First Day of School

Today was actually the beginning of our second week of school. We decided to get started slowly last week, doing math, science, spelling and some history reading in the morning before TBear and I were needed in the hayfield to bale and pick up in the afternoons. It was a pretty good week overall.

In fact, I'm glad we started last week because today wound up a little wacky. To begin with, we had Sunny all weekend while Riss went to a baby shower for an old friend in Mass. We had a ball all weekend, in spite of the 2" of rain we got on Saturday, but this morning, with the sun out, it was rather difficult to keep Sunny inside while we did some school. I wound up giving directions then running outside to monitor Sunny's play.

Riss arrived around 9:30am, and we opted to take some "First Day of School Pictures." I think we took maybe 40 pictures hoping for a few good ones. Here are some of them.

TBear

TBear and Sunny

And the three of us. We might have to try this again later in the day when the morning sun isn't so bright in our faces. We're off to a happy start at any rate. : )
Riss and Sunny left shortly after this and we resumed our studies. : )

Sailing Again on Our 25th Anniversary

August 11th marked 25 years of marriage for Whit and me. They've been a good twenty-five years. It's interesting how much our lives have changed in that amount of time though. We spent our honeymoon cruising the beautiful coast of Maine, vowing to someday return and live here; we loved it that much. Although we do live in Maine now, we don't sail much any more. We farm. Yup, lots of changes.

Here in the foothills of central Maine we have some friends who sail, and last May Whit bartered some time with his backhoe for a week with their sailboat. I took lots of pictures, so this may be more of a "photo bucket" than a story, but I wanted to share them with you anyway. It's a good way for us to remember this lovely week we had away from the farm, reminiscing about the way our life used to be. Not better by any means, just different.

This is our friends' "Hannah," a 32-foot Chuck Paine design, in case you were wondering. (Chuck Paine is a boat designer here in Maine.) She is a double-ender with pretty lines, and she sails well.
After running around all day, finally getting everything together, and driving down to South Bristol, here we are aboard on Tuesday evening. We got our belongings stowed and tried to decide what to do next. That whole free time/unwind thing took a few minutes to adjust to. However, we recovered quickly, went back to shore, and drove back up to Damariscotta to walk around the village and check out a yarn shop (which was closed.) We had a nice anniversary dinner at the King Eider Pub. It started to pour as we were running up the street from the parking lot, but the storm had passed by the time we were done with dinner. That was fortunate timing since motoring back out to the sailboat in the rain wouldn't have been as much fun without the foul-weather gear.
Wednesday morning: It was still cloudy and cool, but we set sail anyway. We dropped the mooring and headed northeast towards Tenants Harbor.
So. Bristol is up in John's Bay, and as we cleared the end of Pemaquid Point we ran right into a fogbank. Below is a picture of Pemaquid just before we ran into the fog. The wind was lovely... and just about off the nose, so we wound up tacking north into Muscongus Bay then turning southeast towards Monhegan Island.
The fog got a little tedious, damp and cold after awhile. I couldn't take any pictures, but I did make some tremendous progress on the sleeve of a sweater I'm knitting. Below is a photo of the galley with the gimbaled stove. I took this for TBear so he could see how the stove always stays level, even when the boat is heeling over. This is a good thing if you want to keep the coffee in the pot. : )

Once we reached Tenants Harbor that afternoon and anchored, the sun came out about half and hour later and it got hot!

Thursday: We pulled anchor around 8am, after breakfast, and headed for Northwest Harbor on Deer Isle. The day dawned beautiful and sunny...in the harbor. We motored out of the harbor to find there was no wind. It was flat calm, and the fog set in again about a mile after we left the harbor. Ever the optomists, we raised the mainsail, hoping to catch at least a breath of wind. We raised and lowered the sail all day long, but the sad truth was we generally motorsailed through fog that alternately went from pea soup to 2 miles of visibility and back again. Fortunately it cleared by about noon as we entered East Penobscot Bay. We could see Isle au Haut in the distance.

