snowshoeing

are we getting near the end of winter yet?

snow

this morning’s walk with the dog

winter

morning walks with Laika in the woods behind our house

snow pup by the frozen stream

The last time I spent a whole winter in Maine was seventeen years ago. I mostly remember hating it a lot, always stepping in slushy puddles with bad shoes and being freezing and miserable and counting the minutes until I could move away and never come back. I’m cold-blooded and can’t do anything when it’s chilly, I really just want to be warm all the time and lie in a hammock, sweating gently and drinking lemonades. Spent most of my winters perched on the kitchen counter with my toes on the woodstove, or else sitting on top of the furnace vent with a fleecy blanket and a good book, waiting for the furnace to roar on and inflate my fleecy blanket into a puffy tent of hot air. Always thought I’d end up living my life in some hot and steamy place, but for some reason I love people who love winter, so I’m back in Maine and it’s winter and it turns out it’s OK. We must be near the half-way point now, and I think it’s not going to be so terrible. Snow is the best part of winter and we’ve had a few really good snowstorms and a lot of pretty flurries. We’re lucky enough to work from home so we don’t have to drive around in it. We’ve got this beautiful path through the woods out back and it’s been awesome to bundle up and stomp through the snowy forest with the puppy. Also I think being an adult makes the winter more bearable. I don’t hate the world for making me live here because now I could drop everything and move to the tropics if I really wanted to but instead I’m staying here with my boo and my dog and my loving family and my crazy house and my path in the woods, because I like all those things. Also I don’t care about looking like a dork in puffy jackets and boots and whatever. Totally used to looking like a dork by now. I just want to be warm and dry in my enormous winter jacket and hiking boots and layers of long underwear and woolly socks and hats and mittens and scarf and gloves and everything. I think when I was a silly teenager I made the mistake of trying to look cute in the winter and ended up with frozen toes and fingers and hating my life all winter. Now I am a hermit and I only hang out with people who love me no matter how many pairs of long underwear I’m wearing. Also the winter is probably more bearable because I’ve been gone so long! We never really had a real winter during four years in Argentina, not like this! So it’s kind of new and fun all over again. I really want to get a pair of snowshoes now, so we can tromp around the forest with greater ease.

We had originally thought we’d be closing off the 2nd floor for the winter and moving our bed into the diningroom or something, only living on the first floor of the house. But we just never really got so cold that it seems worth the bother. We hung a transparent butcher-shop curtain (you know, like in the dairy or meat section at the grocery store?) in the doorway of the livingroom, to keep the woodstove heat contained to the central core rooms, and keep the drafts out. Hung more plastic over various doors and windows to stop the drafts. Upstairs, we have a little electric heater in our bedroom, we close the door and turn it on at bed-time and it keeps our noses from freezing while we sleep. We have a little electric heater in the upstairs bathroom and it keeps the bathroom toasty warm (we keep it on low all the time to make sure the pipes don’t freeze in there). It’s totally manageable. We have a few cozy warm zones, and then you just have to jog through the cold rooms to get from one warm spot to another. And then bundle up and go outside to stack firewood or play in the snow.

fall forest

The fall leaves have been so incredibly spectacular for the past month. Every single day, rain or shine, I go outside and think “I can’t believe we live in the middle of all this! I feel so lucky!” The only unlucky thing is that Laika tore a ligament in her knee last month, and is on bed rest until it heals (locked up in her little crate all day every day, poor thing!) so we haven’t been doing our wonderful long walks in the woods with her. Anyway, in the past two weeks a few fall storms and windy days have brought down a lot of the foliage, but here are some photos from a walk near the orchard in Hiram earlier in the month. It’s a little sad to think that all this wild color is a bright farewell to the season and soon there will just be bare branches and snow and howling winds. Sigh. Time to put on a Nick Drake record and another sweater.

