payment, please

one day it's warm, the next day it's cold. a little bit of rain, then a dusting of snow. the grass is green, the trees are naked. i have to stop to let three wild turkeys cross the road while en route to my annual mammogram appointment.

i pull into the parking lot of the new medical building in yarmouth. the macadam in this lot was rolled out black and slick onto a farmer's derelict field. a red barn still stands as proof of the old ways, a beacon hailing from more than a hundred years ago in the middle of tall, withered grass. without the barn, i would have no idea that this had been land that produced, that made something out of nothing. the farmer's acreage still produces, only now it produces housing developments, a gas station, and the medical office i am about to go into. the red barn is in good condition, obviously loved by someone. a smidgen of pastureland remains, clinging to the old barn like a child afraid to let go of its parent.

have you noticed there is no photo to go along with my story today? the powers that be at blogger have informed me that i am out of luck, i am at the end of the road, that i have run out of space.* odd thing is, i never knew i had space to begin with, let alone that i could run out of it. they are demanding payment for photo storage. don't quite know what i'll do next.

my medieval torture session over, i harbor gloomy thoughts as i exit, maneuvering along the pavement of the parking area under dismal gray skies.



*has anyone else been told they are out of space and will have to pay up to post their photos? one blogger i know has been doing this a lot longer than i have and has always posted photos, too. she received no such notice.

our house

with thoughts of home, family, friends and the holiday season in maine.....

our house is a very.....(excuse me, but i could almost insert the word very two more times and then you could, maybe, hum to the tune of the crosby, stills, and nash song our house "....is a very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy 'cause of you...." except i won't and you needn't hum because it's not exactly what i mean right now anyway, but it's a wonderful sentiment—and a true one, except for the two cats, although in the past we have owned cats....), as i was trying to say before i interrupted myself, informal house.

i don't want to leave the impression that our house is some sort of idyllic paradise where one is free to do as one pleases—where anything goes and extreme and somewhat louche informality rules—where one can, metaphorically speaking, sleep all day, lounge around in one's pajamas, guzzle six-packs of maine's best IPA, roam through the house in muddy boots, and leave a trail of wet towels and dirty underwear and socks on the floor.

no, no, no, not that kind of informal. far from it. we are ordinary people trying to live a simple lifestyle, and we have the usual list of things that conspire to give us headaches.

this sounds confusing—it's actually quite simple. it all comes down to one thing: i think i am a wretched hostess.

oh, i can cook, and i am most welcoming, but after the first round of food and drink i frequently neglect to offer my guests more food and drink. (that's where the husband comes in. he's a great jeeves—he tends to these details...well, mostly he does.) i get so involved and distracted by fine people and interesting conversation that i forget to play hostess. that said, now this can be said: a lot of times around here if you need or want something you have to ask for it, and because of this deep flaw in my character, i tend to prefer (except at thanksgiving) serve-yourself pot luck or casual buffets.

but, come to think of it, maybe i'm not that flawed, not that wretched a hostess. maybe it's a means toward the informality i love, a subconscious tactic to get family and friends to relax and feel at home. translation: dig through the fridge, open random and unfamiliar cupboards, rummage where you will but please, if you need something, don't ask me—just help yourself.

at the heart of my concept of casual, at the core of my notion of laid-back, is the centrally located, historically significant, front door knocker.

hereabouts, the nonexistent front door knocker.

we don't have one, never have, probably never will. (although i like interesting door knockers—that  stern one up there looks as if it might bite. what, exactly, is that thing? a not-so-welcoming-looking, part human/part beastie which appears to have come straight out of dickens' a christmas carol?)

we don't have a doorbell either at what is technically the front door (it broke, we never fixed it). we hardly ever use the so-called formal front door entrance anyway. instead, people go around the side of the house on a curving path through the garden and into the screened porch to the back door.

once upon a time, a time in the days of yore—and if your house was large enough—the back door, or side door, or any door that was not the front door, was considered the entrance for servants and trades people only, to be used for the daily drudgery of domestic tasks alone—upper crusty people would never have entered there.

