It's been two months, she says..

It's been fully two months since I last posted, I have been reminded by my official prodder, Susan.  Often on my morning walks with Ella I think of something I want to post here, and then I get home and get busy, starting of course with feeding Ella her breakfast!

Let's start with weather - it has been an unseasonably warm fall, which just recently turned to extreme cold when Canada's Polar Vortex decided she would like to come south for the winter.   Here was the weather two days ago as I took Ella out (note not only the temperature, but the wind and -29 wind chill!):

The next day, Saturday, it reached 32 and we had snow - about 3 inches - followed by rain into today.  Today it reached 58 degrees.  58 degrees!  (Hey, Polar Vortex, where'd you go?)  Tonight it is supposed to go down to 8 degrees and tomorrow it is to reach 12 degrees.  All the snow that melted today and is sitting around as standing water will become a sheet of ice.

All this with the weather has been particularly significant to me because of my involvement with the Congolese refugee family that came to our area back in August.  I keep telling the family member that winter is coming and they need to be ready.  The local church and our synagogue finally were able to buy winter boots for everyone, and I believe everyone has a coat.  Yet on the day mentioned above, Jordan showed up in a heavy sweatshirt!  When we have snow one day and 58 degrees the next, it is hard to make "winter" believable!

We had the whole family but one (who had to work) to our house for Thanksgiving, along with our neighbors, Melissa and her son Tobias, and six others of their family and friends.  I think our total count was 22, but not positive.  The Congolese family, at our request, made their traditional ugali dish (boiled semolina, kind of like a cross between grits and bread) and fried fish, which we all got to try.  Our roasted turkey and David's butternut squash were big hits with the family.  It has been a real privilege getting to know them all.  I have tremendous admiration for the entire family.  It is hard to even conceive of the challenges they are tackling daily in leaving a refugee camp in Tanzania where 200,000 people are living (120,000 from Burundi and 80,000 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to come to Maine to a town of 2,500 souls, all of them Caucasian.   (Jordan told me today that tomorrow is an important day in his country, the DRC.  The current president's second term ends and he had negotiated tomorrow as the day he would leave office.  But he doesn't want to step down.  Jordan does not think he will.  Then people will protest, demonstrate.  And the army will attack.  And, Jordan tells me, "people will die.")

With this on our minds, we head into the holiday season.  Ulner's boatyard has hoisted the Christmas trees to the top of their shrink-wrapped schooner's masts but no Magen David for Chanukah (yet) this year.  Here is one of the trees:

We are gearing up for our community Christmas dinner, sponsored by the synagogue and friends.  We expect to serve between 120 and 140 people.  I've lost count of the number of turkeys.  It is a good way to spend the day.  (And for many, several days before hand, cooking dishes, picking up food donated by local restaurants, setting up tables, and so on.)

The last time I wrote here, the U.S.'s own presidential election had not yet happened.  It is still hard to believe it did happen.  Yesterday and today, apparently taking a break from adding another billionaire to his cabinet, P-E Trump (it is difficult for me to write out "president" and "elect" in same sentence with that name) has been "tweeting" warmongering messages with the Chinese.  "Give us back our drone you stole."  "Oh, you say you'll give it back - then just keep the damn thing." Today I learned that his nominee for Secretary of State is the CEO of an oil company owned jointly with the Russians and headquartered in the Bahamas, but I'm sure that will not prevent him from dealing with Russia putting the interests of the U.S. first, right?   I find I can't go on too long about this subject - whether writing about it, reading about it or even thinking about it - that way leads into a long dark tunnel leading toward what appears to be a bleak future.

And then, lest we should forget, there is:

Aleppo.  Aleppo.  Aleppo.

I heard today that Assad's army bombed buses that were carrying refugees out of Aleppo.

It is hard to think about 2017 may bring to the world.  I think about the Congolese family newly living here - what must they think of this country in which they have come to start new lives?  At least they had the chance to do that, although they had to wait 20 years in a refugee camp.

Aleppo.

Aleppo.

Aleppo.

Wait for it, wait for it...

Okay, thank you for waiting for it.  I apologize for the length of the wait.  Can't promise the wait will prove to be worth it, but for what it is worth, here it is - a (lengthy) update.