Picnic Craft Fair in Portland, Maine

Morris & Essex booth

August 28th. Perfect weather, amazing and beautiful day in every way. Thanks to everyone who stopped by! And special thanks to my sister Amy and to Paz, who both stopped by to help out! And to Mike, who worked all day long at the booth with me! We sold tons of stuff, had a fantastic day, and ate the best pulled pork sandwiches and iced teas from the food carts. Highlights: met and traded with fellow vendor Colleen Kinsella, who is a friend of my sister and makes really great prints; we traded some of my shirts for some of her prints! Erin Flett, who makes gorgeous pillows and prints, and who I met via Etsy – she lives just a few minutes from my parents’ house in Gorham!

Erin Flett Booth – Picnic Portland

And I got to meet and trade work with Jennifer Judd-McGee of Swallowfield, whose work I have admired since I stumbled across it on the internet a few years ago and thought “that’s so cool, she’s from Maine!”

Swallowfield

Plus Diane of Ferdinand, of course, who is awesome and makes awesome stuff and helped to organize this perfect day.

t-shirts from Ferdinand

There was great music all day too. And nautical fun times with Meghan, Emily and Kit at the after party. Best day. Only downside? I came down with the worst cold the next day!

Isle Au Haut camping trip

Western Head trail. Isle Au Haut camping trip. Penobscot Bay, Maine

Way back in April we reserved a campsite for a weekend at Isle Au Haut, a little island off the Maine coast, an hour out from Stonington by ferry. It’s actually an outpost of the famous Acadia National Park, which is mostly located up the coast a bit on Mount Desert Island – but there is a less-known snippet of the Acadia National Park land located on Isle Au Haut. We heard the campsites are hot property and it’s hard to get a reservation in the summertime, so the thing to do is send in your campsite request as soon as applications open in April. We just closed our eyes, pointed at a random date on the calendar, and mailed in a request for it. A few weeks later we got our camping permit back in the mail! August 6th and 7th. It turned out that Mike’s friend Paul (from San Francisco) came to visit us that week, so we all went camping together. And by some crazy coincidence, in the week before our trip, two different shopkeepers at different stores in mid-coast Maine randomly happened to contact me and ask if they could buy some of my goods for their stores. So I packed up my stationery and t-shirts and made plans to stop and sell my goods along the way!

along the drive: one of many grand old houses in Wiscasset; lobster traps at the flea market, route 1 in Searsport

It was a nice opportunity to take a leisurely drive up the Maine coast and show Mike around some of the most famous coastal destination spots in the state. We headed out on Friday after lunch, north on Route 1 through Freeport, did get stuck in traffic for an hour or so (Route 1 is a two-lane coastal road famous for being a) beautiful and b) jammed with tourists in August). It turned into a beautiful drive along the jaggedy coastline, over bridges and across peninsulas and through pines and salt marshes. We stopped in Camden to check out the town and meet Amy at Sugar Tools, a new shop on Bay View Street with a very sweet and sophisticated selection of items from around the world – home goods, stationery, gardening stuff, etc. She took some rooster cards and greetings! cards to add to her stationery selection. And then on up the coast to bustling Belfast, Maine, where we arrived downtown in the middle of the Friday evening Art Walk. All the galleries and shops had their doors open, there were performers out on the sidewalks, there was a parade of antique cars, free wine and snacks, it was a surprisingly festive moment to arrive in town. We made our way to Roots and Tendrils, a really sweet space in a gorgeous old building down on the waterfront, where we met Meg and Bub and sold lots more greeting cards and enjoyed a bit more wine and snacks in the festive pre-show atmosphere – they were setting up for a live music night on the corner stage. It’s a fun multi-function space with art on the walls, a great selection of exciting and artsy goods (all made in Maine, but not your predictable selection of blueberry jams and watercolors – awesome t-shirts, journals, cards, zines, bright jewelry, etc etc), and live music playing on the stage every weekend.