i don't view the back door as a lowly door. it is the only door (other than the garage) that we use, that family and friends use, on a regular basis. around here there is no stiff ceremony, no tradition of the traditional front door. (by this i don't mean to imply that people who use their front doors are stiff, formal traditionalists—most people i know use their front door most of the time. oftentimes it's the only usable door. our use of the back door is only meant as an example, a symbol, of our informality.)

so that's it. holiday or not, we'll greet you—and our sweet black dog will greet you, too—at the back door, the door for all people, with no fuss or formality, just an unpretentious and friendly welcome into the heart of our home.

use or freeze by

what remains are tall, straight-backed trees—dark statues on view until may—displayed in the hushed gallery of autumn's forest. the bright colors vanished (although this year, due to a lack of cold nighttime temperatures, the usually fiery colored maples in our yard were merely a ho-hum-so-so-washed-out red) right along with the built-up anticipation of the season. how i looked forward to those colors and to sweater weather, to the crisp tang of mcintosh apples, hot cider, and the snap-whoosh of fall wind spinning the leaves in a whirling carousel of motion.

colors i don't look forward to with eager anticipation are the insidious shades of gray and green that are hiding—make that residing—in my refrigerator. they're inhabiting what's been pushed toward the back, living and multiplying in forgotten jars and plastic containers containing the dregs and leftovers from weeks and weeks ago (how many weeks ago, i am ashamed to say) that i have ignored with a scrupulous avoidance similar to my avoidance of edges—edges of high places like cliffs and the tops of tall buildings. (although years ago i crossed the aptly named knife edge on mount katadin, facing my fear of precipices by staying as close to the middle of the narrow pile-of-rocks trail as possible. i tricked myself into believing that there was a middle when, in reality, no such place exists along most of the dizzyingly narrow ridge between pamola and baxter peaks.)

one of my favorite things about maine and new england is the change each season brings. call me crazy, but i think i would be bored senseless in a perfect paradise world of forever hot and warm and green and nothing else, no in-betweens, no extremes (except scorching heat), no variability, only the same brand of tropical sun and air day in and day out. what grows in tropical climates stays visibly growing for four seasons. that's it. not much anticipation for what comes next.

in maine, though, anticipation for what comes next is always ripe, even if, for now, the dormant kernels of life are hidden and will remain hidden for some time to come. they must wait—and i must wait with them for winter to have its turn—before waking up and announcing their appearance, making a grand show-stopping entrance into yet another season of change.

in my refrigerator the storyline is different.

dynamic new life forms are at this very moment hard at work, increasing their numbers by patiently building sprawling colonies of puke-colored fuzz in a few tablespoons of leftover rao's tomato and basil sauce, or cabot farm cottage cheese, or on top of boneless chicken breasts well past the "use or freeze by"or "best by"dates. these densely packed communities—a biology experiment unfolding right in my kitchen—live in an ideal environment, a utopia of jars and packages. they have no idea about the cataclysm that's about to annihilate their population. but i do, as i clutch a giant hefty trash bag and—grimace! shudder!—force myself to swoop into the depths beyond the open refrigerator door.

the day the earth roared and a baby smiled

on tuesday night, the second night of my trip to vermont, the earth stirred. then it roared.

we missed it, though. didn't hear a thing. didn't feel the ripples radiating out from the epicenter three miles below ground, in the crust of the north american plate, twenty miles west of portland, maine. but much of new england did.

within a minute of the 7:12 p.m. earthquake there was even more rumbling. online rumbling. my daughter's facebook page came to life and vibrated with exclamations: wow, did you feel that? that felt like an earthquake! and we thought our furnace was exploding and sounded like a freight train tearing past the house. a friend of hers from down south knew about the quake before we were able to confirm that it was an earthquake. she wrote just heard maine had an earthquake. that had all of us—my daughter, my son-in-law and myself—checking our iphones for the latest news.

