Observations ... of the random type ...

We have been here a little over two weeks and feel we are beginning to understand the area a bit better. Yes, on Friday we failed to find the cardboard recycling place using verbal directions provided, but we will check maps and learn where to go to accomplish this task. The place appears to be a "transfer station." The bottles - both glass and plastic - can be redeemed for cash at the Hannaford's in Bar Harbor or given to the redemption center in West Tremont as a donation to the Habitat for Humanity effort.


Papa Bear took this amazing picture of Lupine during our quest to find the cardboard recycling place, so the journey had value even if we did not complete that particular quest. My experience is that few journeys here are without some type of value - either a great view, an opportunity to reflect on something seen, completion of a task, gathering a better understanding of this place, etc. Am I simply more appreciative of this place, or am I more present to it because it is new and I am not otherwise focused on what day-to-day task lays ahead, and am therefore more in tune with where I am and what is happening now, or is the lack of pressing deadlines making me more open to the now? The reason matters not, I am enjoying this self-paced journey.

This early in the "season," stores that are open are closing early. We called to order a pizza at 6:30 p.m. last Sunday and were told that the oven had closed. The store was open, but no pizza. Most stores close before 7 p.m. these days (they will be open later as the spring/summer progresses - school ends on June 18th, so perhaps we will see later hours as the high schoolers seek summer employment). No, they do not "roll up the sidewalks" as we have strolled on them and I suspect the Bar Harbor area merchants are open later than here on the "Quiet Side" of the Island.

I was able to Skype a bit for my book club at the House on the Creek this past week and it was delightful to see these good friends of mine and to hear their voices, too. I thank them for their patience as the connection kept dropping. Papa Bear has suggested I try a wired connection to the Internet at the meeting next month.

I am hoping to take my first-ever yoga class on Monday. It is yoga and mindfulness meditation, which I have done in the community at the House on the Creek, so it should be an interesting experience.

St. Andrews-by-the-Lake has services at 8 a.m. on Sunday, but I went to St. John's in Southwest at 10 a.m. today. They are sister churches. I am guessing the pastor at St. John's has been called elsewhere. This morning we were blessed (and I mean that in its truest sense) by the Reverend Vesta Kowalski. She has been at St. John's before when I have attended there while on vacation and I find her theology to be both challenging and often on-target. She speaks simply and directly, from scripture and current events, and shares hard truths and challenges about our calling as being children of God (our forgiving others - even BP - and our accepting the forgiveness that exists for us and our forgiving ourselves). She will not, alas, be there next week, but perhaps God will send us someone equally gifted or who will touch us in a different way with different gifts.

We are having our highest high tides of the month and also our lowest low tides of the month this week. I know not why these do not somehow coincide with the full moon, but they do not; instead, they are at the time of the new moon.

I told Papa Bear that the curly sproutings on the path to the cove had unfurled to reveal that they are ferns. Papa Bear said they were likely fiddlehead ferns, and he is correct. Fiddlehead ferns are young ferns yet-to-unfurl. Some types are edible.

Some buildings here do not have gutters - overhangs about, but no gutters. (There are some buildings with gutters.) The House on the Cove lacks gutters. There is an edge to catch and divert rainwater to the sides of the entrance door, but not gutters.

There are speciality food shops here. It is a blessing. And a danger, too, for within the specialties there are many good things. Yesterday we purchased fresh bread at the Southwest Little Notch Bakery shop. We also purchased some marvelous apple tarts. We used the bread for meatloaf sandwiches last night and will use the rest to accompany other planned meals in upcoming days. I think this is the first time we have bought bread here, other than sandwich rolls. The apple tarts we ate with ice cream. We have hot dogs on the menu for this next week. We will purchase the buns for them the day we have them, likely at a grocery store. The hot dog buns here are split on the top, not the side (as happens at the House on the Creek). Not certain that where the split happens changes the taste of the repast, but it is fun and seems a good approach: top-loading the hot dog instead of side-loading it.

