Dinner with the Bowdoin

A lovely evening that found Grandma bringing her plate and glass of shiraz down to the rocks to watch the arrival of the Bowdoin. Later we buzzed over to watch her dock at the Maritime Museum.

How excellent it is to be coming into real summer. On the other hand, I'm sure the BUGS feel the same way. We can sense an exuberance among them.

Pride

On Saturday we went to South Freeport, where Emily was one of the organizers of a festival to benefit the Freeport Historical Society. It was a pretty big "do," with tents and a dance at night and a visit from the historic schooner Bowdoin. Gregg did the lighting.
Emily is involved in more charitable and service events than anyone I know about. She takes these occasions and makes them her own, and the whole thing sparkles. She is active, and innovative, and is becoming very well known in Portland and our coast. I am very proud of what she has done, and especially of the hugely giving spirit with which she does these things. How great it is that Gregg is inclined this way, as well. Together, they make a powerful duo for good.

Sunset

Calm has come to 19 Water Street.  the boys are in bed and the river is quiescent. Molly and Toby are out for dinner in the neighborhood. This is the wonderful part of the summer when there is really no news.



Maybe this journal will go to sleep like its author.

Hot, hot, hot

Not, not, not! Heat wave elsewhere, cool at the Crotch, thanks to a breeze off the water. I think it didn't get much above 80 here today (but 92 yesterday). "Think," because we took off for Boothbay in the Whaler. It was a pleasant ride, and even a bit chilly crossing the Sheepscot and in Boothbay. So we don't know how hot it got at the middle of the day.
Top Five fish sandwich at Andrews' Harborside in BBH.

Rodents reprise

So far, the war has not extended to gray squirrels. They have not intruded, and they think they're just SO smart. Watch the fella above attempt to conquer the bird feeder. This was his third try: previously, he leaped from the laurel bush, with the same result, only funnier. As you see, he slunk away at the end, defeated. Ah, nothing like it.
The chipmunk count is way down.
But wait! Yesterday I sunk a cup of Bud Light in the terraced garden -- to catch slugs. This morning, I saw that the cup had been rudely ripped out of the ground. I guess something larger than a chipper shares my abhorence for lite beer. Stay tuned on this one.

Timber!

We dropped two trees this week, and decided to celebrate, on this gorgeous clear day, with a trip down to Five Islands for lunch. Wow, fresh oysters! The best I can remember.
Then we had a walk on the beach. The water is cold but the sand was hot, and "they" have greatly rearranged the Half-Mile beach.

If the summer is at all like today, it will be a gem.

On the road again

An overnight trip to Higgins Beach in Scarborough was a lot of fun. We scouted out Crescent Beach, and both there and at Higgins Beach we found the water very warm, especially when it had come in over a long sloping beach on the incoming tide. It turned out that former colleague Kevin O'Connor has a house right across the street from the Higgins Beach Inn, where we stayed, and so we had a drink with Kevin at the Inn and then took him down to the Rising Tide restaurant at Pine Point for a windblown supper. Pine Point Road has all the excellent seafood you could want, and we ate our fill.
Love these short excursions -- Maine has great delights. (But not so many in February.)

Down to Popham on a sunny day

A good reason to own a boat on the river!

We have some fine sailors in the family. One of the things we learned on this pleasant voyage is that there is no need for a marine head on this boat... or diapers, either.

We landed at a slip at Popham, not before mildly tunking the bottom, and some went to the beach briefly before a picnic lunch.

We are hoping for a long and delightful boating season. It has not always been thus.

Now wait a minute...

This little snippet came from the Huffington Post today. I believe it was Jon Stewart who first showed us that the Senate minority leader had tortoise qualities, both in his face and in his actions. But really. Subliminal message?
Anyway, I think it is ever so cool that man and turtle can come together in one person.
By the way, what ever happened to Glenn Beck?

the Cruising Life

Fog on the river this morning, and out of it, the second visit of the Independence, which cruises the Maine Coast, and pays a visit to Bath along the way.
Is summer here? Doesn't feel like it. The days are clammy or wet, though not too cold. It is a good for working, and we have been doing that.
The chipmunks are not doing so well lately (heh heh) but otherwise things look pretty lush.
Marnie is taking Mrs. Bertocci to her hair appointment today. That wonderful lady is not in good health and is confused much of the time.

Rodents!

I know that many benighted folk think that rodents are cute. I was once one of these, in fact, the proprietor of two sets of gerbils. However, rodents are scum. They will wreck your home, and send you to the loony bin. I have found that it is not enough to shoot the red squirrels with my pump-m-up air rifle, and SNAP flying squirrels inside the walls.  Although word seems to have gotten out amongst the island red squirrel population, we have for a long time coddled the chipmunks, and to what end? They have recently laid waste to the garden that Jonas and I planted, ingesting cilantro and parsley as though there was no tomorrow, and even putting the emergent squash to the knife of their sharp little teeth.
Where, oh where, is our friendly local barn owl? Who cooks for youuuuu?
I have not been successful in following advice from the web. One sage soul suggested putting seeds in a bucket of water, adding a gangplank, and letting the striped fellas plunge to their watery grave. Didn't work. The seeds sank, no one visited. Well, electronics to the rescue. Tomorrow the Rat Zapper goes to work. It has dropped an invader mouse in two minutes. Ciao, ciao chippies.

40 days and 40 nights

Well, not quite. But Bath got over 8 inches of rains these past three days, and so did we. Water in the Kennebec Tavern and in VIP downtown, and Arrowsic was a real island for a time. Today we went over to Brunswick and saw the raging Androscoggin from the McGraths. So can you:

I'm pretty sure that the Lord is not done with us yet.

Old technology

During the 70's our family traded cassette tapes, from Philadelphia to Andover, and later from East to West coast, when we were on sabbatical there in 1977-78 and when Aba and Ema moved to the hellhole of Barstow (well, Hinkley) in the Mojave Desert several years later. Today I dug out those tapes, as well as one that I recorded from a 33 1/3 RPM record of Papa and Other Mama's trip to Europe in the early 60s. Sadly, much of this info is on cheap audiotapes, and not really recoverable. But I did get some of them converted to MP3 format, and will post them. I had almost forgotten how wonderful were our dinners and some social times. These days it is hard to find such happy, contentious dinner and cocktail conversations. I wonder why? If you know, please add a comment.
References to follow one of these days. You, too, can be borne back to the past ("Shut up, Aba!" said___ [guess who]).

Rabbit, rabbit

June 1, and off we went to Boothbay Harbor, first of the year. It was a lovely clear, brisk day, and Donald made the voyage with us, sans hat to cover his shorn locks. There were not too many boats out, and not too many lobster pots.
Donald revealed that on Father's Day weekend he will be housesitting for a dog, a cat, and a rabbit. He has been watching cooking shows a great deal, so can perhaps find a use for the rabbit.
On the Boothbay docks we saw a couple with a wee leashed animal with pushed-in face. Was it a cat or a dog? A pug? Votes are still coming in.