At Home On Piety Hill

We finally did it. Denise and I made an offer on a Maine property, which has been accepted by the owner. We are now in the process of buying a cute little cottage on 23 acres of gently sloping, wooded land on the Bucksport/ Orrington town line. The red boundary approximates the land, which is covered with a mixture of hardwoods and conifers. A natural gas pipeline crosses the corner, the railroad runs parallel to the River Road and the Penobscot River is on the far left. 

The house itself was built in the 30s, I think, and the current owners have been in it since 1955, the year of our nativities. It is quaint and the decor consistent with a vacation home / rental. Well, it looks as if we’re in for another adventure.

This post will take some twists and turns, but hopefully we’ll pass some points of interest for each reader along the way (all 3 of you).

We visited our friend, Joan, who was our next-door neighbor when we lived in the village of Sedgwick way back in ‘93. She owns one of the oldest, if not the oldest, homes in town. She was getting her wheel all ready for a spinning demonstration at the Blue Hill Fair. It seemed very appropriate to watch her at work in the parlor of the home, near the great brick fireplace and original paneling.

Joan also spins for one of my favorite artisans and former customers, Betsy Coakley of Mermaid Woolens fame. She designs some of the most beautiful sweaters I’ve ever seen. If you are a fan of woolen wearables, you simply must visit her site. I love this photo of a selection of her past designs — I think the backdrop of fallen snow make the warm, vibrant colors sort of leap out at you. She also paints stair treads and does a dozen other cool things. Be sure to read her bio, when you visit.

Now, speaking of the Blue Hill Fair, you probably remember it as the setting of the children’s story, Charlotte’s Web. Well, Charlotte’s Web was written by E.B. White, who lived in neighboring Brooklin Maine. Mr. White had two housekeepers, who I knew; Ethel and Tink. Denise and I became good friends of Ethel’s, so when we visit Maine we like to stay in the apartment above her garage. Sometime I’ll tell you about the wonderful conversations I used to have with Ethel and the stories she would tell. She is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met! She grew up over to Brooksville.

Now, Brooksville is on the other side of Sedgwick from Brooklin and, when you go there you will want to visit Buck’s Harbor, where you will find Condon’s Garage. That establishment figures prominently in Robert McCloskey’s One Morning in Maine. I think we have most of his books and my favorite is Blueberries for Sal. I have to admit that I enjoy his drawings even more than the stories themselves. Denise and I read that the garage was closing down and I think we saw it come up for sale in the multiple listings a year or so ago. 

Mr. McCloskey died in his home on Deer Isle not too long ago. Deer Isle was the home of famous primitive folk artist, George Hardy. One of our favorite documentaries of all time is Portrait of George Hardy by Gabriel Coakley (sound familiar?). Gabe won the Cine Golden Eagle Award at the US Super-8 Video Festival in 1995 and let me tell you - I’ve never seen anything that captures winter on the Eggemoggin Reach like that film, with the sped up sequences of wind blowing sea smoke across the chilly waters and Mr. Hardy bustin’ up the ice on his stoop, so he can get his door open. 

So, there you have it. A bit of serendipity, combined with free-writing and a little nostalgia of our time on the Blue Hill Peninsula, brought to mind by our brief visit in August. More to follow…

Denise may be an efficient office manager at LRR, but she’s also a stylish and sassy one! Just check out all the latest gizmos in her home workstation and you’ll know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. If it’s any indication of what she’s got going on at her pro gig… well, then it’s no wonder that she has proven indispensable to her employer.

Let’s see; we have a bill holder, an address/phone contraption, a stand for her eyeglasses, a pen/pencil holder, battery charger, field guides for bird watching, binoculars and, of course, her name plaque from her former employer, AAA. 

You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged about Maine for about a week. That’s not for lack of material, but time. I should be back on it this week and will continue until our next trip downeast in about a month. I would also like to get a couple posts out during the current election, but truth be told, I’m not that enthusiastic about it.

Blueberries are native only to North America. Wild Maine blueberries, like Maine lobster, are the best — finest kind. They are small and full of flavor, unlike the larger ones that grow higher off the ground in places like New Jersey, Oregon and Washington. Our friends in Maine will sometimes eat the larger, inferior blueberries from away but that’s an anomaly. 

