Plenty of Live Music

I’m always wishing you were here to be a part of all the great and crazy things the inn and Blue Hill have to offer. This weekend is the 18th Annual Pan New England Steelband Festival—there are pan players everywhere and I went out last night to dance to Steel Sensation. Today bands from all over New England play a range of music in a five-hour panorama concert. All summer long, our local pan band plays benefit concerts and street dances.

On the way home I stopped in at the monthly contra dance—who was filling in but Gary Bushee, an old friend who helped out at the inn last summer. Perhaps you had the singing waiter if you came to the Blue Hill Inn last fall.

I didn’t admit just how long I left the Christmas wreathes up. I did remove the red parts, telling myself that that made them just decorative wreathes, but eventually down they came. I hate that bare look and had been keeping an eye out for something nice to put in their places, especially at the Cape House. I recently found a lovely wreath made of twigs at Silkweeds in Searsport. Apparently a pair of birds find it lovely as well. At first I thought the mess of broken twigs beneath the wreath was from a bird pulling out bits for its nest—this morning I realized the wreath was home to the nest. It’s the first time I’ve wished there were fewer guests coming to the Cape House! I hope the happy couple either like the idea of living in a lively place or decide to relocate to a nearby tree. The irony of May being our benefit for Habitat for Humanity wasn’t lost on me either.

The magnolia is still looking so pretty. The willow overhanging the Cape House deck is leafing out as are most of the bushes around the yard. The tulips are plump but not blooming yet. In the herb garden, Jean, the handywoman (who is just back from a winter gardening in Hawaii!), unburied the mint and lavendar. She and I have big fruity dreams—raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes, a peach tree. I do need to confess that, though I live in a low-bush blueberry state, I prefer, dare I say it, the high bush variety. In my defense, high-bush berries are much easier to pick—you don’t have to bend over and rake them like the lowbush. They can be huge—big as a quarter—and they’re sweet. Give me a year or two and we can have taste tests and you can see which you prefer. What I do like better about the Maine blueberries is the gorgeous color in the fall. Scarlet blueberry barrens… Photographer Terrell Lester does a great job catching those.

Now I’m off to breakfast at Chase’s Daily in Belfast.

My spring reading

Have you decided you can trust my judgment in books yet? I hope so. I have another to suggest—I’m only partway through but it took unseasonably warm weather and full on sunshine to get me to put it down this morning. Mary Chase, an author born in Blue Hill, wrote extensively about Maine and the Blue Hill area. In her book, Mary Peters, she writes about a seafaring family. Written in 1934, the book chronicles the change from sailing ships to steam powered and the effect on the coastal towns. Islandport Press reissued it in 2005 so you can find it. Check our their other listings, as well, if you need a Maine fix before you get here.

The kitchen garden is starting to come up--we'll have eggs with herbs from the garden from day 1! Matt, head of the kitchen, will be back in town soon to get set up for the season. Here he is last year, serious at the Garland stove.

It's almost time for the bird festivals! A friend participated in an owl count a few weeks ago--she was looking a bit sleepy as she told me about her middle-of-the-night adventure, listening to the sounds of nature in the dark. On Deer Isle, Wings, Waves, and Woods is held May 16-18. In Cobscook Bay, the festival is May 23-26. On Mount Desert Island, their 10th annual festival is June 12-15. You can see what local birders are seeing and hearing at this link.

We have all been grinning like fools over the weather. At the inn, we’ve gotten a good bit of outdoor work done--a powerwashing of the inn's brick end has it looking fabulous.

Spring!

We've had day after day of sunny weather and that lovely smell of spring, enough to get a person excited about spring cleaning. The crocuses are coming up--never mind that the twinkle lights I put in the bushes in the winter remain stuck in icy piles in places--it's spring! The apple tree pruners came by and tidied up the orchard. We should have huge apples and pears this year. I’m not sure when the cider pressing will be but I’ll let you know.

