Down East to Down South

After our whirlwind summer, we decided to head Downeast in early October for a little oceanside relaxation–Maine style. We found a fantastic dog-friendly rental in Jonesport, a fishing and lobstering town about a two-and-a-half hour drive down the coast that feels somewhat like a drive back in time.

Jonesport is a no-frills working town, unspoiled by heavy tourism. Beautiful old houses dot the edges of the small downtown, many built in the early 1900s, when Jonesport was living high off of sardines. One of the busiest towns in the area then, it had several sardine canning plants. When the sardines played out, Jonesport moved to other types of commercial fishing, including lobstering.

Long working hours on the lobster boats

Since Maine’s lobster industry is now under assault, it looks like Jonesport will have to continue to adapt.

We were there in early October, still tourist season in Maine, but seemed to be the only tourist-types around. As we drove in, we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few things. The parking lot was swarming with young local hunters, talking and laughing as they headed out for waterfowl. In a town where everyone knows each other, we must have stood out like sore thumbs, but people were invariably friendly and went out of their way to be helpful. We really liked it there.

Our rental was right on the beach with panoramic views east, south, and west.

In the early mornings, we watched a parade of lobster boats heading into the sunrise. Come afternoon, we watched the same boats return.

The fog rolled in once, fast smothering the boats across the way at Beals Island.

Just as quickly, it rolled out again.

Evenings brought fiery sunsets over the Jonesport docks

and a full moon rising.

Mostly we relaxed watching the boat, water, and sky entertainment, but I also spent hours walking the beach.

Sandy, walkable beaches are a rarity in Maine and this one was deserted.

Just me, birds,

boats, crabs,

rocks,

shells,

seaweed,

and the unexpected sweet fragrance of the October-blooming beachside roses.

The dogs were, of course, in heaven.

Especially Alice, for whom ocean retrieving is the height of joy.

Aside from a quick trip to Machias for our favorite very-last-of-the-season (we actually got the last order) fried clams at Riverside Takeout, we did not go anywhere or do anything.

Our kind of vacation.

We returned home to end-of-the season chores in anticipation of cold weather. I harvested and hung my cotton plants

and processed some of this season’s flax,

including some Stormont Gossamer, a fine heirloom variety from Ireland that is a dream to spin.

The Stormont Gossamer is on the top right

George processed our small peanut crop, completed the deck, got the trails ready for winter, and stabilized our side porch.

The weather all month was almost disturbingly warm. Monarchs lingered into late October.

While the vivid fall leaves should have signaled colder weather,

the warm-weather peppers, tomatoes, okra and artichokes continued to produce. It was hard to put the garden to bed with so much food still growing, but I eventually pulled most of the warm-weather crops to get it done before we headed to Georgia at the end of the month.

Amazingly, we were finally going to take our twice-postponed trip to visit our children and grandchildren. It was originally planned for March 2020, right when the initial covid outbreak shut everything down. Our second attempt was scuttled by a prolonged bout of serious dog gastrointestinal issues after we changed dog foods. We half suspected that another bizarre calamity would hit in the week before this planned trip. But, no. Armed with recent flu shots and covid boosters, we left home, taking the old-person route through Pennsylvania rather than battling the horrors of driving near New York City or Washington DC. Even so, the roads were too congested for me.

Given that congestion, we were surprised to see miles of humongous new hub warehouses going in along Pennsylvania interstates, eating up the flat former farmland. How all the trucks delivering out of those warehouses are going to fit on the already almost-overwhelmed interstates is a mystery to me. As it is, the slightest hiccup from road construction or even a small accident brings traffic to a grinding halt, backing up the interstate for miles.

Naturally, the dogs came with us. They are excellent travelers and we found great dog-friendly hotels. Alice had a raucous afternoon at my brother’s house in Connecticut, where we stayed our first night. Although she had not been to the farm in years, she seemed to remember it and took off into the woods with my brother’s dog, racing around like a much younger dog, oblivious to our calls. Very un-Alice-like. We later realized that something there likely reminded her of the hunting training she had in her early years before she came to us.

We arrived at our daughter’s house on Halloween–a holiday that has exploded into a major extravaganza in her neighborhood, with elaborate decorations, haunted houses, and buzzing golf carts ferrying hundreds of trick-or-treaters through candy land.

Quite a contrast to our rural Maine Halloween, where we are lucky to get one set of trick-or-treaters at our house.

After my daughter and her husband moved into their house, they had thinned out some of the tall pines growing in the back.