Below is a picture of an interesting schooner that we passed going in the opposite direction. It's name was Peacemaker, which rang a bell. Sure enough, when we returned home, we found an article about this particular ship a friend had sent not too long ago. We think they were probably on their way south again from Belfast, Maine.
It got sunnier and clearer the farther up East Penobscot Bay we sailed, and it turned into a beautiful cruise. We saw quite a few seals swimming and at least a half dozen pods of dolphins or pilot whales. It was hard to tell from a distance because they surfaced and dove so quickly. It was also impossible for me to get a decent picture, although I tried a number of times.

Northwest Harbor was a very pretty little harbor. We dropped anchor around 3:30pm and took the dinghy in to a rocky little beach by a causeway. We were delighted to stumble on the Pilgrim Inn and Whale's Rib Tavern right there just up the hill from the causeway. We set off on a four-mile hike along Route 15 (I don't recommend doing this) in search of a convenience store we were told was a mile and a half down the road. We never did find the store, turning around about two miles down the road. We got back to the tavern around 5pm. They were all booked with reservations for the evening, but we were early enough for them to squeeze us in before the first ones at 6pm. Score! We had the most excellent dinner of our whole trip.

The ride back to Hannah in the dinghy was mildly nerve-wracking as an additional, and previously unseen piece of ledge was revealed by the seagulls which were perched on it...it was also unmarked on the chart. We went slowly and kept our eyes peeled, but didn't see anything else to concern us on the falling tide. Below is a picture of the harbor just before the sun set, with a rainbow over the causeway.
This is looking back toward the entrance to the harbor. The setting sun was beautiful that evening.
Friday: We weighed anchor at 8:30am and set off on an absolutely beautiful, quiet, sunny day, with no FOG! The wind was light, but it was out of the S-SE so we drifted along north towards the Eggemoggin Reach. This was most definitely one of those "the joy is in the journey" kind of days. We were content to idle along in the pleasant sunshine until the wind died completely. We had to motor up to the Reach, but once there the wind picked up dramatically and we were able to sail. In fact, by the time we got to Blue Hill Bay, it had picked up enough that we were screaming along at 6.5 knots. This was fun but the wake from the powerboat traffic was not, so we changed sails from the genny to the working jib. We still maintained a nice 5 knots, but it was a lot more comfortable not pounding through the waves.

Southwest Harbor is in Mt. Desert Isle. The big hills in the background (below) are part of Acadia National Park. After a gorgeous day's sail, we dropped anchor in the harbor around 4:30pm. We went to dinner at the Deck House Restaurant and Cabaret Theater, which was significant for us. Twenty-five years ago, the Deck House Restaurant was actually in Bass Harbor. After sailing for 2 days in fog (yes, that's a common Maine theme...fog in August) on our honeymoon, we finally arrived in Bass Harbor where we stumbled on this neat little restaurant that featured a dinner theater. We loved it, and have remembered it. Wanting to return, we looked it up online before we left on our trip, and discovered the restaurant had been moved to Southwest Harbor, and this is to be their last season. We decided we really needed to be there once more, so that was the ultimate goal of our trip that week.

Saturday: Another beautiful, sunny day. The wind had been predominantly out of the east all the way to Blue Hill Bay. On Saturday, however, as we needed to set off for home again, the wind had shifted to the SW and was supposed to remain that way until we got home. (Ah, yes, it was all coming back to me...the wind off the nose no matter which direction you were going. :)

We took on fuel and water then left the dock around 8:30am. It was very hot and muggy already, and we learned when we got home that it was totally miserable and in the 90's inland that day. It was so good to get back out on the bay with the cool breeze. We decided that while Southwest Harbor was interesting (it's the home of Hinckley boat builders and we saw lots of beautiful Hinckley designs in the harbor) we weren't going to put it high on our list of places to return to unless we were running low on fuel or water, or needed something at West Marine. We thought the small grocery store within walking distance, Sawyer's Market, has a license to steal. Everything in there was just about exactly double what you would pay 2 miles inland somewhere. Although the marina people were very nice and helpful, the small town is very busy and touristy, and just not our cup of tea...or glass of beer. Whatever. Below is a lovely farm we saw as we were leaving the harbor. I'm afraid the small pictures just don't do it justice.
TBear wanted to see pictures of lobstermen. This particular drab olive green lobsterboat was amusing to us. It was called "Lost Airmen." We think somebody might have changed careers. : )
From Southwest Harbor, we motored into the cool seabreeze to Casco Passage. The wind picked up and we were able to sail close-hauled all day. (See? I didn't spend the whole time knitting. I helped. :) We decided to bypass Casco Passage, opting to sail offshore around Long Island and then turn north of Isle au Haut and into Carver Cove at the north end of Vinalhaven.
We passed a lovely windjammer, probably from Camden.
There are a number of ledges, seemingly rising from out of the middle of nowhere. They're marked on the charts, so they're not a problem...unless, perhaps it's foggy, and one doesn't have GPS, and is lousy at dead-reckoning. (None of those applied to us though.) This one had a bunch of seals sunning themselves.
As we entered Carver Cove, we were met with the sight of this beautiful farm. I would love to be able to pick our farm up and set it down right here on this spot. What a cool place to live. This was one of our favorite coves to anchor in, and we'd like to return again.

