Chased by Otter!

Eighteen.  Kym turned eighteen yesterday.  College apps are in the works. This lovely woman/girl who has been my daughter for just a few short years is getting ready to fly. She is doing it so sensibly, testing her wings before jumping off  the branch, examining them for possible modification. I am so impressed. I jumped without caring if my wings were ready or not. She is not sure she is ready, but she is. Happy birthday, Kym.

Nature Log  Walking through the woods from the South Ridge trail of Cadillac Mountain in Otter Creek we had to go around the paths, they were so full of water. Cutting through the mossy woods, a late Sunday afternoon, sun piercing the woods in rays, the quite was broken by a running animal, I looked, amazed, at a beautiful otter, running away from us. I called to Dennis, but he had heard it and stopped, and was watching as well. " oh  a camera" I wailed, the otter had stopped and turned, his beautiful otter face  peering at us. I had never seen one so close. he was about 15 feet behind me, Dennis about 20 feet ahead of me. And he stated to run right at me. A funny bounding, determined advance. I backed up, he came on. I caught up with D. and we turned to look. The otter stopped and looked at us. We started to walk on, he began to chase us. We stopped and turned, he stopped, then came after us. we zigged, he zigged We zagged, he zagged after us, Dennis picked up a long branch, and fenced with it, keeping the otter from passing him and running up to me. What on earth did he want? It was not an aggressive attack, but it was very determined, he wanted SOMETHING!  I'll probably never be chased by an otter again, but I am glad I was.

Two Peaches make a Pear but they Cantelope

Wonderful October, and time to harvest. Pears, apples, potatoes and then of course making chutney, apple sauce and potato many ways. We gathered the last of the chard, and made chard, anchovy, garlic, bean and pasta soup. Recipe. I actually increased the anchovy and it just enriched the broth without being intrusive. But then we really like anchovies. A local restaurant has created a Karen Salad. Not on the menu, but it is getting a small local following: start with the house Caesar, add roasted garlic and double anchovies. You’ll find it at Mama DiMatteo’s in Bar Harbor.

I am a Camera Otter Creek

Looks like a mighty wet ride. This may be the new bench for skating parties, as this is the skating pond in the center of Otter Creek.

Oysters Oysters Oysters

Maine Destination: Pemaquid Oyster Festival

Oyster Festival, cocktail sauce not allowed.

Glidden Point Oysters, firm, crisp, as tangy as the water they were raised in– and as many as I wanted to eat! How many was that?  About 16, 12 raw with nothing or a small scoop of pico di gallo, and then four, one broiled with cheese, one Rockefeller, one barbecued, and I cannot remember the fourth cooked style. Raw is the way to go. I could have eaten that many again, but it was a good place to stop, content and functional.

I don't care for cocktail sauce on my oysters, I don't think many people do, and yet I hear people trying them for the first time frequently smother their oyster in it. No wonder then,  if they're not enchanted with the crisp, briny, I am swallowing the ocean, magnificence of a raw oyster. And so I heard with a bit of awe and a great deal of respect that the Pemaquid Oyster Festival has banned cocktail sauce. The range of flavorings offered instead was impressive: Lime-Sake Sauce from Swan's Way Caterers; Sea Bean Slaw from Primo Restaurant; Cider Mignonette from Francine Bistro; Pico de Gallo from Amalfi on the Water; Lemon-Leek Mignonette from Newcastle Publick House; Jalepeno Relish from the Anchor Inn/Damariscotta River Grill; Prosecco Preserved Lemon Mignonette from Atlantica; Green Tabasco Mignonette from Augustine's and Lemon-Fennel Salsa from the Bradley Inn. 

Boats were taking happy oyster eaters down the river to the oyster farms, where we could see the very simple mesh containers where the seed oysters spend about four years of their lives, growing from thumbnail size to ready to eat. The trays get rotated every day to keep algae from forming, according to our guide. These oysters are then dumped on the river bottom near shore to enjoy the last few months of their lives out of captivity. Batter flavor, again according to our guide, much like a free-range chicken.