Blueberries are raked and it is difficult and back-breaking work. If you are good at it, you can make a big wad of cash during the season, typically the month of August. In the 90’s, that’s how teenagers in our town earned money to buy a car. Camille raked blueberries one day and that was enough. Sam did it for a while longer than that. 

Here in California, we have found wild Maine blueberries, as well as those grown in the Maritime provinces at Trader Joe’s, in the frozen section under their own brand. Generally, Denise uses them for baking and my personal favorite is a coffee cake recipe she got from the baker at a country store in Maine. She had a good rep in town and the gentleman was happy to share it with her, under the condition that she never used it commercially and with the understanding that we were heading back to California. The secret was the crusty, sugary, tart, blueberry top on the cake. 

You can buy blueberries in a variety of ways, but we prefer the roadside stand where you leave your money in a jar. By the way, this is a common practice in Maine for selling anything from camp wood to blueberries to pies or baked goods. Many of the stands will have a sign advertising blueberrys. Don’t be fooled by this marketing ploy — the obvious misspelling gives the stand or display a down-home, rural ambience.  Denise enjoys blueberries al fresco and one at a time.

I coveted. This watercolor was hanging in our motel room in Wolfeboro and I wanted it. I wanted it so badly. I was pleading with Denise to offer the owner 10 bucks for it. I even thought we might be able to trade Emma for it.

Now, I’ll need some help from all of you art afficianados. It is signed by one, Marty. It reminds me of a Maxfield Parrish, but I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s his style, but I believe it may reflect his palette. 

Before I begin on this post, I have to make an acerbic comment. I just looked at my blog in Explorer and it doesn’t render properly. This is WordPress, for crying out loud. Why doesn’t Explorer play by the rules? I’m actually glad Google has come out with Chrome to compete with Microsoft in the browser battles. I prefer Safari now or Camino, the Mac version of Firefox. There, I said it and I feel much better now. 

As we moved south toward Portland, we found this wonderful place in Glen Cove Maine, the Oakland Seashore Motel. The cottages were cute, but we stayed in the motel.

I’m not sure, but I think we were looking across our little cove at Owl’s Head and the lighthouse there. The lodgings were simple, the way they should be, the grounds beautiful and the owners were very hospitable. We shared our blueberries with them and they were grateful. 

Denise and Emma passed the evening twilight reading and working on a needlepoint, of course. I sat on the ledge with my MacBook, taking advantage of the now ubiquitous wifi. 

The next morning we were out on the lawn and heard the familiar sound of a lobster boat coming around the point. Denise caught a few shots of the captain weaving his boat in and out of the buoys with the sternman hauling his traps.

Did I ever tell you about the time we went to our first lobster bake? We had just moved to Maine in August of ‘93 and were getting acquainted. Billy and Lorna took us out with about 20 people on their lobster boat at the end of the season, after Billy hauled all his gear out and cleaned it up real nice. We went out to Torrey Island and set everything up on the shore, including Ralph’s propane rig for making real french fries. That was wonderful. We had unlimited lobster, french fries that were salted and sprinkled with vinegar in a cardboard box, corn on the cob and red hot dogs for the kids. We left all the exoskeletal remains out on the shore and watched the tide recycle it all. Lorna showed the kids how to rake for quahogs that day. 

What trip to Maine would be complete without a lobster bake? And, why do they call it a bake, when you boil or steam everything? Well, that and other weighty questions of eternal consequence will have to wait until later. Right now, we’re talking about downeast cuisine.

We headed down to Brooklin to buy some lobsters from John Candage and found them for just over $5 a pound. 

We got together with Bruce and Terri, Paul and Mary, Leah and Emma for some lobster, steamers, fresh corn on the cob and, of course, pie. Mary made the best coconut cream pie, with a great whipped topping. 

It was Emma’s first taste of lobster and, oddly enough, she didn’t like it. Go figure! I prefer sea scallops, but I really like lobster, too. I’ve had lobster often, but learned a valuable tip this time. Clip the rubber bands off the claws, before you drop them, head first, into the boiling water. If you don’t do that, the taste of rubber will taint the delicate lobster meat. 

I also learned that:

Long ago, lobsters were so plentiful that Native Americans used them to fertilize their fields and to bait their hooks for fishing. In colonial times, lobsters were considered “poverty food.” They were harvested from tidal pools and served to children, to prisoners, and to indentured servants, who exchanged their passage to America for seven years of service to their sponsors. In Massachusetts, some of the servants finally rebelled. They had it put into their contracts that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than three times a week.