I am impressed with the growth of plants here: there are rhododendrons (now fading, so no picture) that bloomed from ground to the top of the first story of homes, peonys that seem to be double the height of anything I have seen in Virginia (and whose numerous upright strong stalks will soon be bowed with blooms), and, as I have said before, lilacs that were cascading in profusion and lovely lupine everywhere. Perhaps it is the short growing season that encourages the plants to strive to be their very best as quickly as possible. We are told by the winter CareTaker of the House on the Cove (a kind, honest, and gentle person who uses neither computers nor cell phones) that it became warm here in February which resulted in an early spring. The local news people have made that observation as well. We were following temperatures here from the House on the Creek and while the temperatures were warmer than at the House on the Creek most days this past winter, I believe that a) that situation was unusual rather than normal and b) it was not exactly what I call "warm" here, but perhaps warmer than normal is what was meant.

We are still having fun riding our bicycles. Today we went to breakfast at Grumpy's after I returned from worship (Papa Bear loves their corned beef hash), and then we headed to Bar Harbor for some fudge (from Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium) and dark chocolate almond bark (they have some amazing concoctions) and they have ice cream, too. After purchasing cones, we sat in Agamont Park and watched the boats in the light fog in the harbor. then we did some window shopping and found some magnets for our refrigerator and came home for a quiet afternoon of baseball via television and some reading and napping. Tomorrow may be a trip to Bangor. Or not. We will have to see what the day brings after the day arrives.

The Creature of Duck Cove

According to Papa Bear, there is a legend that a creature lives in/frolics in (thank you Peter, Paul and Mary!) Duck Cove. No one knows what it is, nor if it is malevolent or beneficent. Some say that the creature may live on the Duck Islands (off-shore from Mount Desert Island, visible from the Ship's Harbor Trail). Some say that the creature may live in the muck at the bottom of Duck Cove. The creature is named Ducky. We believe The Cat may be trying to contact Ducky as she does her patrols, or simply to keep Ducky away (the Cat is not known for liking to share "her" premises with other critters.) Papa Bear captured this picture last week Is it Ducky???

Ship's Harbor Hike

On Wednesday we hiked the Ship's Harbor Trail. It is a relatively easy path along the coast near Bass Harbor Head Light, SeaWall, and Wonderland on the "Quiet Side" of Mount Desert.. We had hiked this trail in previous years so we saw trees we had seen before, as well as the harbor and Maine coast rocks. We saw one tree that had fallen and died. Papa Bear remembers this particular tree because he has a picture of it when it was still standing. He remembers this particular tree because of the curling shape of its trunk. The trunk makes a complete loop. One wonders how it grew. It was a fun day.

Ship's Harbor is called that because of a local legend that in the time of the Revolutionary War, a U.S. privateer fled a British gunboat into the harbor (must have been high tide when they did it, as at low tide even a kayak would have some problems with the depth of the entrance!) The U.S. ship escaped the British, but became stuck in the shallow harbor.

The pictures do not seem to do justice to the variety of colors we saw and I have no mechanism to convey the smells and sounds. I have often thought of Monet in recent days as we have traveled around and seen places in different lights. I read once that Monet usually had multiple canvases for a single site. Each canvas was worked on at a particular time of day, so that he could capture the place as it appeared in the different light that happens as time passes during a day. Places change over time, and with varying light. We had blowing clouds, so we were able to see the same scene in a variety of sun and shade.

Ship's Harbor	Gull
View into Ship's Harbor	Another View in
Duck Islands	Point of land

Our Bicycles

We went to Southwest Cycle and purchased our bicycles. They are last year's models, which means we received a great deal. Mama Bear is thinking of naming her bicycle Molly. It is a name she has always liked and the women she has met with the name have been strong, funny, helpful and smart. I like those qualities and hope my bicycle will be all those to me. Well, maybe it will not be smart ... My Molly is quite lovely. Papa Bear has not yet named his bicycle. And may not do so. We have helmets, gloves, kickstands, and water bottles, too. We have had them out on the road a bit and love riding them. Molly and Nameless reside in the basement beneath the stairs.