The festival is a great place to learn about the Damariscotta region. Booths manned by members of area organizations provided information about the fish ladder–a stone waterway allowing alewifes to make a 42-foot vertical ascent to their spawning grounds, river trails, and the shell middens–mounds of oyster shells, one of them once more than thirty feet deep, 1,600 feet long and 1,650 feet wide, evidence that people ate oysters from 200 BC to 1000 AD, and many of them. There was also a touch tank with small scallops snapping their way through the water, nudibranches, hermit crabs, starfish (watch out oysters!) and enthusiastic young marine biology students (outside the tank) showing specimens and explaining life-cycles, identification, and who eats whom.

The grey day was brightened by all the yellow and orange slickers, and the line of oyster openers with dull blades flashing  in and out keeping up with the hungry crowds. Good food, happy oyster eaters, a boat ride, and oyster lore combine to make the Pemaquid Oyster Festival a great Maine destination. Think about this: the oyster shells in the bottom layers of the midden ranged from 12 to 20 inches in length. Don't think I'd eat 16 of those!

Medium Friday, supersizing not available.

Rev. Michelle Love offers spiritual connections at the Hall, on Fridays in the summer.

Wenches, Scallawags and Ribbon Fries

A full schedule of exciting Pirate adventures filled the poster of the Pirate Festival in Eastport Maine. I was hooked.

The dance performance was a small dance school recital, and anywhere else would have had me looking for a book to read or a magazine to thumb. But ten 5-7 year old girls in tap shoes and glittery red sweaters over black tights bumping into each other, or gamely concentrating on getting the routine right was touching against the backdrop of tall masts in the harbor, and buildings looking a bit down at heel.
Eastport is a city on the edge. In 1900 the population was 5,311. In 2000 it was 1,640 and today is 1,556. But the spirit at this festival was optimistic, and the community spirit was so permeated with love for neighbor that I was ready to pack my bags and head north.
Pirates were everywhere. Kids, grandmother's and pets were pirated up, and some pretty grand costumes there were. And the pirates didn't just look like pirates, they jeered swaggered and threatened. I couldn’t wait to don my pirate garb and atrocious Irish pirate accent, and join the crowd. I proclaimed perhaps a few too many times Anne Bonnie’s last words to her spouse awaiting the gallows, "If ye'd a fought like a man, ye needn't die like a dog!" But no one ran me through.
Looking for a light bite before dinner we saw the sign Ribbon Fries. I don’t usually eat fries, but pirates really like them, so we ordered. While we were waiting a huge platter of greasy potato chips, piled precariously high and shimmering in the heat, was handed to the fellow in front of us. Incredulous, I asked if those were the fries. Indeed yes, and no, too late to change our order. We wandered on, munching a few, and I looked wistfully at the nearby truck selling smoked salmon on a stick. Next time.

The canon boomed, there was an attack by ship from the city across the harbor, and we had the best crab cake ever at the Chowder House Restaurant. Danced all night, and even Lee Southard’s rendition of Y-M-C-A (Ayuh, A-Y-A-H) was perfect for this boisterous evening.


Inches of wet hemlock needles make a wonderful cushioned path.

Nature Log Torrential rains during the night. We hiked Shackford Point in the morning, splashing through the trail. A seal near the fish weirs, moss was soaked, drips sounding loud in the quiet woods. Roads washed out, erosion in places on the way home.

We decided not to take this road by the river.

Otter Creek Badminton Classic

The first annual OCBC was held on a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, hosted by Menna and Kurgan.
Three teams played.
First game: Barbara and Nancy won, Zee and Dee lost.
Second game: Darlene and John won, Barbara and Nancy lost and that was it. Since we did not have a clear winner, the Golden Birdie Award will remain with hosts Larry and Barbara. Badminton was called hit and scream in the 1800's.
I think miss and scream a bit more apt.

Giant puffball, slice into steaks and saute in olive oil until golden.

