Foggy morning, vacation over...

Not a lot of time to write this morning, so I will just post some photos from our "vacation" days and the visit of the Benjamin's.  Then back to work.

 Light house at Point Clyde from where we took the ferry to Monhegan Island.

Along the way, the ferry captain slowed down so we could see Harbor Seals sunning themselves.

View from the hill on which the Monhegan Lighthouse stands, looking down at the harbor, Mañana Island behind the harbor.  The large building is the Monheban Inn.  We had lunch there.  Delicious fish tacos, spinach salad and portabello mushroom "burger".

 The Monhegan Lighthouse.

We hiked across the island (which is one square mile, but has 12 miles of trails) to the cliffs on the eastern side.  Here's the view.  Pretty spectacular.

On the cliffs, we had a visitor - this gull who plucked up some grass and seemed to want to trade it for a bite of granola bar.

Several places on the island had do-it-yourself "bulletin boards" like this, announcing events.  It is useful to know that one can find a meditation group, a yoga class, ultimate Frisbee game, inter-denomination worship, and chili contest.

 Leaving Monhegan, this is the entrance to the harbor.

And Monhegan fades into the foggy distance.

A good day.

Peace.

Weathering it...

The last couple weeks have been so overlaid with stress from work, it's even hard to remember them. As if life - including my own - is going on somewhere else than where I am.  The last couple of days, a crescendo.  (Interesting that both Helen and my neighbor, Melissa, could tell my stress level had increased more than just a normal ratchet up - Helen, just from the tone of my voice over the phone, Melissa, from how tired she said I seem.  Both right.)

The only exception, my morning walk with Ella - and any other time I get away from my desk and get to walk with her.  Even my ukulele class was not particularly relaxation-inducing because I was late for it because my boss's boss called.

Meanwhile, mid coast Maine weather has been changeable - from out right warm (80 degrees) to what I think of as more typical Maine June weather - chilly, foggy, misty - to beautiful, crystal clear late spring sunshine and 67 degrees.  Here are photos of a chilly, foggy morning last week, taken from the pier at the Aprenticeshop very early on the morning after a full moon.  It was low low tide - the lowest of the month.

See the sailboat tilting on its rudder - that's because the tide was SO low that morning!















And here is one from a crisp sunny spring morning just a day later:

Even Ella pays for my stress as my mid-day walks are being shortened or pushed later in the day.  But more than that, Ella is a stress-o-meter.  I don't need a blood pressure cuff.  I can tell if my blood pressure is elevated or I am generally stressed, because Ella goes somewhere and curls up, preferably in a small space such as under David's desk, or between the radiator, the couch and the end table.  Here is Ella, looking as ambivalent about life at that moment as I am feeling.

Ella bears all with canine patience and still finds an ability to jump up and leap in joy for the smallest good thing - like a squirrel daring to come up on our back deck, the UPS truck having the nerve to pull up across the street (who knows, what devious intent that brown truck may have - thank heavens Ella is there to warn us of its arrival!), a shared piece of cheese, a romp with a ball.

May my squirrel come soon.

Peace.

Work Stress More Stress More Work Rain and Remembering

Is it clear from the title of this post that I've been "busy" at work lately?  To clear my brain, I turn to our wonderful little local weekly paper, The Free Press, to see what other people nearby are up to in their lives.  Here's a selection from last weekend, I think:

Perennial & Herb Swap, 9-10 a.m., Spectrum Generations Coastal Community Center, 521 Main St., Damariscotta. Bring a perennial for the Center's beds. Annuals and vegetable seedlings also welcome. If you don't have plants to swap, you can buy them for $2-$6.

• Death Cafe Damariscotta, 9-10:30 a.m., Savory Maine, 11 Water St. The open group is a safe place to have a lively conversation about death. Reservations: 633-4432.

• Antique Autos at Matthews Museum, 9 a.m.-noon, Union Fairgrounds. Dozens of antique cars will be on display. With free Moxie samples. Museum admission reduced to $3 for the day.