It's been SO LONG since I posted, I'm not sure how to even start.  Since the last post, autumn - both calendar and meteorological - has arrived.  The trees are mid-change and beautiful.  The weather is also changeable.  We are still reaching 70 degrees on some mid-days, and as low as 39 in the middle of some nights.  David and I were have taken Ella for many hikes off of Birch Point beach over the past weeks, through the woods and ending up on some rocks where we usually sit in the sun for a bit, and I sometimes take a photo, like this:

We also took a lovely hike out the Rockland Breakwater  on a beautiful windy day in September:

A few weeks ago David completed the cedar strip kayak he began last winter.

He had interrupted building it to complete the skin-on-frame kayak he made for me, a picture of which I think I already posted here.  I don't have one of the new kayak in the water, but here's a couple taken in our yard.  It is beautiful and David says he really like the way it handles in the water:















Of course, my morning walks with Ella continue.  These have become the one reliable action I take every single day for myself - and Ella - to have time to myself, to move my body, to relax, to empty my thoughts, to see the world in a new way, even though we usually take nearly the same route.  We have been going further, up to 3 miles.  Good for Ella, good for me.  We usually still go down to the waterfront and throw the ball on the grounds of boat yard and bait company.

We almost always make it to the Apprenticeshop's dock.  There have been many foggy mornings in September-October, including these:



















Apart from Ella and my morning walks, I've been busy, too busy, "volunteering."  After living up to my commitment to myself not to overdo the volunteering for the first year of my retirement, I guess I overdid it.  In addition to volunteering with the Restorative Justice Project (RJP) - for which I agreed in late August to serve as another mentor, but this time for an adult and involving a year-long (at least) commitment - I have become involved with a group called Renew Rockland which is working on 3 projects for our city:  1. renewable energy, specifically solar; 2. sponsoring a "food sovereignty" ordinance at city council; and 3. Rockland's solid waste, recycling and composting through a "waste watchers" volunteer group.  I also became involved in our synagogue's High Holiday committee which took a lot of time.  And I volunteered with FairVoteMaine which is advocating for passing the Ranked Choice Voting referendum that will be on the ballot in Maine in November.  I've done a lot of data entry for them, and we held an educational event at the synagogue in September, which went well.

Finally in September I also became involved with providing assistance to a family of new immigrants to our midcoast area.  Originally from the Democratic (sic) Republic of the Congo, they spent almost 20 years in a refugee camp in Tanzania.  They recently came to Maine under sponsorship of Catholic Charities' refugee organization.  They are an extended family of 15 - really 2 families, a mother and her 8 children, one of whom is himself married and has 6 children.  Mostly I have been providing transportation to the family, to take family members to doctors' appointments - I learned about the family from a neighbor who is the Maine Public Health Nurse assigned to the family, each of whom has to visit a doctor at the beginning of their residence here in Maine - shopping, and so on.  None of the family drives and they live several miles from Walmart, which is the closest place to buy groceries.  My synagogue is also getting involved, one one of the Men's Club members donating a used laptop and helping set it up, and the entire congregation being asked to help donate items the family needs, including winter clothes.  Little by little.  It is instructive to be involved from the very beginning of a large new immigrant family's introduction to life in the U.S.  Five adults are working ]in a group home.  (There is a shortage of workers for group homes, homes for the elderly, etc. here in Maine and that is one reason Maine is accepting refugee families here.  That is why this family was found housing in our area, because of the job availability.)  Only one of the 5 adults speaks English fairly fluently; several others, not at all,  The kids are all in school, where they are getting English lessons. There is so much to learn about what it means to live here.  I have incredible admiration for the courage of the entire family.

Less than a month until the election - at this point, I feel like most people probably feel - let's get it over with!   Watching Republicans first rush to disavow Trump's bragging about sexual assault and then back off the disavowal engenders cynicism. Worse are those who say that "as the father of a 15 year old daughter..." - so what.  Daughter or no daughter, sexual assault is wrong against anyone is wrong, bragging about sexual assault is wrong.  I cling to the frail hope we have learned something from it, but I tend to be fairly cynical.   Yesterday was the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur - on which the fate of the Jewish people, along with all other people and the entire world is set to have been "sealed" for the year to come.

May it be for us all and for the entire planet on which we ride through space a year of life, of health, of prosperity.  May we at least take steps toward ending poverty, racism and all injustice.   May every person who has had to leave his or her homeland find a place to settle in peace, taking steps toward making a new home.

