Darkness at Four

Still a couple of weeks to go before darkness is complete at the same time the markets close. I watch Little Island (about 500 yards offshore) until it's invisible, at 4:25. There are no lights on in the house, except the diodes on the router, the clock on the Bose, a flickering flame behind the sooty glass of the wood stove's doors, and the computer screen in front of me, my window to the world's bad news.

Other than the thrilling triumph of the President-elect, there's only gloom in the world. It's gotten so that I will not look at any news site between 9:30 and 4:00. And now serious winter is coming on. Maine has hard ones. I've been reading Lobster Coast by Colin Woodard - the privations and depradations that the people of this state have gone through the last 400 years are humbling: European wars spilled over here; disputes with Massachusetts abounded; British nobles and Boston businessmen claimed vast acreages over and over again; taxes and tolls and fees bedeviled the populace; sickness and Indians and starvation wiped out whole towns; lumber and salmon and ice and herring and granite and and lobster and lime boomed and busted; and the winters were real winters, deep, dark, long, unremittingly cold. At least they're not so cold outside anymore, but many Mainers will take small comfort in that this year, with no way to heat the house.

We all look forward to the winter solstice, time of pagan and Christian worship, when the balance might start to shift again, away from greed, towards hope.

Low-Tide Line

There's a new sign at the end of Ash Point. It's a tasteful one, with nice type and a little design. Even the four messages are kindly stated, something like: "End of town property. Private property deeded to the low-tide line. Picking of beach rocks prohibited. Be respectful."

I'm assuming the sign belongs to the ranch house to the right. The old couple must have moved out, or died, and the new owners are asserting their rights. Have they been having trouble with vandalizing, rock-napping, disrespectful tourists? It's not the work of the big Victorian to the left, prominently marked "Trails End" - it's for sale and doesn't appear inhabited or litigious.

Maine and Massachusetts, the old Puritan partners, are unique in allowing ownership of the inter-tidal zone. With the exception of "fishing, fowling, and navigation," all other activities can be prosecuted, including casual access. (Since almost all of the coast is privately owned, this presents problems for local folk working the sea, and folks from away seeking some peace.) So now, when I walk the gorgeous stretch of shore between Ash Point and Lucia Beach, should I carry rod and reel, shotgun, iPhone with GPS? When the dog and I sample the sights and smells below the embankment at Ash Point, do I pretend to be blind and claim she's my seeing eye poodle?

The rocks and stones around Ash Point are particularly wonderful so I can see the injunction against picking. I've described before (see September 8) the amazing variety of rock leading to Lucia Beach. Ash Point itself has the world's best collection of skipping stones; does that use now qualify for incarceration?

Well, I doubt I'll change my pleasures. I'm a fellow ITZ owner, after all, and upon apprehension will coolly say, "You can walk on mine if I can walk on yours."

De-Limbing

Undoubtedly de-limbing is not a word but it's descriptive of my first awkward encounter with a chainsaw. In preparation, I had read the instructions, oh, maybe nine or ten times and eventually got the beast going in spite of the uncertainties of the choke. In the course of 90 minutes, I only stalled out twice, stopped for gas once, stopped for aching back once. Besides the branches, I even cut three logs off the top end of the trunk, just for the experience, you know. Probably did it all wrong....
The tree had fallen in mostly open leaching field and so it was relatively easy to get at; I won't attempt the one in front messily embraced by other trees. The experts are coming in a few days and I'll be sure to get some pointers from the safety of the house. They will "chunk up" the trees. I will haul and split, neither of which involve motors or loud noise. Tomorrow being another day, maybe I'll chew a few of the larger limbs for kindling, and then happily return the resistible force to my friend.

Trees Once Again

We got an email from our neighbors in Maine last Wednesday, saying that the 70 mph winds of a tremendous storm on Tuesday night had blown down several trees. At first I panicked, thinking from the description she meant the perfect fir trees directly in our view of the bay and clinging to the edge of the bank. It's only a matter of time, I know, but their loss would have been heart-rending, and I'd just as soon preserve life as long as possible. I called Kathleen on the phone and discovered the icons were safe, that firs on either side of the property had fallen, the one on the north caving in to erosion and gale winds and nearly horizontal, the other on the south still mostly propped by its neighbors. This in addition to a large, nearly dead pine stricken down across our leaching field in back.
By the time I got to Owls Head last night, it was too dark to see, and even in the morning, from the safety of the house, things didn't look so bad. I had to get up close to see the problem: how big the fallen trees actually are and how many others are groaning under the weight. Another tree has markedly increased the angle of its lean (toward the house!). When they fell, the trees tilted up circles of dirt with their roots and it's a little alarming to see how shallow the roots are, how such little horizontality produces such great verticality. I was just as happy to have been in Massachusetts during the storm, not listening to crashes, not waiting for the branch through the window, not worrying about the thinness of topsoil on this hard granite coast.
Tomorrow: the chain saw.