Roots and Tendrils

Then we moved on to the famous Belfast Food Co-op, which is the state’s oldest food coop or something like that. It’s an AWESOME place. We were really hungry but I can objectively say that it was not just the hunger, this place is incredible. We stocked up on fresh veggies, trail mix, all kinds of camping and hiking treats, and some wholesome snacks to nibble on the road.

view from bridge leaving Belfast, headed north

And then we had to head northwards again, on up through Searsport in the golden evening light, and across Bucksport’s two bridges in a blazing sunset. We stopped at about eight places trying to find a little fuel cannister for our camp stove, finally found one and headed south down the peninsula towards Deer Isle in the twilight. It was kind of a tough road to drive as it got darker, we were on these crazy twisty windy hilly coastal backroads so we were relieved when we finally made it across the bridge from the mainland to Little Deer Isle, across another bridge to proper Deer Isle, and across the last bridge to Stonington. Of course it was dark and we were groggy from hours in the car, so we got all confused and lost and had to ask for directions to find our campground in the dark. I set up both tents while the boys started a campfire and we had a tasty late supper around the fire.
Early in the morning, up and off to the ferry landing in town, for the 10 am ferry out to Isle Au Haut.

Stonington

It’s around an hour’s ride, I think. I dozed through it because I hadn’t slept well in the tent. Arrived at Isle Au Haut and disembarked at the Duck Harbor campground landing. Dropped our packs at our lean-to, had a snack, and headed right out for a nice big hike! We headed up across the Duck Harbor Mountain Trail, which goes right up to the summit of the island. It was a fantastic hiking day, crisp and clear and sharp. Beautiful piney trail that opens out onto ledges. We had to do a few challenging scrambles over sheer rock faces around the summit; I had to tie my water bottle to my belt and use both hands and feet and sometimes knees. Fun! But we passed a few other hikers who were like “THIS IS CRAZY!” We were rewarded with lovely views out across the harbor and out to sea, scattered with lobster boats, islands and bright sunshine.

Mike hiking up; Paul at the summit

mushroom, flower, pine cone

Squeaker Cove

We descended to Squeaker Cove and then followed the Goat Trail to the Cliff Trail and then the Western Head trail looped back to Western Head Road which took us back to our campsite. Here’s a trail map.

mosses, ferns

The trails run through fantastical magical-looking mossy woods, and then out onto beaches made up entirely of rounded, fist-sized sea-washed rocks that make an amazing echoing hollow sound when you walk across them.

tiny cairns

The whole hike was something like 5 hours. Got back to camp tired and hungry and happy to see we’d brought along a bottle of wine.

dinner, lean-to

sitting on the rocks and watching the sun go down

Next morning: sat on the rocks watching seagulls, knitting and reading. Took a picture of the rusty woodstove sitting by the trail in the woods. Packed up camp, sat on the dock til the ferry came. I stayed awake for the ride back, which was lovely… we passed this awesome lighthouse down by the town landing in Isle Au Haut. It happens to be for sale, in case anybody has $2M sitting around and wants to own a lighthouse!

waiting on the dock; our ferry was named Miss Lizzie.

Isle Au Haut lighthouse

Seboeis Lake camping trip

July 15-19th was our first big camping trip of the year! My parents are veteran backwoods canoers and campers, and they invited my dear Aunt Barbara and myself (both novice canoers) to join them for an easy four-day trip on Seboeis Lake, way up in Piscatiquis County, in remote Northern Maine. We stopped at the big LL Bean store in Freeport on the way up, to lay in a few extra camping supplies, and then from Freeport we had a four-hour drive to the lake, on I-95 to Newport, Maine and then on country roads through beautiful Penobscot and Piscatiquis counties. We had to stop the car when a gangly young lady moose wandered out of the woods and walked about in the road for a bit, indecisive, into one lane and then into the other and then back into the woods again.
We turned onto dirt roads for the last few miles and then put in the canoes at the landing on the north end of Seboeis Lake. It’s a bit of a process packing four people, four days worth of camping and eating supplies, and two dogs into two canoes and setting off.

