7/10/09

Now and Again Notes from Maine—Chapter 2 –Friday, Junly10

Two full days of sunshine!! We are all weak with joy and relief. It rained HARD all Tuesday night and Wednesday. I was so cold I went to bed at 9 PM so I could warm up with my electric bed pad! And two days I have awakened at 7 AM to the growl of a chain saw—the forester (Forest is his name!) I found who promised to clean out some messy trees has been busy! It is so reminiscent of days on the island with Ayo’s chain saw growling down below the big house, clearing our view. He is working right now as I write—using wedges to be sure the trees fall just where he wants them to. He isn’t quite as good as Ayo, who could lay a huge tree down exactly where he wanted it.

Forest and his helper Mike backed their truck up down over the edge of my slope to load up wood from my trees and the trees from the other property—and when he got the truck loaded, it was so heavy and wet under foot that he couldn’t move. So after fussing around for about half an hour, he went over hat in hand to neighbor Ray, who promptly arrived with his whomping big pick up truck and pulled the other truck up the slope without even spinning his wheels. Forest the forester was mightily impressed! So was I!!

Yesterday I was visiting over at the house being rehabbed when Forest took down a gigantic spruce—fully three feet in diameter and probably 100 feet high—it was like removing a wall! The view that opened up from their great room has to be the best in the county—a full, unobstructed view of the stream in its last meander past the island going into the estuary and then right down the estuary—with pines along the shore and the bright green marshes on either side of the deep blue stream, it is a CLASSIC Maine view. The owners were ecstatic!! Neighbor Joan (Ray’s wife) pointed out this morning that in its heyday, Steuben was mostly clear of trees and one could see from the harbor right up to the church, so she and others consider it a return to the way it was to be doing all this clearing—it sure is wonderful to see the stream and bay. The builder claimed the lengths of that huge tree and two other spruces – he will mill them and age them for some lovely spruce lumber!

Everyday there are new workmen over at that house—today, a couple and their teenage son—the father is the excavator who owns the big shovel that has been scraping off every last inch of weedy topsoil and all the stumps. Yesterday the shovel guy went down the slope and limbed that spruce before it was cut. I had never seen that before—as Forest said, it was like a big bear clawing at the tree and bringing down 10-12 limbs at a whack!! Today the couple and son had a little vehicle called a “mule,” which is just a tiny truck, plus another small tractor pulling a rake. The father raked clean the scraped dirt and the wife loaded up the mule with the trash from that and the tree cutting, which was then all deposited on large heaps at the bottom of the slope in the marsh and will be burned when it starts to rain again. The owner’s brother arrived from Tampa Wed. AM—he is a contractor there, and came to put in the kitchen cabinets—I was ASTOUNDED to see the cabinets, which are vertical boards and aged to look old—the owner, Madeline, says the design is “old country’—it is both good looking but also a little much… oh well—not my house. They are such nice people and LOVE being neighbors, so that is fun. All the little girls in the neighborhood know the owner’s daughter, Christina, and today she is playing with Allexis, Ray and Joan’s 8 year old next door.

It’s really been a beehive of activity all over the neighborhood. Besides the army of workers at the house next door, EVERYONE was out on the riding mowers today since the grass is finally dry. All day Wednesday in the pouring rain, Wednesday evening until late, and Thursday neighbor Ray burned all that brush he and I have been cutting. He still has many piles to go. Forest told me he also will not burn until it is raining and has BEEN raining. He said, “I would much rather struggle to keep a fire burning than struggle to try to put it out!” Very wise, I say! Ray just poured on cans of lighter fluid until the fire caught and then once the core was hot, it kept itself going. Joan brought down a whole pack of marshmallows—no shortage of green long sticks! We had marshmallows in between hauling armloads of brush to the fires.

Today I finished digging up the sod in my day lily bed---it is an old stone rectangle about 10 X 4’—no one is sure what it used to be, but it makes a fine day lily bed, for sure. What a job getting the sod out, though. I’ve been thinking that were I a history teacher, I could comment with authority about the sod-busters like our great-grandparents, who pioneered in the West! I brought up a lot of day lilies from DC—should have some of my double orange, which I have dragged around since maybe Irving Street, and then some dark red ones I rescued a decade ago from the gardeners at AU, who were changing the plantings in the beds and throwing out bushels of them.

Yesterday Agnes and I had another nice adventure. First, I got my hair cut at ”Four Corners” (properly pronounced “Fah Cahnahs”) by my favorite hairdresser, Kim, who has a cute little one-person salon in a teensy strip mall, and who has been cutting Jason’s family’s hair summers and Christmas vacations since Jason was about 10, according to Kim—and who keeps me up to date on all the Fish news—like Jason’s brother Brady surprising his mother with a visit this week all the way from Nashville!. Fah Cahnahs is an intersection on Coastal Route 1 on the way to Machias, and it has something commercial on each of the four corners of the intersection, hence its name… Kim’s salon is right next to a great thrift shop (unfortunately closed that afternoon) (where Hannah Baldwin got the most fabulous leather jacket when we were here in December) and a garden shop is nearby. I stopped in there and got some perennials for my garden –painted daisies and purple bell flowers. Then we continued on up the coast (actually almost straight east) to Machias, the county seat and home of one of the branches of the University of Maine. We had dinner at a really cute little restaurant looking out over the estuary of whatever river it is runs through Machias to the sea—which is about 4 miles off at that point. The restaurant was at the end of the causeway where we watched fireworks last weekend. I had the most delicious scallop stew you can imagine—buttery and fresh and FULL of slices of scallop, AND their most popular salad, says the menu, which features locally made goat’s cheese (so you know this is a university town….!!).