Nature Log Heard a raven in the morning. Swimming at Seal Harbor Beach we saw a school of thin green eel-like fish dart all together one way, then all together another.The very rainy summer has made the mushroom growth greater than any I have seen in the last 25 years.Variety, size, and sheer abundance are astonishing. Hiked up Cadillac and down. The North Ridge Trail runs too close to the road for my enjoyment, but the South Ridge Trail goes through pitch pines, ledges with views of the outer islands: the Cranberry Islands, Sutton, Baker.

Watersheds and MDI Birds

The Lyceum Lecture series, this year consisting of one lecture, was this evening. Lemonade, rosemary butter cookies, and a good general presentation of how dams have changed our watersheds and impacted fish and so bird populations. Michael Good was the presenter, and he is a gregarious speaker. He confessed he was really not all that prepared for the lecture, but winged it (oh so sorry) endearingly. The next ten years will see 1,000 miles of the Penobscot River waterway reopened through the removal of dams. Anadramous fish populations can increase, and they are bird food. That makes birds happy. The lecture series is one of several fund raising events we hold, hoping to keep the building (The Otter Creek Hall, formerly the church) maintained. And to make it available for people to rent, and to present things the community, both immediate and beyond, will benefit from. And perhaps someday have a small repository of historical artifacts to preserve Otter Creek history. Otter Creek Hall website coming soon, complete with donate on-line function.


Nature Log Dashed out of work to bike the Regular, 28.75 minutes, dead milk adder in the road.

Park Ragers?

Neighbor Larry commented that he sensed the park rangers had shifted from being service-oriented and always happy to help to being authoritarian. He was pulled over driving down the entrance to the parking lot at Great Head, had his plate run, license, registration and insurance checked. He felt the ranger was distant and official instead of simply giving a friendly warning. (He did not have his seat belt on.)

Larger numbers of visitors do demand greater vigilance, but along with the acquisition of firearms, the patrolling rangers seem to have aquired a more menacing attitude. While rangers leading programs seem as laid-back and fun as always, the other rangers are giving visitors less than pleasant memories.

This recent incident where park rangers cuffed summer workers and refused to allow them to relieve themselves for hours seems out of line:
A large group of workers celebrated year-end with an after hours party on a nearby mountain, a tradition for many years. This event included a few employees 18- 20 years old, minors, that is bad. It also included alcohol and marijuana. Also bad. They were however quiet, and did not disturb anyone. Rangers saw the cars, no one had called in a complaint, and went up the path to find the group.

Bangor Daily:
According to Joel Perkins, a supervisor at Jordan Pond House who was at the event, after the group had been at the top of Day Mountain for about an hour, two law enforcement rangers appeared and immediately started yelling profanities as they gave orders. They told everyone to sit down and to produce their forms of identification.

One woman asked to be allowed to go pee and was told in strong terms to sit down, Perkins said. She took exception to the rangers’ tone and said, "I’m not a dog."

This is when one ranger forcibly threw her to the ground, according to Wild and Perkins. Wild’s response to this — "That’s no way to treat a lady!" — resulted in his being thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious.

Perkins and others said that even though Wild had been knocked unconscious and was bleeding, the rangers were dismissive of his injuries and would not let anyone check Wild to see how badly he was hurt.

My teen, who knows one of the girls involved, said this young girl came to work the next day in tears, having had to sit for hours unable to relieve her bladder, and unable to let anyone know what was going on.

So, kids party, we cannot expect it to be condoned. But neither can we condone violence and profanity. We are lucky to have this great park, and to have it managed and cared for, but violence and intimidation should not be used so lightly.


An aside:
The Range
The park rifle range is right here in the creek! We hear guns going off until after dark, so it must be lit. Jane Smith complains about it, she is 83 years old and it keeps her awake. When I was looking for a place to practice firing a trebuchet, I asked if we could use the range, and learned it is for park employees only. It is at the end of an old road, there used to be a farm called Boyd Farm out there. Some old trails go near it, and last time we went through there we noticed that the circular targets had been replaced with human silhouettes.

