Seaplane, Skies & Sunset on the Bay

Not many words here, a busy day... it's a beautiful world, isn't it?

Blueberry Day

The blueberries in the back field are really thick this summer, and I think I already did a blog entry on the berries, but today was blueberry day for me. Raking them didn't take long, but cleaning them without a winnower took hours. Four gallons ended up in the freezer, and I eat them all winter, so it was win win day.

I managed to get a bucket pretty nearly full, but after cleaning them, all I could see when I went to bed as an image similar to the one below.

"Bina Blue Eyes"

So I find having the baby in the house fascinating, have taken many many pictures and have learned a lot about photographing "little ones". The one I'm posting here will most likely culminate this series of shots, and I think it works pretty well to capture her "presence". She is a riot in action as well, constantly learning and always curious.

Mirror Morning & Lobsters for Supper

The bay was like a mirror this morning, and the peacefulness was pretty much uninterrupted until the wind started to pick up mid-morning and really was blowing quite hard by midday. The breeze was nice and I got yard work and seaweed done before the sun was too hot.

I put the lobsters in around 5:30 and everyone enjoyed them thoroughly. The girls added a wonderful coleslaw, biscuits, corn-on-the-cob and a blueberry pie for desert. I won't have to eat for several days now.


"Bean" has enjoyed all the fresh blueberries she can eat, and is so entertaining as she gobbbles them one at a time, with parents doing the honors as she is still young to manipulate the fine motor skills required for such small items. While she couldn't eat lobster at her age, she enjoyed playing with one, she just couldn't figure out which direction to aim it!

There's a Baby in the House

Her name is Sabina (no "r") and she and her mom Leah and dad Peter are friends of friends of our niece Morgan. A nice couple, they are caring for their daughter as "doting" parents. I remember somewhat that the first one is always special in that that's where you gain the confidence to be a parent. Sometimes things work out well that way. Sometimes they don't.

There are so many things around today that weren't there when our kids were little; diapers with velcro and bright colors (we always used white diapers and safety pins), highchairs that clamp to the top of any table and even rubber feeding mats that catch dropped food to keep things neater and less messy.

Anyway, she's amazing and cute (and I think she likes me 'cos I'm so silly with her) and almost makes me wish to be a grandparent, almost.

Auto Repair

Torrey's Oldsmobile needed rear brakes, a new wheel bearing on the front driver's side and a new serpentine belt, so I spent most of the morning as a mechanic. One part of me really enjoys doing the mechanical stuff and the upside is saving a ton of money over taking it to a garage. There are some things I would rather not tackle though, and I'm not too "macho" to turn difficult stuff over to the professionals. So I'm posting the "before" shot above and the "after" shot of the new wheel bearing assembly below. I like the contrast in texture between  the old and new!

Jen's Birthday

Sunday I made her breakfast of bacon and eggs, took her for a long ride and found a forlorn house in Mariaville, had lunch in Ellsworth at Denny's, and then went with Lynne and David to get her mom and take her out to supper in Addison at the Seafood Shack. The sky was beautiful that night. Photos to follow.

Sandy, Seaweed & Seafoam (Spindrift)

And that's all there is to it, a portrait of Sandy, some fertilizer (seaweed) I gathered off the beach this afternoon, and spindrift on the water's edge as the tide rolls in.

Spindrift was (and still is I believe) the name of the Sumner HS yearbook. I did the cover design and the divider pages in 1966.

It is a foam created by wave action on algae resting on the water's surface. Oderless foam, it is often called "seafoam".

George on the Bay & Matt on a Tough Day

This morning was nice, I gassed up the boat and gave George a call to see if he wanted to take a ride over to Sorrento. He did, and he had never been out on this bay before so it was a good experience for him that he really enjoyed. It is very rewarding to be able to make someone's day!

I wish I could do the same for my own son. Although at some level I am sure getting Matt out of the house and taking him to the movies in Bangor (we went to see Predators and he really seemed to enjoy the movie) made his day of sorts, as he also got a chance to go to Bull Moose Music (his favorite store) and make a couple of purchases. He was really struggling today and out of sorts as well. It makes it tough on all of us as Morgan and one of her school mates are here visiting and more people just add to Matt's paranoia. Oh, well... we do our best.

2 Flowers and the Incoming Tide

Why I keep being drawn to the flowers as subjects hasn't escaped my thoughts, I just think the way they tend to stand out in their surroundings is gorgeous and when you combine that with their delacacy there is no wonder in my mind why I keep going back to them as subjects. Every shot seems different.

The yellow one was this morning as I went up the driveway to get the paper and the other was late this afternoon with the wind blowing and moving the hosta blossoms. I intended to capture the wind as a subject when I went out but ended up at the shore watching the tide coming in and thinking of how to show its presence as it moved up among the rocks next to the beach.