The gate to the basement has arrived and been installed. The Cat, for reasons unknown to me, went downstairs just before its installation began. After installation, Mama Bear took some treats and went down the stairs. While The Cat was seated next to Mama Bear, Papa Bear placed a treat on the first floor side of the gate, and Mama Bear stuck her hand through the cat opening. Always motivated by treats, The Cat went through the opening, then returned to see if there were more treats to be had from Mama Bear. (Of course there were!)

The Cat has devleoped somewhat of a routine - she sleeps on the settee in our bedroom (the settee that is leaving after the new chest is delivered), arises, is fed, explores the screen porch, has a bit more to eat, takes a nap, goes upstairs to survey the birds in the trees from the second floor window sills, goes downstairs, plays with her toys a bit, takes a nap, explores the screen porch, makes certain the basement has not changed since her last visit, plays with her toys, takes a nap, and so it continues throughout the day. She seems very content.

Our mornings seem to be occupied with paperwork and telephone calls to straighten out paperwork. Mama Bear listed the trustee to receive the transfer of her work IRA as a person, and put the firm's name in the area for the address. She was told the firm was the trustee and that the person's name should have been put into the address area. Papa Bear has received his unused vacation pay and has been in touch with the bank at the House on the Creek to learn how it can be deposited there (there are no branches of the bank north of Connecticut). His first Social Security check will arrive in late June/early July. Mama Bear is awaiting her unused vacation/sick pay deposit. Her first retirement check should arrive in July. We have contacted the Census person who left a note on our door (person came while we were out) to explain that we had completed the Census forms at the House on the Creek. Mama Bear completed her thank-you to-do's and mailed them yesterday.

Today is a wash day - clothes and linens. And maybe a bike ride or a hike. It is gorgeous here: just a slight breeze, blue skies with rare clouds and much sun. Need to check the Maine election results. After seeing all the commercials, I want to know who won the primaries!!

A boutique of photos from this morning follows. They were taken by Mama Bear this morning, just after high tide. And no, we never tire of the views.

Molly the Bike	Bikes in Basement
The Cat	Flowers Near Southwest Cycle
View Across Cove	Gull Cafe Leavings
Cove's End Boat Yard	Mouth of Cove
Cove to House Stairs	House to Cove Stairs

Quests

Papa Bear and Mama Bear have, over the years, undertaken a number of what we call "quests." A quest happens when there is a need for an item or service, research/a search about what the need is and how it can be met has to happen, the results of this phase have to be evaluated, a plan for fulfilling the quest must be crafted and then implemented.

Perhaps our most famous quest was Papa Bear's The Watch Quest. This particular quest is capitalized because it lasted for over twenty years - from the time we were married until we were in the midst of Baby Bear's college quest (that quest being far shorter and much less extensive and so not needing capital letters - after all, Baby Bear did not ask to visit every possible college in the United States, but selected a few and we visited those, all within one year).

During the time of The Watch Quest, passing a place that might contain The Watch for Papa Bear meant that we had to go into the establishment, look at all possibilities, perhaps have a salesperson take two or three candidates from the showcase, examine them, then usually (though not always) walk away when the possibilities were found lacking for one reason or another. By and large, Papa Bear has good aesthetic tastes and he is an engineer, and I am certain that existence of both of these conditions simultaneously contributed to the long duration of The Watch Quest.

With these characteristics influencing the decision criteria, there were requirements for both how The Watch would look as well as how it would function. Mama Bear learned patience, and to look at other items available in the same location during Papa Bear's tireless (and sometimes seemingly endless) seeking/evaluation process. During Baby Bear's visit to schools in Boston, we happened upon a now-defunct business in Cambridge Square and, since it sold watches as a part of its offerings, we had to go inside. And there it was: The Watch. Perfect to gaze upon. Perfect in function. Did we purchase it? No. It was, for us, too expensive and so, having found it, we left The Watch there.

