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We had a great time in the Quoddy region last week, and are planning future visits. I was amazed at how little waterfront development we saw, but I suspect even Lubec will see development pressure along the coast.Land and home prices are more reasonable than here, but not by much, which surprised me. I hope the development does not create another disaster like the Ellsworth-Acadia corridor. More photos (click to enlarge):
Who are these people?!
The famous (infamous?) West Quoddy Head Light, seen from Campobello Island. You can barely detect the stripes.
Amazing views from Hamilton Cove, part of a series of hikes in the area. You can faintly see Grand Manan Island in the background. The Quoddy Regional Land Trust publishes an excellent trail guide for the area. The Hamilton Cove hike was about 3 miles through a mix of alder thickets, spruce forest and open rocky headland. It was marvelous.
Dan enjoying the view on the Hamilton Cove hike.
The Roosevelt Cottage, with a gorgeous dahlia border planted along the walk.
The flowerbeds at the Roosevelt visitor's center were a spectacular mix of annuals. I recognized many of the plants, but not the two seen below. More mystery flowers to id! Can anyone help?
I have no clue what this blue flower is--it was a gorgeous flax flower blue, the leaves were slightly hairy, and it gre on long stems, repeat blooming as the flower grew.
This looked like a phlox, but was a gorgeous apricot shade, which I haven't seen in a phlox. Any ideas as to what these flowers are?
While we were camping, my mystery plant finally bloomed. I think that last year, I was hoping these flowers were 1st year coneflower seedlings. I was wrong, very very wrong, and now this vigorous grower is taking over my border bed. What is it? Can I 
easily be rid of it? It is crowding out the coneflowers and my beloved meadow rue, so it has to go.
Baby it's cold outside!! Parts of Maine have a frost warning tonight, with a freeze warning in the far northwest & mountains! It's been a cool summer, but a frost already? No wonder I don't have any ripe tomatoes yet! The forecast here calls for temps to drop to the low 40s. Good sleeping weather as they say....Today I made my way reluctantly to the office, officially ending my summer vacation. It was great to see my colleagues, and my boss seemed really happy to see me, but as always I have mixed feelings about the end of the summer and the start of a new school year. The summers are never long enough to do all the tasks on my list, and I'm pretty unhappy that I haven't been able to can any tomatoes yet! I had big plans to get some tomatoes canned before the madness that is the beginning of the semester set in, but our cool summer has slowed things down.Ah well, at least I'm all in one piece. My poor blogging pal Tracy from Outside fell and dislocated her shoulder the other day. Now that would just bite. At least she has ripe tomatoes.
We're home again from the far reaches of eastern Maine. We had a fabulous vacation, a great mix of camping, kayaking, hiking, sightseeing, and with an unexpected encounter with friends to add a couple of fun evenings to the mix.With a mix of clear sunny days, cool nights, rain, thunderstorms and even coastal fog, we got to experience pretty much all the types of weather I want to experience from my awesome, but aging, tent. Our new screen tent again proved it's usefulness as Dan and I enjoyed a game of Snatch in the evenings while the bugs went hungry. I could have readily spent another couple of days at Cobscook Bay, although tonight would have been chilly, with the temperature here a mere 60F at 7 pm and a stiff breeze. No doubt it will be in the 40s tonight. Summer appears to be preparing for an exit. I noticed a few red maple leaves on the lawn this morning, fallen from our tree, sigh.
After the hawk episode I was a tad concerned about leaving the hens and the little chicks, but I'm happy to report all the chicks and hens are present and accounted for at Henbogle, and appear to be in fine fettle. It is a huge relief to know that our pals Bill and Michelle are taking great care of the zoo while we are away. THANKS GUYS!!
The vegetable garden kept on cranking out the veggies, and the hens rejoiced when we arrived on the scene and promptly gave them a monster zucchini. Cucumbers and beans are more than ready for picking, but alas, still no red tomatoes. Although there are some yellow squash nearly ready to pick, I am deeply in need of a tomato from my garden. Ripen, dammit!! So much for canning tomatoes before I head back to the office.
More tomorrow when I download more photos.
Saturday morning, a hungry hawk got one the the chicks. We have yet to name them all, this batch of chicks are more similar than our debut batch, but we do know it was not Ayla or Sophie, who are the two in the group who we can immediately recognize.We are sad, but at least the chick went for a meal and is part of the food chain, as unlike poor Marigold, killed by a neighborhood cat just for fun.
We just returned from a few days of camping at Cobscook Bay State Park, in far downeast Maine near Dennysville. It is an astonishingly beautiful place.
The campground was fabulous, with mostly spacious, private, well placed sites, many on the water. We had a great site, not on the water but with a water view. In future, we'll be sure to make early reservations to get a waterfront site that will allow us to launch the kayaks right from the site.
Being conditioned to the coastal development in Midcoast-Maine, it amazed me to see vast stretches of undeveloped waterfront, not a building in sight, be it fishing shack or McMansion. The Country of the Pointed Firs still exists, albeit further east. We paddled the bay, we visited the towns of Lubec and Eastport, and did some hiking at Quoddy Head State Park, and kicked back and relaxed. In Eastport, we partook of a local delicacy, Raye's Mustard at the mill/museum. It is the only stone grinding mustard mill in the U.S., and the mustard was good! We came home with several jars. We are going back, maybe even next week. Views from the campground follow, click to enlarge them.