Sunday: We picked up anchor at 7am and headed northwest out of Carver Cove. It was another beautiful Maine morning...and flat calm...to motor through the Fox Island Thoroughfare. It was going to be a long day to get back to South Bristol so we made coffee and ate breakfast underway.
Going through the Fox Island Thoroughfare, which passes between the islands of Vinalhaven and North Haven is really lovely. I kept trying to get a picture of all the lobsterpot buoys to show TBear, but it was difficult. This picture is looking ahead down the passage with lots of flourescent buoys, but it's still hard to see them all.
This is a picture of North Haven, across the way from Vinalhaven. The two islands can't be separated by more than half a mile.
This is Fiddler Ledge beacon. It's impressive looking standing all by itself in the water on submerged rocks.
Here it is from a distance. You don't want to sail anywhere to the right of this beacon. There is a line of ledge that stretches all the way to the shore. Short cuts will put you on the rocks.
It was about 8am when we got to the end of the Fox Island Thoroughfare. Breakfast was coffee, bread, cheese, and apples.
A lighthouse that marks one side of a narrow passage we took south of Mosquito Island and north of Allen Island. (I can't remember the name of this point, sorry, but I liked the lighthouse. : )
Crossing West Penobscot Bay we started to run into foggy weather again. We had some good, close-hauled motorsailing, which was better than just powering. Whit's theory is if there is any wind at all, raise the sails and make them work for you. (Besides, it keeps him entertained. : ) We managed to cruise along at 5.5 knots on a beam reach through the islands, but it fizzled when we turned back up John's Bay, dying as we reached Witch Island, around which we had to power to get to the mooring in So. Bristol.

Pictured below is more ledge (for TBear's benefit) appearing in the middle of the bay. Unmarked here but marked on charts, and dangerouse if you get too close.
Sunday evening, we tidied up Hannah, packed our gear and headed for home. (Whit is ferrying the first load in and returning with water to top off the tanks, while I do a little cleaning. It's too shallow at any tide but high to get into the dock.)
I have a lot more pictures, but I didn't want to totally bore you all. It was a lovely week of sailing. A little rustic in many ways, but very lovely. With only each other to talk to, we discovered that Whit and I still like each other. (That's always nice in a marriage. :)

I don't think we're ready to move back aboard again just yet. (Okay, Sean, there is that minor detail about the Night Wind not being in very good shape anymore, but even so...) However, a long-term geography lesson for TBear would be a very cool thing to do. We still contemplate it.

One thing we have learned throughout the years is to be content in any situation. We would miss the farm and gardens if we lived aboard again, just as much as we miss the ocean and sailing, living so far inland. I guess we'll just have to keep trading stuff for more time at sea so we can have our cake and eat it too. We assured TBear that we would take him next time. I keep thinking of all the great skills and knowledge we could impart to him.

A Bad Baler Day

Some days in the hayfield are definitely better than others. I should have known when I got the phone call halfway to the field. After I had hitched up the trailer and driven as far as the post office, Whit called to ask me to go back for the new cutting knives he'd recently ordered.

Usually we do schoolwork until about lunchtime, then I load up TBear and Sunny and we head out to the field to bale and pick up the hay. Whit goes ahead of us to rake it into wind-rows and grease all the machinery. My job is to drive the tractor with the temperamental baler, while Whit and TBear follow with the haywagon and pick up and stack the bales to bring back to the barn.