Guests have been in and out of the Cape House, checking on properties, working in the area, visiting family. A couple from Europe stayed almost a week--"This will be a great memory that we can bring back home to Sweden!" Soon we'll have members of the Western Mountain Trash Can Band staying as they take part in the 2008 New England Pan Festival here in Blue Hill.

I pass North Country Textiles as I walk to the post office. They, like the crocus, are blooming--gorgeous rugs drape the railing and, inside, the gallery is filling up with yummy new stock.

I just finished a Maine-based book, Bride Island, by Alexandra Enders. She quotes Sarah Orne Jewett from the Country of the Pointed Firs (You can visit Sarah Orne Jewett's home in South Berwick when you're in Maine next!): "In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness." Remote and islanded, endless regret or secret happiness…

Enders also quotes Dorothy Simpson, an author I'm unfamiliar with, from The Maine Islands: "If a man is lucky enough to possess a whole island--even if it's the merest speck of rock and turf, and a few spruce trees and raspberry bushes--but can only spend a few summer weeks on it, spiritually he is an islander all year round. This is particularly true of children who have had island summers. They become islanders for life at an early age." I was especially struck by this as I had just taken a reservation from a woman who knew Maine from a few weeks on an island each summer. She said that even now when she thinks back to her childhood summers, the memories are always from those weeks.

I am mourning the passing of Lloyd Capen, whose book The Price of Clams I so enthusiastically wrote about in my New Year's entry. I regret not having told him in person how I adored his story.

Rain is forecast for the weekend so it will be indoor work—inventory and interviews. The raking of rocks from the yard will wait for the sun.

Spring?

Perhaps not quite yet. Still, this middle season brings so many delights--like baby goats! Sunset Acres Farm will be having hundred of baby goats born now through the month of April and they're open for visiting and you can pat and hold the babies. Visiting hours are from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with milking time occurring in the evening. Sunset Acres Farms makes amazing goat cheese, which you've likely had if you've been here. We use it in omlettes and with Nervous Nellie's Hot Pepper Jelly and to stuff plum tomatoes...

So guess who's been nominated for a James Beard Award? Rich Hansen, chef and co-owner of Cleonice! And Brian Hill, chef of Camden's Francine, where everything is good but the butterscotch pudding is the best you'll ever have. And the team from Chase's Daily, in Belfast. Where, at the risk of repeating myself, everything is good but the fried potatoes are amazing. So don't worry about being well fed on your way here or once you arrive.

I always tell myself, when I'm working on my blog, "Fewer words, more pictures." But I read a lot and often want to share a lot of it with you. When a person buys something like an inn, the books on the shelves often convey, along with the high four poster beds and the silver sugar bowls and the sign out front. So all winter long I've been taking advantage of the books at the inn. Last night I picked up Lincoln Colcord's Sea Stories--From Searsport to Singapore. Colcord was born in 1883, in his father's sailing vessel going around Cape Horn. But he was a son of Searsport, Maine, and in 1936 helped to found the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport (add it to your list of places to visit!). According to the Fishermen's Voice, "In the 1880’s, Searsport supplied more than 10 percent of America’s sea captains. At that time, in a town of 2,000 people, 77 of them were in command of American sailing ships." Here's a great picture of his father, one of those captains.