May there be peace, peace, near and far, for every single human being and every living thing.

Turning the corner

I think we here in mid coast Maine may have turned the corner toward fall.  Oh, it's still warm, even hot, and humid (today is cooler - mid 70s - but rainy), but I see brown edges on the Horse Chestnut's leaves.  The Horse Chestnut is the first, or among the first, trees here to sprout leaves in the spring and among the first to lose them in the fall.  The gardens that Ella and I pass on our morning walks are beginning to look ... disheveled.  Labor Day lurks around the corner and the days are distinctly shorter as twilight comes earlier and earlier.  The Big Three tourist events in Rockland - the Blues Festival, the Lobster Festival and the Boat, Home and Harbor Show - are finished.  We did not attend any of them this year, although we did put our chairs out on Main Street early to get seats to watch the Lobster Festival Parade again.  Nothing new or outstanding; in fact, this year there were no Clydesdales - which was a highlight of last year's parade.

David and I have been kayaking quite a bit.  I'm really enjoying my new kayak.  Here are a few photos from several different days' paddles:

Marsh tucked in a corner of Megunticook Lake

David entering the marsh

Cliffs on the edge of Megunticook Lake

Another day -

Paddling away from Birch Point beach

And most recently -

Pretty sailboat being readied to sail near Friendship

Loon off of Friendship

So my new ukulele arrived.  It is beautiful.  I have to admit that I think I secretly  believed that when I held it, I would suddenly (and magically) play better than I do.  Not true.  But the instrument is wonderful.  It is a sweet sound, a true sound.  This is a photo David took moments after I opened the box and then the hard case and held the ukulele for the first time (please don't look at my bed head):

I think I mentioned that my son, Sam, took his family on a cross-country road trip - from Atlanta to California and back.  It seems they had a wonderful adventure, camping in national parks, visiting the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, the Pacific coast.  A lot of driving, but the kids are used to that.  I'm closing with 2 photos from that trip that Sam shared with me - both were taken IN the car, not at some of the scenic places they visited - but I think they capture the spirit of the trip.

That's all, folks - except:  Peace.

This and that

Two items of personal news:  First, I just passed my 1 year anniversary of retiring.  Although I was aware it was approaching, the actual date would have passed unnoticed but for a call from a former colleague, checking to see how I am doing.  That was nice. (I am doing fine!  Have learned some interesting things about myself, but more on that another time/post.)  Second, I just made a "flying" (actually, driving - 6 hours each way) trip back to Connecticut for a joint birthday celebration with my friends Helen and Susan F. (as all 3 of us have birthdays in July), and we were joined for dinner by Karen and Jerry.  It was a lovely evening, and reminded me how much I miss these good friends.  

On to local happenings...   Fair Days have started.  No, I don't mean weather-wise; I mean ... fairs ... like agriculture--cows, goats, sheep, chickens, pies, oxen and tractor pulls, etc.  The first two I'm aware of (which we won't make):

Northern Maine Fair, July 29-Aug. 6, Presque Isle. FMI: NorthernMaineFairgrounds.com.

Bangor State Fair, July 29-Aug. 7, Bass Park/Cross Insurance Center. FMI: BangorStateFair.com.

But we will be looking to attend a couple in August and September, maybe Topsam and certainly Common Ground Fair.

In a small sample of other local "events": 

• “Drone Aircraft,” 7 p.m., Boothbay Railway Village, Route 27. Illustrated talk by retired industrial engineer Larry Stevenson. $5 suggested donation. 
• Annual Port Clyde Fisherman Doll Fair, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Port Clyde Baptist Church. Traditional fishermen, mermaids, King Neptunes and other dolls. Craft table, flea market, baked goods including blueberry pies. 
• Maritime-Themed Spelling Bee, Union Hall, Searsport, 6-8 p.m. Carver Memorial Library hosts the lead-up to Heritage Weekend. Teams of 3-5 can register ($25) at 548-2303. Benefits library. 
• Author of “Lessons in Censorship” to Speak at Left Bank Books, Belfast, Fri., Aug. 5, 7 p.m. Free, public talk by Catherine Ross on her new book that defines speech rights in public schools. Save your seat: 338-9009. 
• August 6 Deadline to Apply for 2016 Maine Wild Blueberry Queen Contest, set for Fri., Aug. 26, at Union Fair. FMI: UnionFair.org. 
• Aquatic Bug Wade in Camden, 11 a.m.-noon. Biologist Paul Leeper points out whirligig beetles and voracious dragonflies at Bog Bridge boat ramp. Details: megunticook.org. 
• Hope Haitian Choir to Perform, 6:30 p.m., Celebration Life Family Church, 3 Cross St., Rockport. Choir of 15 kids and 5 accompanying adults from Haiti perform original songs and other pieces. Free-will donations taken. FMI: HopeHaitian.com. 