• Henry Knox Reading Circle to Meet, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Cole House next to Montpelier Mansion, Thomaston. The book is "American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown, 1781-1783" by William M. Fowler Jr. All are welcome.

• "Retrain Your Brain to Form Healthy Habits Through Yoga and Meditation," noon. Tammy Lee gives the presentation at Camden Library, as part of its Wellness Brown Bag Lunch series.

As usual, the above is a random selection of events listed here just as they appear in the paper.  There does seem to be something for everyone.  However, one particular event that caught my eye is apparently happening today.  Too bad about work stress work more work more stress - I guess I'll be missing:

"Sugar, Sex, and Poison: Shocking Plant Secrets Caught on Camera," 1 p.m., St. Andrews Village, Boothbay Harbor. Bill Cullina, executive director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, gives the talk. Free, but space is limited, so save your seat: 633-0920.

Would you call that "Plant Porn" or maybe "Plant Punk"?  Who knew?

From the ridiculous to the only too real - today  what I really want to do is remember Danny Friedman in my mind and my heart.  I look across the room from where I sit typing this and see the banjo he gifted David with - that I think possibly may have changed David's life.  He plays it every day.  He "played" banjo before Danny's banjo, but since has been "serious" about it (or at least as serious as a banjo player can be - banjos just make you smile!)  More than that, Danny gave a gift of friendship and trust and belief in David's commitment to music that made (and still makes) David glow. I think of how my own life was touched by Danny - the first person in Connecticut to welcome me, take me home to Susan and her Shabbat dinner, make me part of the family whose friendship sheltered me in difficult days, laughed with me and still reaches out to me.  Danny, may his memory continue to bless David, me and most of all, his family who must miss him so.  

Peace upon Danny's soul, and peace upon all of us who cling to this planet and hurtle through space into an unknown future.

Blah blah blah blah June, Blah blah blah blah Moon

The title of this post comes from an Ira Gershwin lyric, can't remember the song title right now.  However, it is June.  The moon last night was about a quarter full.  This morning the sky is blue, the sun is shining and there is a soft breeze.  It is a beautiful day in mid coast Maine.  That's good because I badly need to be restored after this last week at work. 

This morning Ella and I got out earlier than usual - we were up at 5:00 am and walking by 5:30.  We stopped down at the waterfront and I sat for a while on a bench at one of the businesses on Front Street, Ella laying in the early sunshine on the grass at my feet.  When we got up and walked on, I took a couple photos.

First, this is a roll of shrink-wrap plastic - boat-size.  The photo doesn't really show the scale.  It's probably 12-15 feet high.

 Then these from Ulmer's point - a boat in dry dock  being worked on, and next, what the working water front looks like at 5:45 am (the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in the background).

I've been thinking about what my morning walks mean to me (and since David's been working full-time, my mid-afternoon walks, too, and recently, as David's heel pain has continued to bother him - much better now, but not quite completely well - often my evening walks as well.  But most of all, my morning walks.)

Each day to rise, dress, brush my teeth, and be out the door with Ella into the morning - whatever it might be that day - within 15 minutes of shaking off sleep, and within 10 more minutes walking, to be by the water, seeing the sun - depending on the season - just peeking over the horizon, or shining behind Vinalhaven island, the water variously misty, sparkling, wrinkled, glittering, roiling, or smooth as deeply blue or grey or green glass.  Wheeling overhead the gulls.  Calling from the trees, the wires overhead, the rooftops, the sky - birds, birds and more birds.  

Doing this every single day, day in and day out, month in, month out, and now year in, year out - when it is still dark when we go out into the morning, and when it is broad daylight, in the rain, the sunshine, through mist, fog, snow, sleet, when it is below freezing, or there is a warm spring breeze, when summer's heat is already apparent at dawn - whatever the season, the weather, the temperature, every single day, for more than 18 months, rising to walk, to smell the air, to hear the sounds, to watch the trees and bushes and other plants cycle through their seasons' garb.  Almost always to be the only ones out there.  Now become so familiar, and still, every single day new, wondrous, different.