close to the epicenter in maine, hanging lamps swayed to and fro. silverware rattled in a drawer at my niece's house in portland. elsewhere windows shook as if poltergeists had risen out of the ground to cause a ruckus—a little preview of halloween. in freeport ed told me our dog, lille, ran to the door, hackles raised, and barked and barked. people felt and heard the earthquake in boston and new hampshire and in towns south of us in vermont. in the hills above richmond, though, everything was quiet. did the mountains surrounding us, and hills under us, act as a buffer and cushion the tremor?

on the day the earth roared i watched my grandson smile, and i smiled, too, as i listened to him coo his baby songs. the day the earth roared i took care of him while his mother was at work. the day the earth roared i fed him bottles filled with his mother's milk and wiped spit up off his chin and poop off his bottom and settled him in his bassinet and folded his newly laundered baby outfits into neat piles.

on that day, deep under the earth, rocks more than a billion years old—give or take a million—scraped against each other, heated up to the point of melting, split, and made a lot of noise.*

on that day, my grandson had been in this world for exactly three months.



*a scientist was on the maine show "207"after the quake. he brought in rocks found along maine's shoreline that had cracked and melted in earthquakes. they originated deep within the earth's crust, rose to the surface as mountains were formed, and were dragged to the sea when glaciers scoured the land. the rocks were marked with fissures and smooth dark lines where they had melted all those eons ago.

shapeshifting

a quiver, a shiver

first one, then another

cast away on the floor.

a careless—a thoughtless—

peeling of garments dropped 

from your long, hard limbs—

can't you go slower, make

the moment last?

at my feet the heap grows 

my blister stings

my shoulder aches

as i scrape the rake

across the ineludibility

of change, smell frigid

winter in curling woodsmoke,

squint my eyes against
diminishing days, search

for summer unloosed
in the remnants
of shapeshifting hours.

magic in a mushroom

after three days of rain, beautiful mushrooms began popping out from under the mat of pine needles and moss below the eastern white pines. they looked a little magical, like something out of a fairytale forest. i don't know a thing about mushrooms so i consulted a book and also the internet to find out what they were, but mushrooms, with highly descriptive names like turkey tail, black trumpet, hedgehog, puffball, chicken fat and oyster—which, by the way, were of no help at all—are tricky. they have lots of parts like gills and caps and teeth and veils and numerous gill attachments and cap morphologies, etc.

several different mushrooms appeared in the woods behind the house.

i thought a few were horse mushrooms—the photo of my mushrooms looked a lot like the horse mushrooms on the internet. they were even "scaly below the veil and smooth above." as i continued reading the lengthy and detailed (and boring) description of horse mushrooms i became more convinced that i had identified them correctly.

soon, though, i began to have serious doubts. horse mushrooms, the article said, were found in grassy fields. it also said beware of mushrooms where the base was thicker than the top of the stem (as in photo #1) because they were usually poisonous. then some more horrid words jumped off the page at me and made me realize i will never ever ever ever eat a mushroom directly out of the woods—not that i was intending to anyway.... i was merely admiring the potentially deadly lovelies—even if a mushroom expert said it was safe (well, maybe a mushroom expert could convince me....).

the article said "if the mushroom has white gills throw it out!" the italics and exclamation point alone—never mind the words—were frightening. they screamed so loudly i winced. sure enough, several of the mushrooms out back had pure, lily-white gills. (i read that toadstools and mushrooms are not scientifically different, so these were, in fact, real mushrooms—real poisonous mushrooms.)

i felt let down. i thought i might have had a special mushroom growing in my yard, a mushroom i could have bragged about. but was it possible that maybe some of my mushrooms weren't poisonous? that maybe i had hallucinogenic ones growing out there instead? magic ones? hmmm.......but magic ones were fancy and colorful and speckled and spotted and mine were plain—lovely, but plain. wait, that's not right. happy mushrooms were always kind of brown and shriveled and ugly—it was the poisonous ones that were pretty. also, maine was too cold for wild magic mushrooms, i thought.