Mid coast Maine really does have something for everyone!

On the personal front - we have been kayaking several times, most recently off Pemaquid Point.  David is back to building his strip-plank kayak - it's going to be beautiful. Photos to follow at some point.  Also, we finished updating the guest room.  Here are "before," "during" and "after" photos:

Room as it looked during showing before we purchased house.

During wallpaper stripping & before carpet removal.

After

After

Now some wonderful personal news - my new custom-built Mya-Moe ukulele is finished and on its way to me via UPS, due to arrive on Friday.  I am very (!) excited, and determined to live up to such a beautiful instrument and to deserve it every day:

Finally, our changeable weather has brought us periodic thunderstorms much to Ella's consternation.  She often seeks comfort and safety in what I call "the slot" - a 12 x 30 inch space between the radiator and David's tool box (used as an end table).  Here she is (she's so skinny, you don't really get a sense from this photo of how narrow the "slot" is):

As Bugs Bunny would say, that's all folks.

Peace.  

Goat sitting

Since returning from our trip down south, we've been getting back into day-to-day life hereabouts.

First, there's the work on the guest room.  I stripped wallpaper.  David repaired plaster.  We painted.  David removed the carpet.  Now he's updating the built-in dresser top and then will come sanding and refinishing the floor.  Here are some "before" and "during" pics.  "Afters" to come ... after.

Guest room before work

Guest room mid-wallpaper stripping

Our garden seems to be thriving.  We finally got some needed rain and both the lawn and the vegetables spurted growth.  Our neighbor, Melissa, has been donating perennial flowers to us.  Our own carrots, tomatoes, basil, thyme, oregano, cucumbers and collards are doing well.

Cucumbers, thyme, oregano, basil and collards.

Tomatoes

I've started back in ukulele class; my new Mya-Moe ukulele is (finally--after 18 months on the waiting list and 7 months after paying a deposit) in progress, due to be delivered on August 8.

David and I went kayaking this week.  We launched at the beach at Birch Point State Park, and paddled up the coast.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  We saw ducks, loons, gulls and a bald eagle.

Lobster trap buoy

Bald eagle perched atop dead tree

Well, that's the news from our house.  In the wider mid coast, the news of note is in the ever expanding job market:

Pay + goat milk - what a deal!  Interested?

Peace, peace, far and near.

2,730 miles later

Well, we did it.  David and I - and Ella! - drove our "new" (2007) Honda Accord from here in mid coast Maine to Atlanta and back, some 2,700+ miles.

First, about Ella - we had thought there was a possibility of "boarding" Ella here in Maine with a guy a friend told me about.  He "boards" dogs in his home with his own dogs and that sounded like a neat idea.  No crate, no kennel.  But my friend was out of town for 3 weeks and I couldn't reach her until just before we were to leave town.  When I did, I learned that she ended up not boarding her dog with this guy because she didn't like how he addressed the dogs getting along together.  So she didn't recommend him after all.

My cousin Melissa (same cousin who, with her husband and son, visited us last year for a delightful few days) offered to keep Ella at her home in NC - where we had planned to stop on our way to Atlanta - while we went on to Atlanta.  This seemed like a great plan as it would allow us to do things in Atlanta with Sam, Corinne and the boys without having a dog with us.  So we left for the South, David, Ella and me.