I wonder how I lived in the days when I awoke in a concrete building in a concrete city and walked concrete streets to descend into a concrete tunnel to ride a machine through more tunnels to reach more concrete, breathing day in and day out the exhalations of millions of others doing the same.  (The plus side - I didn't even know I had allergies.  How could I?  There was no green.) How do we human beings, who evolved and lived for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years in, and on, and of green and living lands, how do we come to live in concrete?  

I watched a video posted by my dear friend 'Scabless' Sue on FB today about "concentrated industrial farming" - the images are horrendous, and we ask ourselves how we can put 4,000 chickens into a space that public safety codes would limit to hold at most 100 persons, how we can "raise" pigs in metal cages where their limbs poke through bars.  Do we not see that we are doing the same to our own species?  

Breathe.  Peace.  Breathe.

Peace.

90 minutes of sun

Another overcast day with occasional spits of rain drops.  David had to work and I ran errands, among them, buying some flowers for pots on the back deck and front stoop.  Our next door neighbor, Melissa, has 3 sons, 2 of whom live out of town and are here visiting.  She invited us to join them for a "picnic" (outside or in, depending on the weather) late this afternoon, so some of my errands were preparing for that, including picking up charcoal.  I also stopped at EBS, a local Maine hardware store right up the street from our house.  

(Background on the EBS shopping spree:  When I was in Atlanta, we went out for lunch on Cello's 3rd birthday to The Cheesecake Factory.  On the way there, Cachao found a 'treasure' on the sidewalk outside - a very dirty and slightly rusty steel washer (as in bolts and washers).  We had lunch, rather quickly as Cello had seen someone else celebrating a birthday across the restaurant who had a group of colorful helium filled balloons and he became fixated on - and cranky about - having a balloon of his own.  One thing led to another and we left the restaurant rather quickly - with the result that Cachao forgot to bring his 'treasure.' Yep, the precious washer was left behind.  He was heartbroken, as only a 7 year old can be over a dirty "found" treasure.  I promised that when I got home, I would get him more washers and send them to him.  I thought we had some here at the house (and maybe David does have some) but I couldn't find any in my tool box or around David's workshop in the basement.  So I decided to buy him some washers - ergo, my visit to EBS today.)

A very nice man at EBS asked if he could help me find something.  I told him I was there to buy "some washers".  So he took me to the right aisle, and I explained about Cachao's tragic lost washer and why I wanted to buy him some replacements.  The EBS clerk was very kind, and helped me pick out 4 different sizes of washers, 3 of each size, at a whopping total cost of $1.42.  (It will definitely cost more to mail them than it did to buy them.)

Next, some bad news - my car did the stalling out thing again in the EBS parking lot.  Eventually I was able to keep it running long enough to get home (about a block away).  A trip to the mechanic is definitely in the car's future.

Then some good news - the sun came out.  Actually shone.  The sky was blue.  There were white puffy clouds floating overhead.  I seized the opportunity to plant the lovely lavender and arrange the  colors of coleus around it in the little bed by the back stairs.  I can't wait to see the coleus thrive and fill out the bed with bright colors:

I also planted pansies in the new clay pot I bought last week.  They will end up on the front stoop I think, but for now, they're next to the garage.




I planted another flowering plant in a hanging planter at the end of the garage.

I ended up with had a few extra coleus and pansies which I put in smaller pots on the back stairs together with one red and one yellow Purslane.  (Purslane is the plant I found late in the summer last year, that spread out so wonderfully across the large round planter.  I'm hoping these will do so again this year.  And Purslane is edible!  Can't say I tried it in my salad last year, but maybe this summer?) About the time I finished potting these, the sun once again vanished.  Gray skies, overcast, spritzing rain periodically.  Meanwhile, on the couch, near the front window, Ella sat guard, patiently, making sure no UPS driver sneaks up on us:  

Ella had received her own invitation to Melissa's tonight and joined us there after dinner.  Good food, and lots of it, and a good time had by all.  