like i said, i don't know a thing about mushrooms.

over the brenner pass

after strolling around bolzano and saying hello and good-bye to the 5000-year-old iceman (his story is interesting: he died—perhaps was murdered?—in the alps not too far west from brenner and is remarkably well preserved in the south tyrol museum of archeology) we left our rental car in bolzano, took the train and headed out of the dolomites and into the kitzbuhel alps toward st. johann in tyrol.

our railway journey was uneventful—we shared our compartment with an elderly italian couple who spent most of their time in the dining car—but the scenery was lively—absolutely picture book pretty. as the train wound through the mountains i thought i would be able to capture some images of the tall, pointed firs lining the mountainsides and the fairy tale villages scattered in the valleys below. (some of the evergreens were not even ever green—they had turned a sunny shade of yellow; the sprinkling of huge, intermixed green and yellow "christmas" trees was an unusual sight.) what was spread out beyond the windows looked like a festive christmastime tableau, even without any snow on the ground. but the train's windows were filthy so, sadly, no pictures from the train.

we stayed in a quaint, old austrian inn on the post road.

there was a small shop in the village which had a window display of traditional austrian folk costumes for sale. very pretty, but where on earth would i ever wear one of these dresses except perhaps to a costume party?

here is a chalet i saw as i walked along a lake in the tyrol. with a little snow added to the scene the house and setting would have looked very christmasy. i could live in a once-upon-a-time, happily-ever-after storybook cottage like this one.....

couldn't you?

a stroll through an outdoor market

oh the incredible colors and smells—large hanging bunches of bright red chili peppers and fresh papery garlic. pomegranates, oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, flowers, roasting chestnuts. fresh breads and pastries and an incredible selection of local cheeses. (i'm getting hungry as i write this.)

i could have strolled back and forth in bolzano's market all afternoon, up the via goethe and over to the piazza delle erbe off the piazza walther—you wonderful passeggiata, i'm glad you turned up and i could savor you once again.

the market in bolzano (northern italy near the austrian border) is marvelous and filled with all the right foods. the people who live in bolzano are bi-lingual and speak perfect italian and german—trilingual if you count their own local german-ish dialect which i could not understand. (every mountain valley and village speaks the official national language plus a gazillion different mishmash dialects —it can get audibly confusing.) the culture is a mix of italian and tyrolean. i loved the fact that the restaurant menus were in italian and german and not english.

i finally (!) managed to find a place not crawling with americans.

on that early november afternoon we had a big lunch and ended up feeling so full we decided to skip going to dinner and instead bought cheese, bread and fruit at the market. later that evening when we had finished our simple "dinner for two" we went out and enjoyed a glass of wine. i believe it was as close to a perfect day as you can have.

and the people watching was great, although it was a little too chilly to sit outdoors.

zooming around lago di garda

the drive along the western shore of lago di garda surprised me. i expected early november in northern italy to be chilly and the mountains on both sides of the lake to be covered in snow.

instead, it was warm—there was not a speck of snow even on the tallest dolomite peaks—and, in addition to olives and grapes growing on every spare patch of ground (including almost vertical groves clinging to the mountainsides; how sturdy and tenacious the plants are—and that description also holds true for the  farmers who tend these crops), there were sunny, bright lemon and orange trees full of fruit, and clusters of palm trees greeted us, making the lakeside seem like a mini tropical paradise.

the towns surrounding the lake enjoy a climate influenced by the tall peaks and garda's warm water—they are in their own mild micro-climate.

low clouds persisted on the day we motored along the shore in our little lancia, zooming through tunnel after tunnel carved out of solid rock at the edge, at the precise point, where the mountains meet garda. then we ascended the steep, snaky roads up to tignale and montecastello.

the frighteningly narrow roads—with plunging rock precipices directly outside the car window—hairpin turns and blind corners created an interesting excursion, especially when the weather turned even cloudier and we encountered bicyclists along the way. looking at the positive side, it didn't rain so we didn't have to add slippery roads to the already treacherous drive.