From there we went to the University because last weekend in Jonesport (where we were for the miniature boat races) we met some people from The Great Auk Land Trust giving out information about a newly formed conservancy organization that is the result of a merge of theirs with another. They told us about a fundraising event—two documentaries being shown at U of M,M., so Agnes and I had decided to go.

One documentary was about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in the late 1990’s and it followed the progress of one of several packs that were put back into the park. It was vintage NG—vivid natural photography that included graphic scenes of elk getting killed by wolves, coyotes getting killed by wolves, and other wolves getting mauled and killed by wolves…but of course that was all in the natural course of things and in the end all was well—wolves thriving with their pups. The second documentary was the one we had come to see—about the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and the wacky, gentle man, Mark Bittner, who fed them and learned all about them and followed their lives and travails for about 4 years. It is an utterly enchanting documentary! The birds are gorgeous and the movie is largely about a few specific birds that Mark got especially close to before his landlords told him they needed to renovate his little cottage on the hillside and he had to leave that and his birds. He learned so much about them—one man at the zoo said he is probably the only person who has studied the lives of parrots to the degree that he did because parrots are notoriously difficult to study in their natural habitats in South America. And the movie has an equally charming ending, which I will not give away in the event all of you have not seen this film,.

After the movie, the host organization had a LOVELY spread of fruit and yogurt, coffee cake, etc. – so we chatted with a lot of awfully interesting PLU (people like us)—in this case, people from “away,” interested in wildlife.)

That kept us out until 11!!—

Today, Friday, Agnes and I went into Ellsworth to see another documentary, this one about the people who greet the troops leaving for or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan in Bangor. Bangor is the exit point for nearly all of these troops. We thought it was going to be a sort of uplifting factual documentary about the effort and those who started it. Instead it was a TOTALLY depressing 2 hours about three of the greeters, two old men veterans, and one old lady—a great grandmother with terrible arthritis and many health issues. One of the old guys was a widower and fell apart when his wife died so he was living like the famous Fanny – literally knee deep in empty animal food cans, dirty dishes etc. and later in the movie you find out he was a collector, too--- 27 vacuum cleaners…!! During the course of the movie he finds out he has cancer and the camera focuses on his ravaged, OLD face and he cries, and then goes into his house and wades through the trash….yikes! The other old guy was more cheerful, but has a dog who dies during the movie and he comes unglued. The old lady was sort of a grit-your-teeth kind of person but has to face two grandchildren going off to Iraq the same week. We are supposed to be moved by how much the troop greeting means to these people, who force themselves to come to the airport despite all their troubles, but believe me, it didn’t feel so good. Agnes, who is herself 81 and a force to be reckoned with—painted woodwork all day today—was annoyed to death by these sad people and insisted that they were typical of “real Maine people, “ for whom she has little use. She just grumbled and complained the whole way home that they could have done so much better for themselves, and what business did that man have spending all his money on animal food and lottery tickets??? In truth, the filmmaker tried to end on a reasonably positive note with the first guy’s cancer in remission and his farm finally sold and him living in a little mobile home park close to the airport, and the others cheering up a bit, but it was a downer for the most part. WE DO NOT recommend it!!


Saturday—more sun! one more outing—I stayed close to home today trying to move forward on several fronts—not all that successfully. In the late afternoon, I went down to Ellsworth to do some shopping and meet Agnes so we could go to Bucksport/ Fort Knox to a Scottish Tattoo. Our neighbor Steve, who with his wife really looks after Agnes and her property a lot, came along. (Steve and wife Linda moved up here from Frederick, MD in 2005 and fixed up the house on the road that has THE killer view of the bay—sits right smack at the top of the bay on a hill. It is about 200 years old and has its original kitchen fireplace, split stairway and many other features, gray shingles, connected to barn and garage in the traditional way—very, very cute. Their house is on the same side of the road as my house and my neighbors, the Rays, but down a ways since there are two small fields between two houses. They sit at the top of the wharf road, at the far end of which sits Agnes’ house, just above the ancient wharf, where I said in the last letter the couple had started lobstering. Steve and Linda own lots of property all over this area—mostly multi-unit rental properties—and just recently bought a gas station/general store in Clinton, which is south of here about two hours, where they now live during the week. I must reveal all and say that Steve and Linda and Agnes are FLAMING Republicans and blame ALL the country’s ills on THE ILLEGALS (always said at top volume) and Agnes is SURE Obama is really beholden to and in the pockets of THOSE MOSLEMS!! She is also convinced global warming is a hoax being perpetrated on us by the democrats and that we are all going to hell because of the cap and trade bill that was just passed. Needless to say, this makes certain conversations rather difficult for us…...)