In the Drifting Diamond, Colcord writes, "For us who are sailors, the sensations of a landsman at sea are hard to understand. Wind and water are our familiar elements; a ship is our home, the field of our endeavors, the companion of our days. The things of the sea are what we love and know--are often all we know. A seaman lying in his bunk, can tell at once when his ship is carrying too much sail; a feeling is communicated to him, a feeling that's an instinct in the sense that it's the sum and lesson of all past experience. And in a storm, he knows by the laboring of the deck under his feet, exactly how it is with his vessel; he can measure the degree of her effort to a hair. But the poor landsman is separated from the knowledge by a wide and impassable gulf. An ordinary big wave seems monstrous to him, as he compares it with the calm of the day before; and when the masts once lean from the perpendicular, it's as bad as if she'd put her scuppers under. In a storm, he goes thorough agonies of needless apprehension, as if every wave and every squall were to be his last. Yes, actually!--I've watched 'em. You have no conception of what a man suffers. His life has been bounded by the firm land--by fields that spread without motion, by hills that stand eternally changeless, by houses that wouldn't dream of leaping across the streets they stand on, by floors that never in the course of their orderly existence have tipped up on one side and down on the other." Mind you, they are in the midst of a typhoon at this point in the story, points out landlubbing Sarah.

Today will be sunny and 40 degrees here, but to quote Winnie- the-Pooh, "The more it snows, tiddly pom, the more it goes, tiddly pom, on snowing." I won't be putting the snowshovels away just yet but the apple tress will be pruned soon and it's beginning to smell like spring.

Grilled Muffins...

Another gorgeous snowstorm, then another foot of snow. We have had the best snow this winter, some of the best snow we've had for years.

I am still amazed I have somehow ended up living in a place where I know I have to take my camera or I’ll be sorry. My dentist, Dr. Wendy, has her office in Stonington. If I’m lucky I time it right so I can eat at the Harbor Café before or after. I’ve always loved the small place but then they shellacked marine charts to the tabletops! What a great idea. I sat at chart #103 and had a close look at the waters surrounding Castine. And, yes, I had a grilled blueberry muffin, you already know one of my weaknesses is a grilled muffin... And bacon. One deserves a treat on a going-to-the-dentist-day, don’t you think?

I recently went to the Morning Moon, in Brooklin, Boatbuilding Capital of the World, for breakfast. They had a very lemon muffin, with pecans--grilled, of course--that was delightful. I saw Chip, from the Brooklin Inn, just down the street, eating there as well.

So then on a recent Sunday, I went to the Brooklin Inn for brunch. It's a dirty job, trying all these places for you, but someone has to do it. I do love eggs benedict and I'm afraid the Brooklin Inn's are so good I may have to indulge every single Sunday... (With thanks to Dwight for the sign photo, http://www.dpeck.info)

Brooklin, with what I refer to as Bob's Boatyard, and other fabulous spots, like the tiny handful of shops including Blossom Studio, is a must visit for every traveler up this way. I saw Rich Hilsinger, the director of the WoodenBoat School, at the Wine Shop's monthly tasting recently. Just because I'll be too busy this summer to take a class, doesn't mean you shouldn't. The school is fabulous. I took Elements of Seamanship, with Jane Ahlfield and Gretchen Snyder the summer I turned 40 and had a great time. We learned so much in a week and had a great time. The waterfront is the best you'll find along the coast. They have so many different courses--building all types of wooden boats, carving, seamanship, sailmaking, rigging, oil painting...

And I didn't tell you what I did on February 14, did I? Valentine’s Day found lucky me at the Arborvine, celebrating Margaret’s birthday with Barbara and Sissy. I met Margaret through the Blue Hill Foliage, Food, and Wine Fest, as her artwork was used for the poster and it's Barbara who runs Gallery 66. I had swordfish with an orange miso sauce—so delicious. I walked up from the inn under stars and a moon. Margaret is my second friend who turned 77 in the last year, Dr. Charlotte on Deer Isle being the first. Seems to me that’s about the luckiest year ever.

Wool blankets, rain slickers, and marathoners

When I was six, we were living on a farm in the state of Washington and all I wanted for my birthday was a sheep. Even then, or perhaps especially then, I was spoiled rotten and got what I wanted. I named her Kate Greenway and have adored sheep and all things ovine ever since.