but on a more negative note, the images i took from almost 2000 feet above the lake at montecastello do not clearly show the lake below and the mountain peaks on the eastern shore due to the poor visibility. yet even with the cloud cover the views across the lake were stunning and our explorations up there made for a great day.

after the feast

after the feast, that day of thankfulness for life and loved ones, i looked back at thursday's hours and was reminded of short days and long nights, of endings and beginnings, of the cycle of seasons and the rapidity of decades.

was it really so long ago—important dates: 1621 for the religious observance, later in the 17th century for the yearly september feasts offering thanks for successful harvests, 1941 for the designation of the official thanksgiving holiday, the last thursday in november—or something like that...google it if you need more facts—when the pilgrims ate their thanksgiving feast of fish, deer, foul, squash, berries and nuts on long tables outdoors in a plimoth clearing, and invited about 90 wampanoag indian friends to be their guests (i've been told the wampanoags brought the venison)?

can you see them in a grassy field, english folks of both sexes adorned with fresh, white collars, the men wearing tall black hats, the women in black or white caps, and their native guests in buckskin, beads and feathers?

was it really so long ago when i was a little girl? back then it was mostly family around my parent's thanksgiving table, but occasionally friends would gather with us, too. this year at our house, in addition to family, we had a friend and business associate from china as our thanksgiving guest.

my mother was an excellent cook; the cooking would begin on tuesday and everything was made from scratch. what i remember most were her desserts—pies and cakes—and her mashed potatoes and gravy. i see her stirring and measuring and adjusting flavors, adding a pinch of this or that. when mum started to become ill, her memory fading, her fingers stiffening, i asked her to show me how she made her gravy so that we would always be able to have gravy the way memi (what my children call their grandmother) made it. she laughed and told me there was no recipe, or more precisely, there was no exact recipe, only the ever-so-slightly-changing variation of a recipe that came out of her head each thanksgiving.

she stood patiently beside me and recited her gravy process, and as we hovered over a saucepan together, mum stirring with a wooden spoon, me scribbling notes with a pen, we came up with a wonderful version (perhaps it's the one from thanksgiving 1973?) of her gravy. it was on the table last thursday.

this year before dinner was ready i suggested that maybe one day we should use picnic tables in the yard and eat outside like the pilgrims at that first thanksgiving feast. (had we done so this thanksgiving we would have been setting up our tables in a muffled winter wonderland surrounded by heavy snow which weighed the pine branches down, and hauling platters of food as we trudged through 8 inches of the white stuff which had surprised us the day before.) not one person enthusiastically embraced the idea; alas, no pilgrim types in this group.

every year we prepare for days and the food is gobbled up in a flash.

time burns down and disappears like the candle tapers on the table.

and speaking of burning down, the day ended with a bit of excitement. i opened the chimney flue and lit a fire in the living room fireplace after we finished our meal—well, that is, i thought i had opened the flue. (just let me add i have been lighting fires in the fireplace for 30 years and this is the first time i have had flue issues.) the fire was burning nicely but after 5 minutes the room began to smell like woodsmoke, we could see some smoke above in the loft, and our eyes started to sting. i could have sworn the flue was fully open, but obviously it was only partially open.

i reached into the fireplace with a poker and pulled the lever forward. the smokey wisps stopped sneaking out of the firebox and were sucked up the chimney. we had to vacate the room, open the windows, and sit in the family room. no damage occurred but it still smells a bit like a smokehouse—though not at all unpleasant—as if hams ought to be hanging and curing from the beams.

i promptly had some grey goose to calm my nerves.

i'm glad to report the rest of the evening passed without incident.

phloxie poppers

standing in monday's warm sun, a good stiff breeze ruffling the oaks and poplars—the only trees with leaves still displaying a resoluteness and fixedly holding tight to the branches—i overheard a steady pop! pop! going on in the greenery.