Bucksport and Fort Knox sit on either side of the Penobscot River, one of Maine’s biggest, just where it empties into Penobscot Bay, long one of Maine’s most desirable locations for people from away because of its classic Maine coast line and dozens of islands, including Vinalhaven, which is where someone in Bush’s cabinet summers—can’t remember who, though—and also the site of much history and the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Recently the state rebuilt the bridge across the Penobscot Narrows---which connects the mainland to Verona Island, which sits in the middle of the river, and then another causeway connects the island to Bucksport on the north side of the river. This is the only crossing of the Penobscot River south of Bangor, and if you look at your maps, that is a LONG way—so this is an important bridge. The new bridge looks like small version of the new bridge over the Charles in Boston –very dramatic and modern suspension bridge with two huge towers from which the gigantic cables are strung in a fan shape-- and there is an observatory in one tower that has become an instant tourist sensation. The old bridge, rusty but picturesque, is still there. Fort Knox sits on the south side of the river across from Bucksport and at the north end of the new bridge. (If you look on a map, the fort, the bridge, the island and the other causeway are all on an L, with the end of the lower leg of the L being Bucksport.


Fort Knox is one of a string of forts built in Maine around the time of the war of 1812, though most of the fortifications were there earlier. I was thinking this evening that these forts are sort of America’s versions of castles on the Rhine—old, dramatic fortresses overlooking water—For our family, the Mundies, and anyone else who spent time at the island, this fort would look very familiar—it is of the same construction as Fort Gorges in Portland Harbor, where we visited every summer on one of the big boats after getting ice cream at Peaks Island. This one is in gorgeous repair since it is being looked after by a volunteer group (and you can bet it was started by those people from away who now inhabit the whole Penobscot area). The fort looks out over the inlet and the river and the opposite bank and is in a spectacular location for defense.


We all sat inside around the now-grass covered parade ground on chairs we brought or on the grass or ledges. Lots of people were sitting around the upper perimeter of the fort (which at Fort Gorges is –or used to be—all overgrown with sumac and passable only by a little goat track which scared the willies out of me). The fort has five huge cannon emplacement arches—about 25 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high, and then there is a tall narrow arch where the ramp into the fort enters—all of the arches are in a gentle semicircle with slits facing the water, of course. The show was performances by 5 bands—1 fife and drum corps—The First Maine Volunteers—Civil War era – and 4 bagpipe and drum groups from all over the state in full Scottish regalia—plus one solo piper, a remarkable young man of 15 who competes internationally and is exceptionally good. After listening to some of these painfully amateur volunteer bands, it was clear why this boy was so good!! Normally it is difficult for me to know if pipers are good or not—they are just loud and screechy—but tonight being in tune or not was also clear…!

The bands entered by marching up the ramp through entrance arch and then up more ramp into the parade ground area in the middle of the fort—VERY dramatic with the drums and pipes echoing off the arches and the bands slowly rising into view, the obligatory drum major with his huge baton—only one group had the giant bear skin hats of the Black Watch Band (Imitation, I am sure). Most had GIANT sporan- -the bag that hangs down in front, also animal skin of some kind.


dramatic though they were, two and half hours of show and suffice it to say that I have had my fill of bagpipe music for quite a while—until the Scottish Walk in Alexandria, VA in the fall at least!! We remarked on how many women were in the bands—all but the Anah Pipers from Bangor, who are from a Temple of Shriners from and appear in all the parades with their miniature cars or boats or whatever zooming around or on floats, raising money for children’s hospitals and other good causes—Anahs are all men.(They were the ones in bear-skin-type hats). One group had two ENORMOUS women—I am not exaggerating here—in their kilts with horizontal stripes….and another was a very funny motley crew of tubby –VERY tubby—youngish boy drummers, one VERY tall skinny drummer—literally an Ichabod Crane of a boy—an adams apple out to HERE—and one tiny little girl piper and then a whole lot of big men pipers and another large girl on the big bass drum—funny looking group.


Though the show was actually pretty nice and the place lovely and sky lovelier pale blue with a light cloud cover, it IS Maine in July—so the temperature was down to 60 and falling as the wind picked up –tourists in their shorts and bare feet were wrapping up in towels and blankets and finally bailing at about 7:45, when kids were complaining of cold. Those of us who know Maine better came with jackets and long pants—though even that wasn’t enough. Seethe with jealousy, those of you baking or steaming in summer heat!


Favorite crowd glimpse—a geeky boy of about 13 –sort of Harry Potter looking boy with funny, roundish glasses—wearing a T shirt that said, “ Mullet Removal Team” !!!!


Well—lots more ramblings—You are all too kind to read….. may these letters give you a taste of this foreign country of Downeast Maine.


Love, Mom/Robin