While we were there, a sawyer brought his portable sawmill and turned the downed logs into gorgeous lumber. George was a sawyer many years ago and it was a pleasure to watch this portable operation. And the whole yard smelled of delightful freshly sawn resinous pine.

We had lunch in Senoia and saw where much of The Walking Dead was filmed.

After a few days, we headed to our son’s house on the other side of Atlanta, driving through the neighborhoods where we lived more than twenty years ago. It was a bit disorienting. Trees have grown huge, neighborhoods have changed, and what had been small, declining town centers in Duluth and Suwanee have developed into unrecognizable bustling hives of modern shops and restaurants. So many people–far more than when we lived there.

We had a relaxing time at our son’s house in Gainesville, well removed from the Atlanta craziness and traffic, eating, talking, watching UGA football, and visiting wineries.

Their lovely dogs put up with ours,

including their handsome young hound, Tucker, who endured a just-in-case muzzle based on his history of brotherly fighting. He was a good boy.

It was wonderful to spend time with our family in their own homes. The only downside was that two of our grandkids were sick–bad timing. The flu was rampant down there and I was paranoid about catching it and getting stuck in Georgia–coughing, feverish, and longing for home. Fortunately, we survived unscathed and set out at about 4:30 on a dark Sunday morning, almost hitting a big buck deer that jumped right in front of the car a few miles into our trip home. Speaking of deer, we must have seen a hundred dead ones, from newly-killed to a pile of bone and fur, on the interstates on this trip. Depressing.

Between the dead deer, the army of 18-wheelers, and general congestion, road trips are not what they used to be. We used to love long road trips, driving all over the country and Canada. But, at least on the east coast, the stress of heavy traffic sucks the pleasure right out of driving for me. At least gas was cheap in Georgia.

Camellia season in Georgia

It was so sweet to get home. In our absence, my cotton boles had popped

and my experimental saffron crocuses had bloomed in the greenhouse.

Best of all, we had a new dog waiting to join our pack. A lovely year-old girl who needed a new home. Meet Scout.

She fit right in, as if she has always lived here.

Alice and Capp are adjusting to having an energetic teenager in the house, but doing well.

Alice and Scout

It remains freakily warm, with no real winter weather in sight. The male bluebirds are squabbling over a birdbox, something they don’t usually do until spring.

We are putting up Christmas lights and looking forward to snow. Enjoy the holidays.

Spring Ahead

I have not died or otherwise disappeared off the face of the earth. I simply have been engrossed in worlds other than blogging. Now my challenge is to condense nine months packed with living into one blog post.  We have gone from spring mists

to fall mists

to this

since I last wrote.  Here goes …

One reason I dropped out of the blogosphere was because Capp became terribly ill in July. Seemingly overnight, he went from a happy-go-lucky, just-turning-two-year-old lab, full of mischief and swagger, to a ball of misery who didn’t want to leave his crate.

After time at the local dog emergency clinic and with our local vet, his mystery condition was bumped up to the veterinary specialists in Portland, an hour-and-a-half from home. He almost died.

Home after tests with lots of shaved spots.

He spent three days at the Portland vet on an IV and undergoing a battery of tests. At first the fear was cancer, but it turned out that he had immune-mediated neutropenia, which was causing his white blood cells to drop to treacherously low levels. After six months on prednisone, and other drugs, he is finally back to our old Capp.

We still don’t know exactly what caused his condition. The theories are a reaction to immunizations or perhaps a tick-borne disease (although he tested negative for all the common ones). He remains on a low dose of pred and must have regular blood tests, but we are so relieved that we didn’t lose him. He has become quite popular with the wonderful vets and technicians caring for him. One tech calls him “Cute Adorable Puppy Prince,” and it has stuck. Amazingly, we had pet insurance–the first we’ve ever had for a dog–and they really came through for us, too.

Throughout Capp’s illness, Alice has remained her sweet affectionate self.

Because of Capp’s illness, we have been sticking pretty close to home. In the spring, we consolidated our vegetable beds into two fenced-in gardens. “We” meaning George–he did all the fencing and leveling.

The gardens were lush and productive this year.

Flax.

We were eating our garden potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, and onions well into February. I tried growing cotton this year, and it did well, but frost hit before the cotton fully developed.

Cotton blossom.

Next year, I will try hanging the bolls inside to continue to mature.

The vegetable beds. Much neater than last year.

George is getting really good at putting in trails.