First day we drove about almost 600 miles to just past Harrisburg, PA, and stayed at a Motel 6 (dog friendly).  Turned out to be inexpensive, clean, cable TV, friendly staff, near 24-hour diner - a good choice.  Next day we drove the rest of the way to Melissa, John and Austin's in Etowah, NC (just outside Asheville).  Melissa and family have 2 dogs - a 9 pound Chigle (cross between Chihuaua and Beagle) named Rex and a 16 year old Golden Retriever mix named Daisy.  Unfortunately the first thing that happened was Ella tried to take a drink from Daisy's water dish and that pissed off Daisy royally.  That started the two ladies down a very bad path.  But Ella and Rex got along just fine; in fact they were hysterical to watch:

Melissa, John and Austin took us on a drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Mitchell, which we learned is the highest mountain east of the Rockies (higher than Mount Washington up here in New Hampshire).  We had a lovely picnic lunch, hiked a bit up to a heath. Here's the view:

The next day we visited the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, built by George (I think) Vanderbilt.  It is the largest privately owned house in the U.S.  Apart from the 2 master (his and hers) bedroom suites, there are 33 guest bedrooms, 60+ staff bedrooms and 43 bathrooms.  The home includes an indoor bowling alley and swimming pool.  The kitchens, pantries and laundry facilities were particularly amazing.  (They used a wood drying rack like the one we still use in our own basement!)

David took more photos than I, but here are a few.  First a lovely long outside corridor.  Must be a lovely place to sit in the cool evening breeze and watch fireflies.

Here's one David took of my cousin, Melissa, and me in front of one of 2 stone lions in front of the mansion:

Among my favorite rooms was the "Halloween Room" down in the basement level.  Apparently a party was held there on Halloween and the guests all took to painting the walls of the room.  I love the paintings; here's one sample:

And of course, there are the gardens designed by Olmsted (who also designed Central Park in New York and, I learned, also Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which we visited later with Sam).  We only had time to visit the "Walled Garden" and walk quickly through the Conservatory (wonderful tropical plants including orchids).  Here's one photo of the garden:

In the end, we couldn't leave Ella with Melissa.  The night before we left for Atlanta, Ella and Daisy got into it again and Daisy's nose was scratched, giving her a bloody nose.  It was superficial, but after that I couldn't leave Melissa to deal with keeping the two girls apart for 4 days at the start of what should be Melissa's summer vacation (she's an 8th grade teacher!).

So off to Atlanta we went, the 3 of us.  Ella's presence put constraints on what we could do with the kiddos, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  While Cachao worked with Corinne on a workshop she was teaching on Saturday and Sunday, Sam, Cello, David, Ella and I walked the "Beltway" - an abandoned train track that has been turned into a greenway/walking path in various parts of the city.  We walked to Piedmont Park where Cello enjoyed himself on a playground:

Ella got to make a quick visit to a fenced in "dog park" as well.  One day we visited the pool at an apartment complex owned by Sam's landlord that Sam's family can use:

Another day we managed to do a round of miniature golf (they let Ella sit with one of us under a canopy in the shade, while the rest of us played golf - Cachao won!)  Afterwards the boys had ice cream.  It was a HOT day!

We had a good visit, notwithstanding Ella!  We played board games - Yahtzee, Trouble and a new game we learned about from Melissa called Apples to Apples.  We had dinner one evening, all of us including Corinne and a friend (who surprised us delightfully by treating us all to dinner) at a Mexican restaurant near Sam's place.  We sat on the patio and Ella was able to be just outside a small fence.  The restaurant had water bowls placed strategically around the outside of the fence so it was clear that Ella wasn't the first canine dinner guest.  We were able to make a quick visit to my brother, John, the night before we left.

Then back to NC for one more night with Melissa and family and then back on the road again.



We spent the last night at a Motel 6 in Frackville, PA, which we picked based on how many miles it would leave us to drive the second day.  Turned out to be a weird motel - 3 different buildings, ours with no signage actually indicating it was a motel - in a weirder town.   I took this photo to remind us (and you, too) of the following advice:

"Do not stay overnight in Frackville, PA."

Finally, last day of the trip.  Here is how Ella did most of the journey on her new Orvis dog "hammock" - supposed to protect the backseat from dog fur.  I guess it worked - at least a little bit.  (I only spent an hour vacuuming the car after we got home, and was successful at sucking up at least 90% of the dog hair.)  Yes, that's a pillow under her head!