David is off work tomorrow, and I - lucky me - am off tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday!  Best thing about that is being off three more days.  Next best thing is going back to work and having a 3 day week.  And then Susan F. called and we chatted about grandchildren, growing old, the relative wrinkled-ness of old friends, high school reunions, and, well, you know.  A lovely end to a good day.

May there be peace (and sunshine), near and far, for one and all.

One morning in May

Good morning.  Ella and I varied our walk this morning - first, by going out earlier (around 5:45) and second, by going to the dock at the Apprenticeshop (a local boat building school whose dock is open to the public).  The weather reports say today we will actually see the sun.  But at the hour of our walk, it was a grey day (but no rain, not a single drop.)  Here are a series of photos I took from the dock. 

First, some of the boat school's fleet of 15 foot day sailers, with Owl's Head peninsula in the background:

Next, a view across Rockland Harbor to the seaweed factory.  

Certainly puts a certain proletarian auto on an otherwise idyllic scene (the place always seem to be seeking employees, their ads pointing out that you have to be able to stand on your feet for 10-12 hours!!!).

Now a view from the dock away from the sea and back toward town - first the ferry, still tied up before her 7:00 a.m. run to Vinalhaven, followed by the boat yard where my next door neighbor, Melissa's, father stores his 35 foot sail boat over the winter.

And, finally, turning back to look to the north, a few of the masts of the schooners over at Ulner's Point - these, the same schooners I have posted photos of, taken on our usual morning walk, including a recent one of the beautiful white schooner hauled up on dry dock for season prepping.

That's the view from our morning walk today, May 21st.  Perhaps the sun will come out.  Perhaps it will even dry out the beds enough for us to plant a few seedlings.  At any rate, it marks the mid point in my week toward a 4-day weekend.

Hurrah.  Peace.

Rainy days

It's been raining, pouring, drizzling, misting or foggy for days on end.  Occasional sun peaking through generally overcast skies.  But these have been warm Spring days.  Already. green leaves are pushing bright yellow forsythia flowers off of their shared branches.  Tulips are opening. These are from our back yard:

The turned earth practically bursts with worms.  But we haven't been able to plant our seedlings because the beds are basically mud.  Here are our seedlings on the day we brought them home (which was sunny!).  That's lavender in the brick red colored pot on the right of the top photo.  We're also going to try planting garlic this year.

Ella and I continue our morning walks.  It starts my day off the right way - even if we're slogging through rain (thank heavens I bought my LL Bean rubber boots before we moved up here).  If we happen to reach the coast at or just before 7:00 am, we will see the Vinalhaven ferry heading out from Rockland, as we did one morning last weekend:

The schooners are being readied for the summer tourist trade, and the beautiful three-masted windjammer (whose name I forget right now) is back in town:

I'm enjoying my ukulele lessons very much, Tai Chi not so much.  That may be just because of the later hour - it's difficult to work a 9 or 10 hour day, eat dinner and then go out to exercise from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. (And many of you know, 8:30 is practically midnight in Maine!) At any rate, I've decided to focus on the ukulele lessons, and I've started practicing the tin whistle again.  

David continues to have heel pain that is actually very disabling for him. He has tried several different orthotic inserts and has tried to stay off his feet when not at work.  The pain seems to be lessening, slowly improving, but still not back to normal.  He was off work this past weekend and it was lovely to have two days together.  Next weekend - which is Memorial Day holiday weekend - he has only Sunday off.  I'm planning to take an extra day, probably Tuesday, for a 4-day weekend.  

Finally, here's a photo of Ella from several months ago.  But it is a classic Ella pose - and a common one these days as she waits, with canine patience, for the sun to come out and bring with it squirrels, chipmunks, cats and other creatures that seem to be hunkered down in these rainy spring days.

Peace.