canoe atop subaru / paddling out to our campsite

We had a beautiful 25-minute paddle across peaceful waters, through lily pads and rushes, out to our campsite at the end of a long narrow, piney peninsula sticking out into the lake. It was the site of an old loggers’ camp, now converted to two public campsites, accessible only by boat. The soft pine needles were perfect for pitching a tent on, the breeze kept the mosquitoes and deerflies at bay, and we had views out to Mt. Katahdin, and across two pretty little bays, one on each side of our peninsula.

our sweet campsite

We had our first of several spectacularly delicious dinners. My mother does gourmet campfire cooking with gusto, carrying the standard supply of tinfoil and propane camp stove, plus a cast-iron dutch oven for roasting food in the hot coals, and a homemade convection oven for baking cakes and pies on the campfire, as well as a bottle of wine for every night, stores of flour and sugar, butter, eggs, baskets of fresh fruits and veggies, and a snack for every occasion.

blueberry muffins, campfire, reflector oven

first evening on the lake

Our original plan was to camp one night on the peninsula, then paddle out across the widest part of the lake to Hammer Island, a small island with a few campsites and nice views of the mountains, and stay there for the next two nights. But by the morning a real wind had come up, and there were whitecaps on the lake, which we are told makes for unsafe canoeing conditions. So we relaxed under the pines with our novels and our knitting projects, watching the whitecaps churn out on the lake and waves crash on the rocky shore. By and by afternoon we were feeling restless and adventurous so we packed all four humans AND two dogs into the larger canoe and set off across the bay to a tantalizing strip of white sandy beach on the far shore. As soon as we left shore, the winds came up stronger and we realized our weight was poorly balanced in the boat, the dogs were nervous and wouldn’t lie down, they kept jumping and lurching around, everything was tippy and unsteady, the whitecaps were lapping over the gunnels and with too much weight in the front of the canoe, Richard had a challenge trying to steer and keep us on course. It was only a ten-minute paddle but I pretty much spent the whole ten minutes telling myself “we’re going to tip over but it’s OK, I know how to swim, the water’s warm, it’ll be fine.” And it was. We made it across the cove without tipping over, put in at the sandy beach and had a marvelous swim in the lake. The water was unbelievably warm and the sand was improbably white and it made me feel like we’d somehow paddled over to Brazil for a few minutes.

on the beach at sandy cove

For the trip back we were a bit more careful with seating ourselves into the boat and we zipped right back across the cove very neatly and quickly. It was a nice lesson in how important it is to pack the canoe carefully and distribute weight evenly, especially in a stiff wind. After this exciting expedition we were content to just sit back at our campsite and enjoy the view, waiting until the wind died down enough to paddle out onto the lake. As it turned out, it never really did. There were stiff winds and whitecaps all day every day, from dawn til dusk, so we stayed put in our lovely campsite with our vacation books and our knitting and our tasty cooking.

choppy waters / canoe and roots

blueberry picking, sunset swimming

sunset over Seboeis Lake and Mt. Katahdin

Paprika / fern

chilaquiles for breakfast / canoe lessons

We did lots of blueberry picking, and tons of swimming, as the lake was very warm, and took a few short outings into the quieter, shallower, smaller cove on the lee side of our peninsula. Judy gave me some canoeing lessons in the shallow water, trying to teach me how to man the stern and steer. It’s hard! On the last morning the lake was finally calm enough for us to go out and paddle about. We had a lovely turn around the lake and enjoyed the quiet early morning, still water, dragonflies and nice views of katahdin before heading back to break camp.

early morning paddle

the new puppy!