For those of you concerned about the inhumane practice of boiling lobster, consider it justice:

Lobsters like to eat a variety of fresh plants and animals like clams, sea urchins, and starfish. The four antennae located on a lobsters head along with the tiny hair that covers much of the lobsters body helps him to locate food; lobsters can detect motion but cannot clearly make out specific objects.   The lobster has two big claws and eight walking legs.  One claw is the crusher claw, which helps the lobster destroy something he wants to eat.  The other claw is called the pincher or ripper claw and is used to tear food apart. 

Before we sat down to our lobster feed, we needed to be sure the horses had something to eat and Leah showed us the correct way to feed a carrot to a horse. 

We decided to visit the Penobscot Narrows Bridge near Bucksport and take a trip up to the observatory at the top - 420 feet high, to be exact. Denise and I were vacationing and hunting for investments just about a year ago and happened to visit when the bridge was opened for the first public walk-across and Bridgefest. It was impressive.

While we were waiting, Emma was wishing she had brought her sweater. She did, however, bring a book along. It was one of about 8 she read in our 12 day vacation. Sidebar: Emma has always been a voracious reader. My memory of living in Maine is coming home to find Emma, dressed like a boy, sitting sideways in a chair, twirling her bobbed hair around one finger, with some sort of sucker or jawbreaker in her mouth, reading a book. Read, read, read… and, then, read some more!

The next photo is Denise and Emma from the observatory with Verona Island in the background and Blue Hill in the distance. For you history fans, the bridge overlooks the location of one of the most strategic towns in American history, Castine, and the site of the greatest single American Naval loss before Pearl Harbor. Paul Revere was court-martialed for his role in the debacle. 

Finally, we have a photo of me reeling after my trip to the top. I do not like heights and when you get to the observatory, you exit the elevator and the glass is about 3 feet from the door. So, if you are prone to vertigo, it comes on you all at once. After exiting the elevator, you take a couple flights of stairs, which are right up close to the glass, to the top. I was a bit wobbly until we reached the observatory, where I got acclimated and was able to operate the camera. Actually, I was fine by the time we got down and I am really looking towards Bucksport from Fort Knox, wondering where in town we would be able to find a decent whoopie pie, red hot dog or pizza. 

One of our favorite places to visit is Camden Maine, which most people know as Peyton Place. We know it as the home of Cappy’s Chowder House and the site of a wonderful webcam.

I love the library there. The town outgrew the old library, so they built a new one under the park out back, down by the harbor, and connected it to the original. Most of the holdings are in the new addition, while the original library provides a wonderful place to relax and read, as well as some wonderful views of town.

The first photo is of Denise and I in the underground addition, under the skylight that sits in the center of the lawn in the park. The interior of the original library is bright and airy. The views of the town from the southeast window are spectacular.

When you’re in Maine, there are a number of rare treats you’ll want to track down besides the best lobster in the world. Emma and I love two Maine staples, common to the working class downeast; red hot dogs and whoopie pies. The best place to find them in Hancock County are at the Eggemoggin Country Store or, as the natives call it, B&L’s (it was established years ago by Billy and Lorna… but, that’s another story).

Danny makes the best whoopie pies, bar none, anywhere in New England. He also serves up the most righteous cookies and baked goods. Finest kind!

Red hot dogs are unique to Maine and they do taste a bit different. Authentic red hots are served in a split-top roll, the same as any good clam, crab, scallop or lobster roll. I like dogs steamed along with the roll, in the glass and stainless steel dispenser, common to any reputable Maine market or general store. Yes, red hots are some good!

Other mandatory items in a real, downeast Maine country store are pizza, Italians (the Maine name for a hoagie or sub), picked crabmeat, old VHS movie rentals and plenty of humor, laced with bits of town gossip. “Yes, deah!”

On one of our trips to B&L’s, we drove by the home of our friends, Don and Jane. They offered us their typical brand of downeast hospitality and we sat in the kitchen for a couple of hours, exchanging bits of news about family and friends in town, as well as our opinion of Obama’s choice for a running mate. When we left, Denise snapped this pose of what could pass for two Maine male models, whose bodies have been sculpted by years of hard work, red hot dogs and whoopie pies.