Now, finally, home again, and very glad to be here.  Our neighbor Melissa watered our tomatoes and cucumbers, which appear to have thrived in our absence.  Our other neighbor Lee mowed our lawn the day before we got home.  How about those neighbors!  Now Ella and I are back to our morning walks, this morning we saw a newly built and launched, very pretty little red row boat:

I think if everyone could see a pretty little red boat peacefully resting in the water early on a cool summer morning, the world would be a far better place.  I'm happy to be home.

Peace, peace, far and near.

Well...

Well, spring is finally here.  On May 6 I left home for 2 days - drove 90 miles south to Portland to attend the Maine State Democratic Convention - and when I got home, the tulips were lifting red and yellow heads in our back yard, and trees throughout the city had pushed out those lovely new pale fragile green leaves.  Two weeks later the new leaves are unfurling into darker green.

The convention was ... interesting.  I think back to being a child, my mother watching the political convention(s) on TV, all those people sitting in their state delegations, holding up signs with their candidates' names, cheering, clapping.  So fast forward to 2016, instead of state delegations, envision county delegations.  There were about 4,000 delegates, about 65% Bernie, 35% Clinton.  I heard later that 900 alternates for Bernie showed up.  (Alternates become delegates at the convention if a certified delegate doesn't show up.)  Ironically, in my view, the liveliest part of the convention were the debates on (1) a rules amendment proposed by Bernie supporters (to eliminate "super delegates" in 2020 and "strongly urge" current "super delegates" to vote in accordance with the popular vote in other words, for 3 of the 5 super delegates to support Bernie), and (2) proposed amendments to the Maine Democratic Party Platform that failed to pass the Platform Committee.  You get it?  The debate was on failed amendments.  To give you a flavor of the latter, we spent a "good" 30 minutes debating whether the party's platform position on extending Medicare "to all" should be qualified by the additional statement "starting with ages 0 to 25 and 55 to 65".

And then there were the speeches... speeches... and more speeches.  Barney Frank spoke in support of Clinton.  He was heckled by quite a number of Bernie supporters.  I personally thought he handled the heckling well, with irony and quite a bit of humor.  Which is more than I can say for the hecklers. The best speeches were Troy Jackson, former state legislator and state senator who is going to be a Maine representative to the Democratic National Party (and is a "super delegate" and very strong Bernie supporter), Chellie Pingree (my representative to Congress, also a "super delegate" and Clinton supporter) and Emily Cain, running for Congress in the 2nd district.  Here's the only photo from the convention - Troy Jackson's speech, not a great photo, but you get a sense of the "atmosphere" with 2 huge screens, bright lights, etc. etc. etc.

Interestingly, the biggest take-away for me from the experience was driving home to me the critical importance of LOCAL politics, wrenching control of the Maine state senate from Republicans and keeping and extending control of the legislature to enable override of the governor's predictable vetoes.  This year the legislature was able to override 2/3 of his vetoes, but that's not enough.  For one thing, he again (6th time?) vetoed expansion of Medicaid in connection with Obamacare.  This leaves something like 200,000 Mainers without health insurance - not poor enough for Mainecare, not enough income to buy Obamacare - but now subject to Obamacare tax/penalty.  Great system. ...

In other news...  my wonderful grandson, Cello, turned five.  For his birthday he received a telescope that is actually as tall as he is (he is an avid astronomy buff - has been for a whole year at least!) and his first bicycle:

With spring finally here, David made me a compost sifter and I began tackling the big job of sifting compost in one of our compost bins.  A morning's work earned me a wheelbarrow (see my beautiful new wheelbarrow!) full of compost:

Last weekend David wa\is off to Acadia National Park with 3 other guys.  The Park was shut down to car traffic on Saturday morning.  They drove up on Friday afternoon so they could start riding early Saturday to enjoy the Park car-free.

Finally, here is my beautiful new red kayak (skin-on-frame - actually, ballistic nylon, dyed and coated with polyurethane - Aleutian-style, on wood frame lashed together with synthetic sinew) made by my wonderful partner, David - on the shore, and  with me, paddling it.

I joined Instagram, although I can't say I understand it, but I joined to be able to see some photos that a friend only posts there.  It has motivated me to take photos of ... oddities ... and even make short videos ... to post there.  For those who haven't bowed down to the tech pressure and don't "enjoy" Instagram's world, here is an example of a photo and a short video:

Boat Bow

May the sun shine, the wind blow, the sea's tides come and go and may there be peace, peace, far and near.