I turned around at the Y (in the road, not the "Y" as in YMCA) in Mt Vernon and went home again for the knives. The day would turn out to be a total bust. The boys and I spent a few hours hanging around the hayfield waiting for Whit to replace the knives. That job didn't take too long. Figuring out why they still weren't cutting properly took the rest of the afternoon. The worst part about a day like this is not so much the waiting as the thinking that the next adjustment is going to do the trick. Poor Whit.

Thinking it will be a quick fix, TBear (and Sunny) run the knives down to Whit just over the hill to the left here. We've already cut and baled this section. The new part to bale is on the right.

Okay, so maybe it's not such a quick fix after all.

But we're being so patient.

Whit is replacing the cutting knives on our 1959 International Harvester baler.

See all the hay 'pooped' out the back? The baler won't tie it into bales for some reason. Sigh.

The nice, new, not ours, John Deere tractor. (It belongs to our hay partner. They were hoping it would make the baling smoother with the constant PTO, instead of using my wonderful old Farmall H. It was a false hope.) Sunny loves trucks...and tractors too, apparently. : )
Hours later, we're still hanging around waiting on the baler. While I feed countless amounts of hay into the thing, Whit makes adjustments and fiddles with it, all to no avail this day. Meanwhile, TBear teaches Sunny how to cut things using a pair of wire cutters on some twine. Who needs preschool?! : )
The rest of this story is that we bagged baling this day, and went home around 4:30 or 5pm. The next morning Whit returned with calipers and started at page one, measuring and making every single adjustment to the manual's specification. He also wound up putting the old knives back on. He's investigating whether the new ones were the right size, or whatever, for it because they just plain wouldn't work. We were back in business by 2pm or so.

This field gives me poison ivy. Every time we've cut and baled a section, I get fresh patches of it on my forearms from wrist to elbow. I'm contemplating buying stock in Calagel.

Working the Horses

The horses needed their hooves trimmed again so Whit harnessed up Scooby and had him drag the stock into the barn from out back. The project went better than expected. Everyone was cooperative standing there, so it didn't take long. Since Patrick was the last one into the stock, he got to be harnessed to pull it back out of the barn. However, before he hooks any of the horses up to pull, Whit usually walks them a bit just to remind them of what they're supposed to be doing. Pat is pretty funny. No matter what he's doing or pulling, he prances. I really think he likes the entertainment and challenge of pulling something.

Here he is pulling the stock back out of the barn.

Last year, when the weather was better, we had taken the horses to the fields where we're cutting hay so they could be harnessed to help. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that this summer, so the boys are a tad bit bored. They haven't been worked enough lately and it shows. Pat didn't follow directions pulling the stock out as well as Whit wanted, so he got to do a little extra work this day.

Whit hooked Pat up to the sled and had him drag it around their field in figure 8's. The next morning, bright and early, they were at it again, and Whit had helped TBear harness Magnum. TBear has been working with Magnum in the mornings too, while Whit deals with Pat and Scooby.

We've decided that Magnum really can't be ridden, but he seems to like walking around the field. I'm sure he's been bored this summer too.

TBear and Magnum on their way back to the barn from the horses' field.

TBear and Magnum are doing a good job learning to work together. TBear needs the practice, and Magnum is pretty patient.

Woodshed Modification

Long, long ago, and actually rather far away from the foothills of central Maine, before we had children, we used to live aboard our sailboat. Every so often Whit would get the urge to make a hole in it and install a decklight, or a new through-hull for something. Regardless of what it was, I always felt very insecure when he pulled out his hole saw. Making holes in a boat while it is sitting in the water always seemed kind of risky to me (Yeah, yeah, it was in the deck or above the waterline...that's not the point! It made me feel insecure, okay?) Not only that, I always wondered if he was changing the integrity of the hull or something every time he made a new hole. It drove me crazy.

Twenty-five years later Whit is no longer working with weenie hole saws. No, now he uses a Sawzall which will cut through just about anything...wood beams, angle iron, you name it, I think he's cut it. It came in really handy when he was renovating this old farmhouse. I am no longer nervous when Whit pulls out his saw. For starters, you can't sink a house by making a hole in it. Secondly, he's pretty darned good at making things look better after he's used his Sawzall. : )

Last winter we had a lot of snow. A real lot. But we didn't know that yet in January. We hadn't dragged in all of our wood for the winter yet. It was still out in our side lot, so we hooked up Scooby one day and spent a few hours retrieving wood from the pile out there. The only problem with this is that we have to travel from the lot on the north side of the house around to the door to the woodshed in the dooryard on the south side of the house.