the first time i heard that odd sound was years and years ago when my garden was new and i was new to gardening. gardening—that wonderful mucking about in pungent soil and tangles of weeds and fall's dead leaves, that exploration of the hidden worlds of smooth roots and bumpy rhizomes and chubby worms alive under the ground—and a love for the outdoors are in my genes. i am descended from generations of men and women who worked on the land, their own (in recent history) or belonging to the neighborhood duke or lord or whatever other landed gentry, and made their livelihoods from crops and cattle and horses and sheep (lots of sheep) .

when i garden my hands become dirty and sandpaper rough (you don't want to touch my sea urchin-like palm and fingers—i should wear gloves but i rarely do because i need to feel the good earth), my nails split (no glamorous nail polish for me) and crusty with black soil like one of those old farmers but not really, since my garden patch is smallish and unmechanized and suburban. there is no rise-up-at-dawn to milk the cows here; there is only me. my husband does not garden. he is without a green thumb but he helps me with heavy hauling and cutting—any yard work requiring a chainsaw and bigger muscles than i have.

and the pops? those were phlox seedpods—small, oval, ripe, ready—the ones which have gone from green to brown—wantonly bursting again and again in the afternoon sunshine (always in the sun's heat, never on a cloudy day) providing food for birds, mice, moles and voles and sending forth an unwavering new generation.

singing the blaze orange blues

a workman's tarp left on the lawn to dry.  october 2010.

fall again, and across the misty pastures and orchard rows and into the woodland's dark cathedral of trees, jays and crows scream but the wild turkeys, grouse and pheasant keep a more reverent tone as they contemplate what they might graze upon next. pheasant are everywhere. i've seen some beautiful males lately, with their red eye patches, brilliant green heads, and long pointed tails, eating seeds, berries and leaves right on the edge where the road ends and the forest begins.

yes, it's turkey time again. they're a-callin' and the hunters are a-callin' back. it's also moose season and soon deer season, too. blaze orange is autumn's deep woods fashion color—my neighbor even covers himself in blaze when he walks his dogs along the side of the road. the dogs are also decked out in orange—an L. L. BEAN blaze orange hat and jacket for the man, and blaze orange canine couture vests for the dogs. hardly anyone else dresses that way unless they're going to venture into the densely wooded areas (and he's not venturing anywhere off the road).

i don't think there's any need to be worried about guns going off near our backyards. after all, this isn't the boonies; we live in a well-traveled suburban area with plenty of houses. three minutes away on foot there is even a densely populated neighborhood. hunting isn't allowed close to neighborhoods. the woods surround us, but this is a civilized place. we are civilized, right? yes (i think) and we are comforted by the thought of being in "civilization" and not some scary "deliverance" backwater. yet the woods and the wildlife were here first. civilization is the intruder and hunters are part of civilization.

in the dead of night i'm awakened. i hear shots being fired, sounding off eerily nearby. they're out jacklighting deer. during the day i jump at the shotgun's boom! boom! boom! not too close to home this time, but somewhere, everywhere. the hunters are out there.

i don't think there's any need to be worried. but if the hunters get any closer we'll all have to watch out, we'll all have to beware.

the quiet

on tuesday the gray sky was solidly locked in place and the rain didn't let up much; it pattered and pattered and pattered a steady rhythm on the roof, the tempo hardly varying. over at cove road dock the morning tide was almost low and the rain, courteously, limited itself to falling gently for a few minutes.

and i took some pictures of the quiet.

up on grover hill



in the hills above bethel, maine. november, 2010.

joyce and i took a drive up grover hill in bethel. the town and its surroundings are eerily quiet at this time of year between summer and ski season. nothing much going on in this neck of the maine woods. we stopped for a while and looked out over the magestic blue peaks of caribou, haystack, butters, tyler, speckled and lots of other mountains, in the white mountain national forest in maine. over yonder, a few miles in the distance, is evans notch, which is on the new hampshire border. the mountains extend far to the right and left of the photo, offering a great panoramic view. we stood in complete silence - no cars, no birds, no wind, no people. a moment of peaceful meditation up on the hill....

