New beginnings

This will eventually become No.73 in the Beachcombing series: Hulls Cove, March 6, 2014.

This is how the Beachcombing pieces start - sorting the debris from a day of beachcombing, looking for patterns, colors, likenesses. This one seems to be leaning toward warm greys and off-whites. 

And for another new beginning, I'm going to be moving this blog from the Blogger host over to Wordpress this month, and I'm not sure how that will affect the feed. Cross your fingers that it goes smoothly. I'm digitally literate but not fluent!

Ice Fishing on Eagle Lake, March 1, 2014

There's a wonderful colony of ice shacks on Eagle Lake, not far from my house, and I love watching the way their owners change them every year. You may recognize some of these from my last post about them, but keep an sharp eye out - some have been painted:

Some have had structural changes:

Some have been accessorized:

And this one is just plain new to me:

My favorite shot of the day:

They did eventually let him in.

Moose Island, October 12, 2013 (Beachcombing series No.72)

Sea glass, Dog Whelk (Thais lapillus), Smooth Periwinkles (Littorina obtusata), Blue Mussel (Mytilus edulis), feather, Rock Crab (Cancer irroratus), and fishing rope. I wrote about this field trip back in October, but only recently finished the still-life.

This winter my husband and I built a new lighting support for the light box, and this was the first photo I shot on my new rig. It's much less cluttered than the six mic stands I used to borrow from him, and simpler than re-setting them every time he has a performance. 

It's pretty simple - the base and the four uprights are screwed together, and the top square is clamped on so I can move it up and down as needed. The design flaws are already becoming apparent. The front piece is annoyingly in the way when I move from arranging pieces to looking at them from above: I bonk my head every time. Must figure out how to remove that but keep the frame stable.  I still want to prop the foam core boards around the outside and lay one over the top, but that has also gotten more complicated. I'll need to trim some to fit within the frame, and tape others together so they are tall enough to rest on the floor. It's a work-in-progress, that's for sure!

Beachcombing series No.71 (Hulls Cove, August 14, 2013)

Beach stones, Blue Mussels (Mytilus edulis), driftwood, U.S. penny, acorn cap (Quercus sp.), sea glass, barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides), Waved Whelk (Buccinum undatum), stoneware fragment, Moon snail (Lunatia heros), paper scrap, beach china, aluminum soda can fragment. The red paint on the rock is left from last summer, when the schooner Margaret Todd was hauled up on the beach to repaint her hull.

A wonderful and surreal thing about blogging is that you can become friendly with people who you have never met, and they can live anywhere in the world. You feel like you know a part of them through their posts, and another bit through commenting on each other's work. Anke and Ariadne and Diana, if I ever end up in Germany or Greece or Montana, for sure we will meet up over coffee or cocktails (depending on the time of day) and talk! 

Every now and then, all the planets line up and you get to meet someone you've only known through blog posts and emails.

Back in August, Justine Hand (of the so-beautiful Designskool blog) was vacationing in my part of the world and we finally got to meet face-to-face. And because we are quirky this way, instead of meeting for lunch we went beachcombing with her family. (My teenagers won't come along anymore.) Check out the hoodie her son wore:

 Even better accessorized with seaweed and attitude:

Justine's daughter is the best beachcomber I've ever met. Maybe it helps that she's so much closer to the ground, but she has an eagle eye for sea glass. That gorgeous blue piece in the center of the top photo? I didn't find it, Solvi gave it to me!

If you'd like to see more photos from the day, Justine posted some lovely ones on her own blog.

Hulls Cove, August 6, 2013 (Beachcombing series No.70b)

Remember back here I said I had too many finds for one photo, so I was working on a second? Finally finished it!

Blue Mussel (Mytilus edulis), fishing rope, beach stone (might be rhyolite), Green Crabs (Carcinus maenas), china fragment, lobster-claw bands, Common Periwinkles (Littorina littorea).

Snowy Owls at the Bar Harbor Airport

We've had an unusual influx of snowy owls here in Maine, and there are five who have settled in at the local airport. I was lucky enough to see three of them today (but only two were close enough to photograph.) The owls are huge. The one on the telephone pole was probably twenty feet away from me (and not at all fazed by the five or six paparazzi snapping photos), and I would guess it to be a good two feet tall. The wingspan of the one below must have been four feet. They are an arctic species who usually nest on the ground in the tundra, and what I've been told is that their main prey species (lemmings? or voles? some sort of small rodent) is prone to population spikes and crashes. When the prey population crashes, the owls come south looking for food. And here they are - hello there, Hedwig!