This is the north side of the house. The white section in front of the horses is our woodshed, but there's no door there.

So we had to drive around the front of the house to get to the door on the south side of the house.

On one of our slow, drizzly weeks, when we couldn't be out cutting hay, Whit decided to pull out his Sawzall and modify the shed a bit.

I had to check it out from the outside. Whit is cutting around the wind brace. We need that.

It does look like a hole in the wall now, but later he will make a cool sliding barn-type door for it. Before it snows. Meanwhile, we have a quicker way of getting the wood into the shed, and the added bonus of a little more light in there.

The woodshed has a dirt floor on which Whit laid stone. He's raking it even before he lays the pallets down again to keep the wood up off of the ground. (It stays drier with the air circulating under it.)

Ta da. It looks a lot neater, plus I like the easy access to my garden without having to walk through my laundry room with yucky boots on.

Fresh Air Friend

Our friend, Anthony, arrived from New York on July 8th this year for a two-week visit sponsored by the Fresh Air Fund. I was surprised, when we added it up this year, that this was Anthony's seventh summer visiting us! This is also the year that Anthony has grown taller than I am, and his feet are bigger too. In fact, he's also going into high school this year. So many changes in a year! Where does the time fly?!
July, unfortunately for Anthony, is usually the height of our haying season. July and August are when we finally have enough dry, sunny weather to get the hay stored in the barn for the coming winter. Anthony is a real trooper and pitches in to help with everyone else around here. He tells me he enjoys the job. All I know is that he keeps coming back, so maybe he really does. :)

This has not been an optimal summer for haying, however. In fact, it's been downright depressing. We had planned to start haying in June and get possibly three cuttings in this summer. Ah, yeah...the best laid plans of mice and men. Instead, June was a total washout... we had almost three solid weeks of rain. July was only marginally better. The rain let up a little, but not enough to make any real progress. So far, we have only been able to cut enough grass for about 250-300 bales at a whack because that's all we can dry, bale and pickup by the time afternoon showers roll through every few days. I think we've got about 500 bales in our barn and 1000 in our hay partner's barn. At that rate, it's going to take a long time to get the 2000 bales we need for the winter in our barn, never mind what we usually sell as extra. Farmers around here are exceedingly concerned.

Pictured here is a typical afternoon. See how dark it is? We got to the field around lunchtime to start baling and picking up. It hadn't started raining yet, but it was very cloudy and threatening. The weather prediction had been for sunshine a day longer, but this is New England. It was too late for us to change plans once the hay was cut and lying in the field. We have to do our best to get it baled and picked up as quickly as possible. The issue is if it doesn't dry enough before we start baling, it just molds and rots. It's junk after that.

I drove around baling the hay, while the guys and my sister followed close behind picking up bales as fast as they could. (My sister Julie's out front, Whit's stacking, and TBear's driving the tractor. )
It started to drizzle by 2pm, and then it just opened up and flat out rained. The boys were literally running around the field trying to get the hay loaded. There was no hope that day for the grass. I stopped baling and let it all lay. We packed it up and went home.

Our slightly soggy hay crew, minus my sister and Whit. ; )

This particular story actually had a happy ending though. The next day turned out to be unexpectedly beautiful, sunny, and hot. (Fortunately that New England thing was working for us this time. :) It was perfect drying weather. We salvaged that field of hay by tedding it again and letting it dry out completely before we baled it.

Thanks to the frequent showers, it wasn't all work while Anthony was here. Usually I get lots of pictures, but I've sort of fallen down on the photo thing this summer. I did take the boys down to the town landing for some fishing and swimming. We spent another afternoon at a friend's house on another pond where the boys were able to swim some more and do some kayaking.

Here, Whit and the boys went sailing. (See? I'm having photo issues... I didn't get there until they'd come back and had already picked up the mooring and were dropping the sails.)
We hope Anthony enjoyed being here again this summer as much as we enjoyed having him. He's a great kid, and we look forward to doing it all again next year!