The Watch Quest ended shortly thereafter: Mama Bear, upon our return to the House on the Creek, decided enough was enough and called the Cambridge merchant. She purchased the watch. She does not recall where she found the money nor how she managed to keep the expenditure a secret from Papa Bear, but she did, and he received The Watch as his birthday present that November. It has been wonderful to be able to walk by jewelry stores without stopping. It has been wonderful to watch Papa Bear use and appreciate The Watch. It was well worth every penny spent on The Watch to end The Watch Quest.

Other quests present themselves to us from time-to-time, as has happened here at the House on the Cove. We have the ongoing food quest, the bicycle quest in progress, the quest for furniture to complete the House on the Cove so that we can live here, (instead of visit here) as well as the quest to provide a mechanism for The Cat to have ready access to the basement (where her bathroom accommodations have been located) while providing some protection to others from randomly falling down the steps to the basement through the open door.

The good news is that we have made progress on some of these fronts.

• We are still exploring food options. We had the freshest and tastiest English muffins from Sawyer's Market in Southwest recently, which moved them onto the list of definite shopping places. This quest will likely continue for a while - how far to drive, how to get what we want/need/can afford, how often to shop - all are factors in this quest.
  
  
• We learned a lot about options for bicycles during our stop at the Southwest Cycle - gearing, suspension, types of handle bars, weights of bikes, etc. - all come into play and consideration.
  
  
• We took a day - a sunny day on Friday - to complete at least some of our furniture quest. We need more places to store clothes. Being here for the summer instead of two weeks means I have more clothes. I think Papa Bear has more clothes than he usually brought for vacation, too. We have a closet and two lingeries in which to store these clothes. We need more drawer space and so would like a dresser. To make floor space in the room to allow a dresser to fit, we would like to replace the present bedside tables with smaller, more traditional night stands. Having surveyed possibilities via the Web, and visited local furniture-selling establishments on a rainy day, and learned that we were going to have to order whatever we decided upon and that it would take eight weeks to deliver said items after they were ordered, and wanting to alleviate the non-storage situation as quickly as possible, we took the sunny day to revisit the stores, make a decision, and place an order. That part of the furniture quest is resolved, though we still need to decide if we want desks (thus far we are working off our laps or the coffee table, and it is not a problem.) If we want desks, then we have another quest to undertake.
  
  
• Papa Bear found (on the Internet) a gate that can be mounted inside the door frame 0f the doorway that leads to the basement. The gate has an opening in the bottom through with The Cat can pass unobstructed, and an actual gate that can be opened when a human wants to descend the stairs. We think it will meet our needs well. Our thanks to the Moderan Lady of Leisure who suggested this type of device might exist and to look for it.

All was not lost during the sunny Friday bedroom furniture quest completion: we still saw some beautiful scenery, as evidenced by this picture of a point on Thompson Island (the Island you cross when leaving the Mainland and heading towards Mount Desert).



Yesterday and today have been foggy, cloudy, and rainy. Perfect days for staying in, doing paperwork, reading ... Still trying to determine how to take a picture of the herring gull that seems to like to sit on the rocks that emerge at low tide. If I try to get close, it flies away; if I am not close, I cannot get the picture I want. Oh no!!! Is this another quest???

Rainy days and foggy days

We seem to be having a foggy/rainy day followed by a sunny/mostly sunny day this week. It is also delightfully cool (sorry people at the House on the Creek and its environs, where we understand it is hot, hot, hot.)

We have been window-shopping for things of late - looking for bicycles (I saw a really nice carbon fiber model that is out of our price range but, as I said, was very nice), some furniture and kitchen equipment for the cottage to make it easier to live here instead of visit here, and just to explore the area a little. The Cat does not mind our being out as long as we come back before her dinner time. Papa Bear now understands my plan for the proposed bedroom furniture arrangement. We are square with the post office and receiving mail at our box there. I also saw a really cool pink Vespa scooter ...