saltypaws on casco bay

saltypaws alert and waiting patiently on stockman island, casco bay, maine. october, 2010. photo by denny denham.

my name is addie saltypaws. i am a labrador retriever. my human, denny, and all the rest of the humans, call me addie, but once you get to know me, you'll see why saltypaws describes me best.

last month, denny and i, and some other humans, were out hunting sea ducks (common eider, longtail, black, surf and white wing) on the ledges at stockman island. what i love most in the whole world, besides running in the yard, riding in the car, and being with my human family, is retrieving. that's what i do; that's what i am, a retriever. remember that. seems obvious, i know, but people forget sometimes, and it's important to this story.

when we motor out to stockman, it is still pitch black outside, and rather nippy. once we get there, denny and his friend, bill green, host of bill green's maine on television (wcsh6), set up 2 strings of 12 decoys each in a "v" formation in the tidal zone beside the ledges. the sun is starting to come up on the horizon. we position ourselves against the rocks to minimize our profile, and wait....and wait some more. i hate waiting. i am quivering from tail to toe in blissful anticipation.

finally (yes!) some eiders fly into view. the guys fire. the ducks drop. i am a shaking mass of dog fur. this always happens to me. it's kind of embarrassing, but i am so excited and happy thinking about when i get the ok from denny to play my retrieve game, the game where i jump in the water, and swim out to bring the ducks in. it feels like it's a game to me, but i have been trained well, over countless hours, by denny, to get even better at what comes naturally. at long last, denny lets me get on with it. all this time, while we waited, i have been in my "heel" position. now he tells me "fetch it up" and with hand signals and whistles directs me to the duck that is the farthest out. i leap into the frigid water lightning fast. to me, the cold sea is heaven. one by one i bring in the ducks. i am so happy. if i were a human, i would be wildly laughing out loud.

bill green, host of bill green's maine. daybreak on stockman island. photo by denny denham.

one time bill green, on facebook here, got an angry email from a lady who was quite upset when she saw a story he did about me playing my duck retrieval game on the ocean. she said why would you put a dog in a situation like that? it is cruel and abusive. dear lady, i can honestly tell you if my human did not take me out duck hunting, that would be cruel and abusive. i do not want to stop swimming when the humans are done for the day. i want to keep playing. i am not cold. i am wearing my neoprene vest, the most advanced technology for dogs out on the water. it keeps me afloat - ha, like i need help! - and oh-so-warm - ha! like i wouldn't jump in the water without it!

my human takes great care of me. the bond between us is strong. he loves me and i love him. we go everywhere together. the maine woods, the open fields and the salty sea are my home......

note: addie saltypaws is our lille's mother - and also mother of alex's montana, james' harper, christina's ollie, and denny's luc, as seen here.

thanksgiving in maine

happy thanksgiving! here are 3 non-traditional maine thanksgivings i have heard about over the years: 40 guests, which required 3 ovens (2 of the ovens belonged to the host family, 1 oven they borrowed from a neighbor who was out of town); a meal which consisted of entirely maine game meat (wild turkey, deer, moose); a thanksgiving meal held outdoors (brrrrr) on 2 pinic tables put together to form 1 long table (actually, now that i think of it, that's probably as traditional as you can get, since the pilgrims, on that first thanksgiving, ate outdoors).

anyway, at our home in maine, we have 1 oven, 1 (23.83 pound) domestic vermont turkey, and an indoor table. how boring. the stuffed turkey is about to go in the oven, the apple tart and goodies are baked, the pumpkin-carrot-potato soup is simmering, and the silver is polished and gleaming. the table just needs to be set, potatoes require peeling, and then we are well on our way to making this feast a reality. naturally, there are always all the last minute preparations still to be done: uncorking wine, making gravy, lighting a fire in the fireplace, and so on.