We have a whole system that now reaches each corner of the property.

The first set of trails were named after the grandchildren. The next will be named after the dogs.

He also is building an outdoor, wood-fired sauna–something that I became enamored with during our years in Alaska.

Preparing for the sauna.

But the biggest project this year was building a garage.

We hired contractors to do most of the work, but George did much of the prep and finish work himself (he’s still doing finish work) and oversaw everything–not an easy task. The upstairs is an open space that will be half guest room and half an area for sewing, my small loom, and my really big spinning wheels. I inaugurated the space two weeks ago with a gathering of nine great wheel spinners from around mid-coast Maine. It was wonderful.

I have fallen deep into the spinning and weaving world. Old wheels just seem to follow me home and it gives me a thrill to work on them and get them spinning again.

Amazing wood on Shaker wheel from Alfred Lake, Maine.

They fascinate me with their beautiful wood, colors, craftsmanship, and history.

This European wheel, likely from Austria, was singed by being too close to the fire.

I am planning on doing a few presentations and classes on antique wheels with another friend this year.

Canadian Bisson wheel.

We’re hoping to convince lots of spinner to rescue these lovely wheels, so that they won’t be lost to future generations.

It’s amazing how beautifully the old wheels spin. I have continued to buy local fleeces–this year Romney/Finn, Gotland, and Cormo–because I enjoy the whole process of scouring, processing, dyeing, spinning, and weaving.  It’s so satisfying to do it from start to finish.

Beautiful Cormo fleece.  I will spin with this on the great wheels

And flax, well, I’m just in love with flax.

About a third of my line flax this year, all processed and ready to spin.

Home grown and dyed flax woven into tape on an antique tape loom.

In the spring, before Capp’s illness, I took an amazing flax course at Snow Farm in western Massachusetts with Cassie Dickson–a flax guru, coverlet weaver extraordinaire, and all-around wonderful person.

The flax Cassie brought was retted in various ways so that we could compare them.

The course was for five days and covered everything–planting, processing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving.

Classmate Victoria, an amazing textile artist.   A link to her site: victoriamanganiello

I felt so fortunate to learn from Cassie, she usually teaches in the South, closer to her North Carolina home.  Here’s a link to Cassie’s site: CassieDickson.  People in other Snow Farm classes were fascinated by the flax.

Flax that we processed, spun, and dyed at class.

There was in class in welding sculptures out of all sorts of found objects, aka junk, and the instructor and one of his students kindly made us stands to keep our cups of water for flax spinning.

I treasure mine.

In the fall, weaving took the spotlight.

I wove these on my small loom in the summer.  Destined to be chair cushions.

I again traveled to western Massachusetts–this time to Vavstuga in Shelburne Falls for the introductory weaving course. What a treat. Having been–until recently–totally self-taught in weaving, I just soaked up all the years of knowledge shared through this wonderful weaving school.

A tablecloth being woven by a returning student.

The focus there is on Swedish weaving styles and looms, so it was especially timely for me because I had decided to buy a Swedish Oxaback loom. I was able to bring one home with me from Vavstuga and get right to work with it. Bliss.

Putting the first warp on my new loom.

I also really enjoyed Shelburne Falls. Every morning I went out early to the Bridge of Flowers, which spans the river right in front of the school, and chatted with the head gardener.

Every evening I walked down to the Falls, which were swollen with water after torrential downpours that we had on the second day.

I’m returning for another course in May. Can’t wait.

Current project on the loom.  Overshot with handspun and  naturally dyed wool and handspun linen tabby.

We have been rich in guests these past months, which has also kept us busy. We had family reunions in Connecticut and Massachusetts in July and both of our children, with their spouses, and the grandchildren were here for Thanksgiving. We had a big dump of snow, to the delight of the grandkids, who have never lived with snowy winters

Soap Sally, our creepy Thanksgiving snowperson, freaked out the dogs.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I really savored having the whole family here.  The granddaughters took to weaving like fish to water.

Our daughter returned again in December with the grandkids and, while George stayed home with the dogs, we took a two night trip to Quebec City right before Christmas.  It was magical.

And, of course, I brought home a beautiful Quebec wheel.

This post is starting to sound an awful lot like one of my mother’s holiday letters. But rather than edit it, I’m going to post it, as is. Or I may never get it done. I will try not to go so long between posts again.  I have been posting pictures on Instagram under “olddogsnewtruck.”  It’s more my speed these days.  Happy Spring.