We are still trying different grocery stores to find what we want. Tried a local organic store today - they will give me a 10% discount when I bring them $100.00 worth of receipts from there (and gave me an envelope in which to save the receipts!) Hormone-free beef is still proving a challenge to find (and expensive when we find it.) Perhaps I will suggest it at the general-purpose grocery store we have visited and see what they can do, but I suspect that as Maine is not a beef-growing state, it may be more difficult to find here than at the House on the Creek. Chicken and fish are abundant, but I love the occasional burger.

We saw a deer swim the cove today - the first time I have seen that happen (and the first time I have seen a deer on the Island.)

The house at the end of the road has chickens and ducks (and ducklings). We have learned to enter the road VERY slowly to accommodate whomever might be in the midst of crossing the road.

We love the flowers - the rhododendron are blooming profusely, as are the lilacs and lupine.

We are avoiding the traffic backups in town that are due to construction by taking back roads when we can. It is interesting to note that construction work continues on rainy days: they do what they can in the season they are given to work.

There is a primary election here next Tuesdsay. The commercials thus far are very civil and each candidate seems to talk about what they will do instead of how bad someone else is. I like this positive approach to campaigning.

Am including some more pictures. The fog picture shows our visibility across the cove late today. The lobster buoys were found on the beach after a storm last year. One of our guests found them and hung them beneath the porch. The fact that they were found here attests to lost income for someone - the traps to which the buoys were attached are at the bottom of the ocean someplace off shore. The garden shed is used to keep the tools for the garden a neighbor has each summer. It was more simple when we first began coming here but received this major renovation (it is so cute!) within the last few years. The remaining pictures are more flower pictures. I think we need to get a picture of a rhododendron, too! Maybe tomorrow ...

Fog view across cove	Lobster buoys
Garden Shed	Lilacs
Lupines	Seaweed

Asticou Gardens in Spring

Sunday was a lazy day for some of us (Baby Bear was still doing school work). Papa Bear and Boo Boo cooked a simple yet delicious meal. Boo Boo created a wonderful strawberry sorbet in the new frozen-dessert-maker that Baby Bear and Boo Boo gave us to celebrate our retirement. He even shared the recipe with us! Yum! I can see we are going to have much fun recreating his delight and experimenting with other flavors this summer. On Monday we arose, Baby Bear did some more school work, we shared a meal, and they packed and departed for home.

The Cat totally rules the house (or so she thinks). She has asked for a push button so that she can open the sliding glass door to the porch by herself. That wish is simply not going to happen ...

We are trying to find a way to have the basement door remain ajar so that it is not open (and subject to someone falling down it) but still accessible to The Cat at all times. Yes, there are those pet doors one can purchase and insert into the existing door, but we are looking for something less expensive ... and a little more creative. Papa Bear is thinking. A gate mounted above cat-level? A wooden block that props the door open coupled with a bungee cord to hold it somewhat closed? One of those pet doors? Something else? Options are still being considered.

After lunch on Monday, Papa Bear took a nap and I read. We then went to the Asticou Gardens, followed by a trip to Bar Harbor to window-shop for bicycles (I found a really nice carbon fiber one that is out of our price range) and gather a few groceries.

The Asticou Gardens are amazing. In all the years we have been visiting this Island, it was my first visit. Needless to say, it will not be my last. The gardens are a mixture of east and west with native plants, a sand garden and meandering paths. There are places to sit and be still. Interesting posts appear in what seem to be appropriate places. I do not know a better way to convey it than to show you a few photos of it.

Azalea border	Pond view
Another pond view	Lily Pond
Tall tree	Quiet Path
Rocks and Azaleas	White flower
Golden spikes	Sand Garden
Bowl	Azaleas bordering
	Sand Garden

Today (a Tuesday - something easy to forget when retired) is overcast with a forecast for occasional showers. We need to visit the post office, obtain a few kitchen supplies (things we could live without for a week or two but want for our extended stay), maybe window-shop for some furniture and bicycles.

Photos today courtesy of Mama Bear.