Nature Log The dark is getting closer, arriving around 7:30pm. We went for a walk in the dark last night, a little hard to see the telltale signs of horses, but we all came home with clean shoes.

Lighting the Green with Spirit

Small white paper bags glowing with candlelight line the paths, each with a name hand-written in bold marker across the front. Slowly, solemnly, clearly, those names are read out and echo across the night air, rising above the background noise of shoppers and traffic in the town. People pause, listening for a name they know, or wander, reading the names of cancer victims and survivors. Many are from this small community, but some are from far corners of the planet. Respect and love is heavy in the air and the murmur of soft conversations, children playing and a dog bark or whine adds to the sense of connection we all seem to share.

The reading of names alternates with a steel band playing in the gazebo, and a group of young girls hula hoop in one corner. "Carol would have loved that" someone says. Carol Dyer was the children's librarian at the Jesup Memorial Library in a neighboring town. When she died after battling a brain tumor, a group of women started the annual Carol Dyer Illuminaria. For a donation, the name of a cancer survivor or victim will be written on a white bag, then placed along the many paths that intersect the towns's Village Green, with a handful of sand and a tea candle. That simple. That powerful.

Benefits American Cancer Society www.barharborybs.com/formpage

Bath Tub Tales

No, not Jonathon Swift. (A Tale of a Tub, I read some Swift, somehow never read this one, but what a great title!) Today's tales of a tub are actually tales with a tub as a major element, shared over dinner at a less than great Mex Restaurant in Bar Harbor, the big city, okay, small town, closest to the Creek (Otter Creek).

TUB TALE ONE, Constance
Dennis and Reggie showed Joseph and Constance many fishing tricks, they were delighted to have an audience, and students who hung on every word. But they still didn't catch many fish. Joseph was away one weekend, and Dennis and Reggie gave Constance all their attention. They helped her cast, loaned her their special lures, encouraged her to keep at it. She really listened, and caught three gorgeous 18-24" salmon. Beauties. She had a bit of help from her mentors unhooking them, but what a treat to bring home. She couldn’t wait to tell Joseph. He came back a day or so later, and Constance enthused about how Reggie and Dennis had shown her the finer points of casting, and how she had caught two amazing fish, and that they were keepers. Joseph went to the fridge and poked around, “But where are they?” he asked. “You kept them on ice didn't you?”
“No, no” Constance replied. "Den and Reggie unhooked them for me, but didn’t kill them. And I couldn't. They're in the tub.” And indeed they were, swimming confusedly around, but alive and well.

TUB TALE TWO This one is mine
I used to dive, and still like to snorkle a bit. I had developed the habit of increasing my lung capacity by submerging in the tub, and holding my breath for three minutes, relaxing with visions of diving for oysters or sponges, checking my time on my watch. This is just something I do, and never thought about discussing. And so one evening I took a soak, and slipped under the surface for a few minutes. I stay quite still when I do this, I like to watch my hair drifting about. And so, content, quiet and peaceful I let the need for air begin to build, when my arm was yanked and I was pulled dripping from the water, astonished to see a tight-lipped face with worried eyes. “But, but, I was just practicing holding my breath!” I am not convinced he was amused.

Nature Log Twenty-mile bike ride, to Northeast Harbor, Sargeant Drive, saw a Pileated Woodpecker in a tree close to the road, a mink, came home and found a chipmunk in the house. We convinced him to leave. Fog and rain then sun, then fog and rain. Caught trout, released them.

Yee Ha Friday

Except it is raining.

Except the town is filled with tourists.

Except I want to get home to Otter Creek, but D. wants me to get him something at the drug store.

Except I drove around the town twenty minutes looking for parking.

Except when I finally saw a potential spot in a Pharmacy ONLY parking space, the couple said no, they weren't leaving, they were going into the pharmacy.

Except I watched them head across the street and into the theatre. {sigh}

Home! The weekend!

