was filled with polite, purifying snows followed by bright sunlight, with a few gray. rainy, and bitter cold days tossed in so that we don’t get spoiled. Although a short month, there were plenty of sights worthy of sending “Wish You Were Here” postcards about.

As usual, we begin with our four iconic sights on the Blue Hill Peninsula, which includes the towns of Brooklin and Blue Hill: The mountains of Mount Desert Island, as seen from Brooklin: the summer house on Harbor Island in Brooklin’s Naskeag Harbor; the near-mountain called Blue Hill, as seen from across Blue Hill Bay in the Town of Blue Hill, and the red boathouse in Blue Hill Bay’s Conary Cove:

February’s plentiful snow flurries often were visitations by the tiniest of flakes that floated this way and that before collecting in crowds on trees and on the ground. When followed by bright sunlight, the effect could be dazzling and tempting for those who like to be creative.

The month’s freezes and thaws and occasional high winds had a dynamic effect on our many bays, ponds, and streams.

For the ducks that depend on those waters, the calms were wonderful, but the freezes caused fruitless treks across ice looking for a swimmable space to dive for food. Ducks weren’t the only swimmers this month; a group in Brooklin took a “cold dip” in Naskeag Harbor to promote donations to Finding Our Voices, an organization that aids survivors of domestic abuse.

We did a lot more driving than swimming this February, thanks to our tradition of fast and frequent plowing. Country roads and lanes can be very attractive framed in snow.

On the waterfront, February is a time for fishing for scallops for some vessels and for resting until summer for others. The scallopers are lobster boats that are fitted out with masts, booms, and shelling huts. Many of the summer vessels are fitted out as mummies in shrink-wrap. Hardy lobster traps don’t need to be fitted out in anything while they wait for summer.

February’s purifications were well applied to rural structures, from sheds to barns and to dwellings, lighthouses, and chapels.

If you go into some of those dwellings, you’ll find tropical flowers in full bloom during February, including hibiscus flowers that seem to be sherbet volcanoes.

Finally, we come to February’s moon. Some Native Americans called it the Snow Moon for obvious reasons; others called it the Hunger Moon because snow made it difficult to hunt. We’ll just call it magnificent this year because it rose full during and above a snow-storm-in-the-making and was fascinating as it passed through its other phases.

(All images in this post were taken in Down East Maine during February 2025.)