The view from our campsite.
These views are from various camp sites(!)
The view from the boat launch.
An acquaintance was recently insisting that fresh veggies from her CSA share were the equal of home grown and harvested veggies. While I'm a big fan of buying from local farms and CSAs, on this I must disagree.
New potatoes and fresh beans picked just a few minutes before cooking have a divine taste that cannot be duplicated. They are amazing. I can't think of a better way to celebrate our 6th anniversary. Happy Anniversary, Dan!
Dan and I are both fair skinned (that Celtic heritage), and I'm sensitive to sunscreens, so we have a tendency to fry in our boats. So, I created a shade skirt out of some cheesey lightweight poly/cotton fabric, which is held on
with a drawcord around the cockpit combing.The shade skirt can be scrunched toward the bow to enter or exit the boat or to change the amount of sun shining into the cockpit. I hope it works!
I took these photos a few days ago, but haven't managed to post them yet. Things here are beginning to look a bit dry, but I'm holding off on watering hoping for thundershowers tonight.
The new garden bed by the new deck.
The same bed May 31. The big mistake with this bed was to forget how tasty the Japanese beetles find the grapevine, which then leads them to the other plants, like my Morden Sunrise rose. The evil bugstards just LOVE the blossoms, sigh.
The sunflower is a volunteer, no doubt from the feeder. The cleome was planted to add season long color and stature in this new bed, and it has worked. I just love it.
I love this combination planted in the very hot and dry sedum bed along the driveway. Of course, the rose campion needs deadheading, but what else is new.
The Russian sage bed along the drive is just coming into bloom. It makes a terrific small seasonal hedge, allowing us to dump mounds of snow there in the winter months.
The front garden is coming into its second peak of hot colored daylillies and (surprise!) black-eyed susan.
This inula I received from a colleague years ago at the first annual plant swap I organized at work. I'm pleased to say the swap still occurs annually 6 years running even though I've moved on. Many of my flowers came from this generous group of gardeners. I still miss them after 3 years at my new job.
And suddenly, there were five zucchini. Where do they hide?
Whew, it is hot here! Dan and I have decided we need to escape, so we've been busy with prepping for a camping/ paddling trip downeast.First, we had to build a kayak rack for the truck. We designed it ourselves, gathering inspiration from random trucks with homemade racks. Dan did not want to have to cut holes in the bed liner, so he came up with a very clever solution, bolting the 
rack to the truck's factory- installed secure cargo loops. The end result is, as is our want, built like a brick ***house, and will comfortably carry 3 kayaks (thanks, Karen for being our test 'yak!).We put it together with 2x4s leftover from building the laundry room (b4 blog) and some carpet scraps left from a groovy homemade car track/village Dan made for Kyle before Kyle could drive a real car. The total
cost was under $10 --we did have to purchase some carriage bolts/washers.
It is fairly easy to get them on the rack and ratched down, and now we have room for lots of camping gear in the truck bed. I'm way over my minimalist camping phase, now I have a screen tent, too.
Next, the chicks.
Our cute baby chicks are now adolescents, and needed room to roam, and a simple caretaking routine for our vacation zookeepers, friends Bill & Michelle.
Of course, creating a simple solution is never simple. We had to put up new garden fencing so that we could use the old chicken wire fencing (formerly protecting the veg garden from the chickens) to subdivide the chicken yard into two chicken
yards. The idea is to segregate the chicks from the chickens, while allowing them to see one another and get used to each other before they begin co-habitating in Henbogle Coop.
Hot sweaty work, but it is done. Then move the temporary chick coop/cold frame from the barn to the chick yard. And teach the chicks to go into the coop every night before it gets dark, using treats as a lure. It seems to be working, and the chicks, now that they are over the freak-out phase, seem to be loving outdoor living.
We had a great time in the Quoddy region last week, and are planning future visits. I was amazed at how little waterfront development we saw, but I suspect even Lubec will see development pressure along the coast.
Who are these people?!
The famous (infamous?) West Quoddy Head Light, seen from Campobello Island. You can barely detect the stripes.
Amazing views from Hamilton Cove, part of a series of hikes in the area. You can faintly see Grand Manan Island in the background. The Quoddy Regional Land Trust publishes an excellent trail guide for the area. The Hamilton Cove hike was about 3 miles through a mix of alder thickets, spruce forest and open rocky headland. It was marvelous.
Dan enjoying the view on the Hamilton Cove hike.
The Roosevelt Cottage, with a gorgeous dahlia border planted along the walk.
The flowerbeds at the Roosevelt visitor's center were a spectacular mix of annuals. I recognized many of the plants, but not the two seen below. More mystery flowers to id! Can anyone help?
I have no clue what this blue flower is--it was a gorgeous flax flower blue, the leaves were slightly hairy, and it gre on long stems, repeat blooming as the flower grew.
This looked like a phlox, but was a gorgeous apricot shade, which I haven't seen in a phlox. Any ideas as to what these flowers are?