what a photogenic little peanut

Here’s Laika! she’s so cute!!! We couldn’t survive for long without a dog. I didn’t want to rush to replace our lost pups too quickly, but we realized that summer is really the best time to start out with a new dog, and we just fell madly in love with Laika’s cute face on petfinder. Right now we are just fostering Laika, we haven’t formally adopted her yet. She has a really tenacious urinary tract infection that hopefully will be all cured after a few more weeks of antibiotics, and then if all goes well, we will finalize the adoption. She seems just as healthy and happy as any puppy, she’s been a crazy little monster all morning and now she is napping sweetly at my feet. Laika is around six months old, she’s a rescue puppy and she was brought up to Maine from a high-kill shelter in Arkansas. Nobody knows what she is, she was billed as husky and german shepherd but we’re thinking she could also have some australian shepherd, maybe even a little bit of beagle? for sure she is 100% puppy. She’s only been with us for a day and a half, but so far I can tell that she is CRAZY about food, any and all of it, she is smart as a whip and busy busy busy all the time. She seemed to fall in love with us just as quickly as we fell for her! She’s an expert counter browser, she knows her name and usually comes when you call, she’s very very curious, she likes chasing butterflies and chickens and trying to climb into the dishwasher, she doesn’t know how to fetch yet but I’m trying to teach her.

farm life in gorham

while we’re working away on our future house, we’re staying with my parents in gorham for a while… enjoying a spectacularly beautiful maine summer and doing fun country stuff like helping out in the garden and learning about bees… my mom just got her first hive of bees! actually they’re on loan from her friend Joanne, who stops by to check up on them now and then. We got to taste the honeycomb when they opened up the hive, it was SO GOOD.

lettuce row, and garlic scapes

amazing BEES!

wildflowers in the pasture

roses by the front door

blueberries!

chickens

tiny fuzzy chicks

Back in April my mom got her annual spring order of baby chickies! She picked them up at Blue Seal when they were only a day or two old. Their box had a US Mail label on it – so crazy that you can send baby chickens in the mail! They were postmarked from Idaho. In the box were fourteen little Silver-Laced Wyandotte chicks, peeping and scratching and peering up at us. For the first few weeks they lived inside the house, in a big cardboard box filled with sawdust, then they moved up to a bigger cardboard box with a roost and a tree branch in it.

three days old

two weeks old – little feathers growing in!

After a few weeks they got to move outside into the big girls’ chicken coop! We’ve had an annual problem with foxes raiding the coop and carrying away our chickens, so each year my parents have to upgrade security on the hen-house. Last year they re-built the whole chicken coop entirely, and it is pretty much a high-security luxury chicken palace. Before they could move in, we had to finish shingling the roof and staple hardware cloth all over the ventilation holes to keep out sneaky rodents. The first day they were happy scratching and running all around the fenced-in yard, they’d never had so much space before and they had to try out their wings, making crazy flapping leaps and jumps all over the place. It’s a little bit sad because at that age they are little tiny birds with big wings and they can almost fly, and you can see them thinking “whoa, this is awesome.” But then as they keep growing, their wing-to-body ratio just gets worse and they will be stuck on the ground like the rest of us. Poor little gals.

about a month old.

Anyway, the first night, it started to get dark and they were all out in their yard and didn’t know how to get themselves back inside the chicken house, and they were all settling down to sleep underneath their house, or in the tall weeds around it. We had to go out and chase them and grab them and put them up inside their house, one by one. Chasing fourteen tiny squealing chickens around through waist-high weeds in the dim twilight is really really hard, it took us nearly an hour to grab each one and put them all to bed. Happily they’ve learned to put themselves to bed now. They all sleep in a big snuggly heap most nights, or sometimes a few sleep on the roost like grown-up birds. They’re still little but they look like small adults now, some have tiny red combs and wattles and they’ve all got grown-up feathers instead of fuzz. Judy says we could expect them to start laying their first eggs in the fall.

the new high-security chicken fortress

a pair of inquisitive young ladies (around two months old)