Which is why I stopped at the Swans Island store on my way to Rockland recently. I first felt their blankets' loveliness at Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton, MA, a scrumptious art fest, should you ever be out that way. Turns out in the summer, the Swans Island folks have sheep right there on Route 1! In February they don't but they do have time to give a tour, showing off the dying room (enclosed but with a pebbled floor for drainage, which is very cool), the room with the big looms, and the gallery of blankets, throws, and pillows. They even make fancy bags for storing the blankets (with cedar sides to help keep moths away). It's a little confusing because much of the wool for the winter weight blankets comes from sheep living on Nash Island. The reason for calling the company Swans Island is that that is where the founders, umm, founded it.

Potholes vs. Frost Heaves
I'm not sure why some areas tend toward one and not the other but we are certainly in the frost heave part of the world.
Have you ever heard of frost creep? Me neither. What about frost law? We'd call it a load limit or road restriction.

If you're eager to start your 2008 charitable giving, I have a great idea for you. I have this perfectly nice friend, Joe Greenberg (of the Left Bank Cafe Greenbergs), who I have known since 1988 and my days working at the Cafe in Blue Hill. Well, I thought he was perfectly nice. Turns out he's crazy. I say that because he's in training to run a marathon June 1 in San Diego as part of a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. No offense to Joe, but when I saw him last, he was not looking like a marathoner! So I have been inspired to donate big and try to get others to, too, because Joe running a marathon is crazy.
Crazy. Like me running a marathon... Or SpongeBob... You can check out his site. When I last spoke to him, he was up to 8-mile runs and thinking it was pretty cool that a 5-mile run was already no biggie.

Have you been watching the crazy weather? On Monday we had a bring-out-the-rain-slicker-and funny-rubber-boots rainstorm. Since then, though, we've had sunshine and birds singing and Ken, the webmaster, says one of the geese laid an egg--spring must be right around the corner. I'm not sure how I'll recognize it here in Maine. When I lived in Western Mass, I would drive by not one but two sugar shacks on the way to work. I would love to see the billowing steam...

I'm so happy to be able to say, "Darn it! I missed the Polar Bear Dip again." The Bangor Daily News had some great photos of the swimmers.

No doldrums here

I had the most fun inquiry today. Authur Will Azeperak emailed asking if the Blue Hill Inn has an attic. Turns out he is working on a scifi series, set in Blue Hill! Did you know Kurt Gödel stayed here in 1942? He was unquestionably the greatest logician of the 20th century, says Peter Suber. Suber's article mentions that Gödel walked along Parker Point Road, deep in thought, just as we do today. Gödel proved time travel had definite descriptive mathematical formulas, Azeperak said today. He will somehow be putting all this--and details about the inn--in the next book in his series.

I was on my own for dinner tonight and craving a burger. My favorite burger in town is at the Blue Moose. I bundled up and trudged down to the store to get a local paper and down to the Moose, where I lucked into a booth. But then the waitress broke the news to me: no hamburgers. No hamburgers?! Turns out one of the elementary school basketball teams had come in, hungry for burgers (just like me). So I had to put down the paper and peruse the menu. And then decide between an Asian sounding crepe or scallops with fava beans. I ended up ordering the scallops. And so I settled in to reading the paper, nibbling the perfect french bread, and sipping Spinyback's sauvignon blanc. Mike, who along with his wife, is the propietor, swung by my table. I wasn't alarmed as he often stops by to chat with guests. Tonight, however, he was delivering bad news--the scallop dish, ready to be delivered to my table, had been delivered to the floor. Alas! Did I want to wait for it to be made again or order something else? I stayed with the scallops and read more of the paper and enjoyed the house salad with a really nice vinagrette dressing. Everyone apologized for the delay but I was having a lovely time. And then came the scallops, which were so good--oodles of them broiled perfectly and surrounding peas and potatoes and corn and beans--so delicious. Had I not been forced by the lack of hamburger to venture there, I'd have missed them. Turns out the basketball players were in because they had lost every game but had been such good sports about it, their parents decided they deserved a treat. Their loss was my gain. I'll be back soon.