i love AFTER thanksgiving almost as much as turkey day itself. homemade thanksgiving sandwiches (bits of turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy....all piled on crusty bread, which we first discovered at the mom and pop store down the road);  home-made turkey soup; and leftover pie...for breakfast! sometimes i think all this food tastes better the next day....

but back to today. i am giving thanks for what i see right here in front of me: a husband, a son, a daughter, a mum, a dad, a turkey, 2 dogs, tons of food, a roof over our heads, and ALSO for the family and friends who are not right here in front of me....you get the idea. this is a day for good food, good conversation and, quite simply, togetherness. let's get to it.....

a cozy fire and a good book

brrrr....the past few days have been chilly, chilly, chilly. yesterday, as evening approached, the damp rainy rawness increased in our little nook of the maine woods, and blustery winds began to whip past the windows. high time for a fire. i gathered some kindling and paper. we needed to burn up the rest of the fallen pine trees that we cut up almost two years ago. at this time of year, especially around the holidays, our maine field stone fireplace frequently displays a huge roaring fire. the crackle and sizzle and warm glow of a good blaze is one of my favorite things.

it was also time to grab a book, maybe something by louise erdrich, and pour a cup of tea....or perhaps something stronger?

i have heard people say you shouldn't burn pine. what are you supposed to do with it then? can these people possibly be from maine? in fact, you can burn it just fine. it won't mess up your chimney! i throw pine in the fireplace with some hardwoods. the problem with pine, if you're trying to heat your house with it in a woodstove, is that it doesn't give off the amount of heat that hardwoods do, so, like i said, just add some other wood. in a fireplace, pine is fine. mightly fine. my toasty toes say so.

the sunday river covered bridge

the sun broke through the gray, cloud-filled sky just as jon and shannon's wedding ceremony was about to start on the sunday river covered bridge in newry, maine. forget that the weather was a bit chilly. all 100 of us on the bridge were quite cozy as we snuggled up in our specially made fleece blankets embroidered with fall leaves, pumpkins, and the wedding date.

imagine the beauty of the scene: the guests are seated on the old 1872 covered bridge spanning the rushing sunday river, and in that moment, before the bride walks down the bridge's wooden planks from one end to the other, there is a hush. the sun suddenly sparkles, and the sweet music of icy mountain water playing over the ancient stones and earth below us fills the air. we are in nature's cathedral listening to nature's song -so simple, so stunningly peaceful, so quietly calling forth the presence of god in this age of unrelenting noise. the wilderness in newry can truly refresh the soul....

before the frost

i was thinking about what the outdoors looks like before the first frost. in the fall, frost can surprise us one morning as it sneaks in and turns everything brown and brittle. these are a few glimpses of what was, and what will be again.

as the cold weather approaches, we can at least think about warmer weather by directing our thoughts toward spring and what we'll plant next year. but first, here in maine, before we feel the warmth again, we have to slowly make our way through the snow and wind and ice. winter is beautful. just be sure to wear toasty layers of clothes (think L.L.BEAN) to enjoy it!

putting the garden to bed

it's that time of year again. we have tons of leaves to rake in our yard, so i tackle them a little at a time. i am very fond of my small i-push-it-myself mulching lawn mower. it does a great job, and i get in about 2.5 miles of walking each time i mow the lawn. most of the leaves are cleaned up not by me, but by my hard-working mower. i mow over the leaves and then rake up any little piles the lawn mower spits out. it is much easier raking small bits of mulched leaves than it is raking big piles of regular leaves.

i also mow over some of the trimmed (any big stalks removed) flower beds - the mower is small enough so i can get into little nooks and crannies - and i toss in some extra well-mulched leaves on top of the beds. it is a good way to start putting the garden to bed for the winter. in this picture, i like how the leaves on the lawn look like pieces of fall colored confetti. did you know that the first confetti was not colored paper confetti? confetti (same root word as confectionery) was originally sweets and nuts coated in sugar, or candy wrapped in colorful paper. the sweet nuts and candy bits were then tossed at celebrations and carnivals.