Choice of the Day

 I took a number of shots from my rooftop as I was repairing blown off shingles this morning, but this is my favorite of the day. It is the classic case of working for the great shot, missing a great shot and knowing it, and "hanging in there". The butterfly took off just as I had the background set for the out of focus stone path... it would have been a simpler background and a better shot than the one I am posting, but c'est la vie!

2 Views and Winter Harbor

Ahh, the thought of traveling over and across the coast of Maine via the scenic ocean highways is exhilerating and tonight I found myself in Southwest Harbor and Winter Harbor in the short span of a few hours. Sunday's post showed the Queen Angelina as I painted her bottom, but she is powered by a robust 454 c.i.d. Chevy engine and cruised to SW Harbor easily at about 18 knots. It's a guy thing. Anyway, I'm posting a couple of shots (during phone calls) of John's pier at SW from different points of view. There's something in looking at things from more than one direction, whether it is forward or backward or even sideways, which brings me to an interesting philosophy concerning change; briefly, things can only go one of three ways... they get better, they stay the same or they get worse. I like to move change, make it happen in a direction I am excited about, and I think when one does that the chance percentage of "things getting better" increases dramatically. So for you movers and shakers (not Shakers in the capital sense), go for it! Passive agressive does not work here.

The other photo was early evening in Winter Harbor and actually has some nice color in the eastern (yes, while everyone else was looking at the west sunset I looked east) sky over Sargent's point. Beauty is all around me and it spills into my soul.

Groundhog Day?

Well, it was here at the compound after supper anyway. The large rodent was first spotted sitting atop the west stone wall at the side of the house and he seemed harmless enough. Shy, he was, but certainly willing to come into the backyard and feast on the abundant clover that is our lawn. He posed patiently (at first) and then became more agitated as the crowd gathered to watch him eat, scampering across the lawn and over the wall.

When we were first building the house we had one living in the wall on that side of the house, but he has been gone for two years now. It also looks like we may have more than one. Dave Seward (over on the other side of Schiefflin's Point) was in the Ellsworth paper the other day with an article about how they devastated his garden and so now he eats them. I saw him today and he said they were better than squirrel but not as good as rabbit, so if this one causes trouble we may have to put him in the stew pot! The girls say he's too cute to shoot (ah... could be a country song title).

2 Days Off and a Bunch of Photos

I'm not sure if it really makes much sense to tell much about these, but suffice it to say I have been working at getting the "Sea Sprite" ship shape and trying to help out my brother as well. In reverse order, only because it makes "posting sense",  I will start with today and go into yesterday towards the bottom. Alan stopped by last night as I was buffing back to brightness the hull on the little boat (ahh... what will I name it?) and asked if I would go down to Winter Harbor and copper the bottom of a boat for him. It is a boat that he built and was bought by people who spend 11 months of the year in Hawaii (who could blame them, eh?) and are up to Maine for vacation now and would like to have their boat (which he sotres for them during the winter). So I did and am posting first some of those pictures, including the boat on the beach and a seagull or two.

His boats are 28 footers and it took me three+ hours to get it all painted... took some pics of before and after and the gulls of course.

Been thinking of all the artistic like things that I do that keep me grounded and stroking the green copper paint on the bottom hull of that "AJ 28" over the barnacles I had just scraped off last weekend was an aesthetic of some sort for me... hard to explain!

So yesterday was working on the forward console in the "Sprite"... Another artistic endeavor and I learned a lot about planning, working with upholstery, and poly filler material, so it was well worth it to me. I thought it came out real nice, looks good and is comfortable to boot!

Today ended up with a light on top of Cadillac Mountain and the "half moon"... It was a good day to be alive.

Busy as a Bee & Jen in the Garden

Great start to the day, but things went downhill as soon as we got to Ellsworth to pick up Matt's prescription. Long story. No fun. No sense in talking about it now, sooo.... the first pictures I got this morning had me chasing around a big old bumblebee for several minutes to get the first shot. I had a bunch, but the one I'm posting was by far the best.

I went up to the garden, and it is doing so beautiful. Jen has spent a lot of time there, as have I, and it is well worth it in the harvest that is already occurring. I had fresh carrots the other day and there is no comparison to the "store bought" variety... fresh is far superior!

Sunset On Flander's Bay

From the Living Room Window

Interesting that I only seem to be able to place text under the photos now in this blog... hmmmm, I must investigate. After a couple of days of fog I woke up the the sound of an outboard engine and the brightness of a sky which finally allowed a view across the bay. I liked this shot the best of the dozen or so that I took. The name of the boat, "School Skipper" seems ingenious and appropriate for a young man who is still in high school!

Beautiful Lines, Beautiful Design