P.S. I'm testing a larger type size - what do you think? More readable, or too big?

Hulls Cove, August 6, 2013 (Beachcombing series No.70a)

It was another perfect summer day, and I spent several hours on the beach. There were so many interesting things that I've had to make two photos for this day. This one shows three European Green Crabs (Carcinus maenas) and a random crab claw with a length of the nylon rope used to tie lobster buoys to the traps. I couldn't resist the juxtaposition of the orange-and-turquoise rope with the crab shells, and the rope was just too stiff to incorporate into a more elaborate composition, so this is No.70a. I'm still working on 70b.

It was an interesting day for wildlife, too: I saw a baby guillemot, a small flock of Semipalmated Plovers, and a Sanderling: I posted photos of them last week, but the guillemot was so cute I'll have to show you another one. Something about those little feet paddling away:

I went all the way out to the point - that's the village of Hulls Cove back there.

Critters

I ran into a bunch of interesting animals last year that never made it onto the blog. Either I didn't have enough information to write a whole post, or I just never got around to editing the photos. I thought you might enjoy them, though, so I'm rolling a whole bunch of random critter pictures into this one post.

Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) on the beach at Hulls Cove:

Eggs of the Longfin Squid (Loligo pealei), found by a friend of mine, also on the beach at Hulls Cove:

Eastern Willet (Tringa semipalmata). Aren't those wing patterns dramatic?

Beavers (Castor canadensis) on the Eagle Lake Beaver Pond just after sunrise:

White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) just off the Jesup Path:

 An alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) struggling up the fish ladder to Somes Pond:

An osprey (Pandion haliaetus) looking for alewives in Somes Pond and the Somesville Millpond:

 And to finish off, a baby Guillemot (Uria aalge, I think). Just look at those little feet!

I learned a new word

Shinrin-yoku

It's Japanese.
shinrin = forest
yoku = bath

I gather the idea is to take a walk in the woods to refresh oneself and reduce stress. Some of us have always done that, but apparently it's a Thing now, like yoga or aromatherapy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_bathing
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24806994
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793346/

Bar Harbor Bed Races, November 9, 2013

What happens in a tourist town when tourist season is over? In Bar Harbor, we have a Pajama Sale to celebrate. Stores open at 6am, with coffee, doughnuts, and discounts for anyone who comes in their pajamas. This year was the 19th annual Pajama Sale, and it has become enough of an institution that lots of us have bought special pjs just to wear for the sale. Some people go all out with curlers in their hair, sleep masks, and green face goop. At 10am, when I am usually shopped-out and starting to feel a little silly wearing my robe and slippers in broad daylight, there are Bed Races. A short segment of Cottage Street is barricaded off for the racecourse:

The racers line up at the Village Green and parade down Main Street so everyone can admire the beds and the costumes. The lobster exoskeleton below is pieced together from plastic Solo cups:

The Town Band joined in this year for the first time. Official racers have to follow the rules - strict bed dimensions, four people to push and one to ride on the bed - but the band was only there to make noise and have fun, so they loaded 'er right up and marched along making music.

 They had the slowest time ever registered at the race, too, a fact which makes them very proud.

Other teams took it quite seriously, planning out the lightest weight beds and the toughest wheels. This was the R.M.Foster team (defending champions from last year: they won again this year):

These guys called themselves the "Beach Bums" - I think they were the Jackson Lab's team. It was about 40 degrees out that day, so they only stripped down for the actual race. Brrr! That's serious dedication to a costume theme:

Governor's is a sort-of-local restaurant (their closest branch is in Ellsworth):

And this was the team from the Bar Harbor Inn, serving up a stuffed lobster (in a bed):

Here's the plastic-cup-lobster-woman again:

And the wildly enthusiastic team from Camp Beech Cliff:

It may have been dreamed up by the Chamber of Commerce to perk up post-tourist/pre-holiday spending, but frankly it's a genius of a "holiday" that comes just as winter darkness is taking over, lets creativity fly, and has no cultural expectations, family baggage, or general holiday stresses. I mean really, how tense can you get rolling around town in your jammies?