Nature Log Rainbow, sliver moon, crokkk of a raven.

Junk Mail, or Garbage Post Gets Junked

Island time generally brings to mind warmer climates and more relaxed life styles than we have here in Maine, and yet I find that phrase frequently applicable to some of our ways of doing things. Mail for instance. We lthink nothing of using mailboxes to leave notes to neighbors, or to gift someone with cookies, or return the sweatshirt someone’s kid left in our car. I hear that is frowned upon in more sophisticated areas. Or even risks the possibility of theft. How inconvenient.

Yankee ingenuity is a phrase associated with this climate. And meshes very well with island time.

Some of the smaller islands have lost their post office. And some never had one. Getting to the mainland for mail is a nuisance. Besides, once you are on an island, where time really does seem thicker and slower, why jump into a boat to face the bustle of that one window PO in the nearest mainland village? Islanders are really very cooperative. They leave each other alone, but are quick to be right there if there is a need. And find ingenious ways of dealing with problems. Getting mail when there isn’t a post office. Is such a problem. And so it was arranged that someone would pick up all the mail for everyone on this particular island, haul it out on the ferry, and leave it in a specific garbage can on the island for distribution. You might think that somehow it got tossed out as garbage. But no, this went on for many years, simple, no government regulations, a tiny population who shared the garbage can as their post office. Yes, mail went out too, if properly stamped. All in all, an efficient, no fuss mail service. And everyone knew which garbage can was the mail garbage can.

This casual neighborly system worked on island time. People were just happy they didn’t have to motor out for their mail. Most people that is. One person, who was of course allowed to join this long-standing system, felt it could be improved. And without consulting those who had been carrying on this tradition decided to improve it. Where she came from she probably had fed ex everyday, even Sundays, and maybe even had two mail deliveries a day. So she called the postmaster of the village where the island mail came from. And this official complaint exposed the island-style mail delivery. In spite of an extremely high record for accurate delivery, and requiring no government funding, the little post office in a can was shut down. Wonder if she’ll be invited to the next island pot-luck.

Our Otter Creek post office? Gone, sadly. It was a tiny cubicle in the corner of the market. The seniors used to sit on the step and chat, or in cold weather they would park front of the store in their trucks, talking to each other with the windows down. Now it is a pizza and sub counter. The United States Postal Service was no doubt delighted–one less of those little offices to maintain. And it is unquestionably more profitable for the market But it was a blow to the identity of the community. As capital of the world, center of the universe, we really should have a postmark.

Bear Spotting

Towel on arm, mind in the future I headed for the outdoor shower. A wheezing sucking rhythmic breathing in and out brought me back to today. The pump for the artificial stream was sucking air, last gasps, lying exposed in the bottom of the black plastic tub. No merry tumbling of water over the granite rocks that form the eight-foot stream. No sparrows hopping on the wet stones, stepping into the shallow water to drink. I think it is a rather strange concept, an artificial stream, but hearing the water, it sounds just like a real stream, and watching birds play in it as I shower make me sublimate any negative thoughts I harbor toward it.

The streambed is dry, the hose yanked out and dragged across the rocks. I notice the wooden birdseed box has had the top pulled off its hinges and lies abandoned several feet away. I look around, and see a chair on its side.

That evening I remark how violent the raccoons had been the night before, more so than usual. Our current resident raccoons are fairly well-behaved, and we have an agreeably tolerant relationship. “Well, it was probably the bear,” Dennis said. Bear? What bear? “Tom said he saw a bear the other day, a small black bear.” Uh huh.

Picking tansy in the meadow the next day I saw Tom and Dyer. “Hey, what’s this about a bear?”
Dyer: Oh well yes. Black bear, looks like a newfie, maybe two years old, 180 pounds.
Dyer and Tom have a camp is in the woods, not more than a quarter mile from my house.
Me: Cool, is he hanging around?
Dyer: Oh yeah. He was in the garbage yesterday morning. We watched from the window. Bobcat came and chased him up a tree.

I miss all the fun.