Swimming?????!!!! in late September?

Grimes Cove at the end of Ocean Point in Boothbay looks nothing like Sand Beach in Acadia National Park. But I didn't go swimming at Sand Beach today, and I did swim on yes, September 25, 2011, at Grimes Cove. I planted tulips in my garden for my son's wedding next spring, and got soooooo hot, I just had to go swimming.

Not that it was a completely new idea for me. As I was driving around Ocean Point yesterday afternoon, I saw 4 floating heads - a la Mao in the Yellow River - and thought to myself that it might be nice to go for a swim. I quickly thought better of it though, as darkness was descending, and I was hungry. But today, after sweating through the planting of 75 tulip bulbs, it was a really GOOD idea, and off I went.

The four floating heads had the same idea, and the 5 of us went for a swim, out and around a buoy in the Cove. It wasn't a long swim, but the water was in the mid-high 60's, which is warm for around here, and as long as I held my hands out of the water occasionally - to thaw out - I was happy, and it felt really good. A crowd gathered to watch us, but no one else seemed willing to come in. Even a Golden Retriever didn't come in. Still, it was well worth the effort, and I'm quite proud of having done it.

Now the challenge will be the Polar Bear Swim on New Year's Day!

Gardens vs. Boats

Yes, that is a tomato next to a pumpkin. This summer has been an amazingly productive summer for the garden. And the tomatoes! They are large, or tiny, sweet and red, delicious and numerous. But really, I've had enough. My stomach hurt the other day for all the tomatoes and cucumbers I've been eating. I had to give up cukes and start pickling!

So I'm making a resolution to better balance my need to sail with my need to eat. Some might suggest, this resolution is a long time in coming, but I've only felt it now, and it's my body.

So, next summer, I vow to grow fewer tomatoes, cukes, and zucchini, more corn and onions and leeks, less lettuce and more arugula, less chard and fewer beets. This will be easy to do next year because a major part of the garden will be taken up with tulips for Dan's wedding on Memorial Day. So lots of things won't be planted until after tulip time, thus making the season shorter than it was this year and last. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm yanking up the zucchini plants, and tomato plants, and soon the cucumbers, after I get one more crop of mature ones for Nancy Bither's Bither Family Cucumber Relish from Houlton, Maine. The tulips will go in soon after, and hopefully be perfect - just in time for the wedding next spring! Maybe I'll get some late summer sails in now!

One Year Later, Ten Years Later

I'm tired of all the 9/11 talk and stories of firemen, and First Responders. I do not mean to deny their heroism, but there are other heroes, and heroines, in the aftermath of 9/11.

A year after 9/11, my son Ben and his wife Torrey had a six month old daughter, Sarah Kate. They were living in Denver then, having moved there after Ben graduated from medical school. Ben was doing his internship in the Emergency Room of Denver General.

On 9/11, Torrey was teaching 5th grade at PS 234, the elementary school next door to the World Trade Center. As happens in the first days of school after summer vacation, Torrey had the flu that day, and a substitute teacher took her class. Ben was doing a 6-week residency in Farmington, New Mexico, and driving to work when he heard about the planes flying into the Towers. He tried to call Torrey but couldn't reach her by cell phone or landline. So he called me, in California. He had to go to work; I could and did, spend the day trying to reach Torrey.

I finally found her at home, on the computer. She was OK and hadn't been at school that day.

But she spent the rest of that day and year, and really the last ten years, dealing with survivor's guilt. And she, like all the other teachers in PS234, dealt with the childrens' stories, their fears, their horrid memories of that day for the remainder of that year. The school, when it reopened two weeks later (?), opened in an old Catholic school, in the neighborhood. Three 5th grades had to meet in an old gymnasium. The class moved to a different place 3 times that year, trying to find a safe and secure place to meet.

Those children were ten years old then. Now they are twenty somethings. The memories that they wrote about that year, were the sights and sounds of the bodies falling from the sky as they were evacuated from their old school. And their relatives who died. I can't begin to understand the strength and courage that those teachers used to deal with the nightmarish lives of their kids that year. And the parents who were left.

The firemen who risked their futures working to clear debris and find remains are undoubtedly heroes. But so are the teachers, parents and children of PS234, who survived and have been dealing with the horrific memories of that day, for the last ten years. I hope they have found some measure of peace.

after Irene

Except for the empty marina, you'd never know that we had a hurricane yesterday. Irene screamed into new England, faded, and blew on up through Vermont. Here, on the coast of Maine, we had lots of wind, an inch of rain, and power outages. In Vermont, bridges are out, roads are washed out, and downtowns and homes destroyed. I never thought I'd hear the words, "The eye of hurricane is just now passing St. Johnsbury, Vermont." But I did, and Irene about drowned Vermont.

I am sorry about all that; I kind of wish we'd had some more drama as most of us were very prepared. Really though, I am happy for the sun, and the September - like weather, and hope another hurricane does not come this way soon.

"and the restless wind.........."

These are the last boats to be hauled in advance of Irene, the hurricane of August 2011. For 3 straight days, the crew plus others at Ocean Pont Marina hauled boat after boat after boat. They barely slept, I think. But today when I went to look, there were a few big boats out on moorings, but the slips were empty - even the Boat US Towboat was gone.

They hauled Priscilla on the second day. She's comfortably up against one of the big sheds, safe and sound so far. The dinghy is turned over on the wharf, but is somewhat vulnerable to the storm surge expected tonight at high tide. I expect to sleep through it; it occurs at 11 pm. But it is a bit of a worry in that it is an astronomical tide - there is no moon at all now, and will be a 10.6' tide, higher than normal and a challenge to the Post Office, Lobsterman's Wharf, and the Marina. If there is a surge also, this far up the River, it could spell trouble for things at the above places - including dinghies turned over on the wharf.

So here I am in the middle of a hurricane. Actually EBB is on the eastern side Irene, hence we've not had as much rain as Vermont has had, or the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. But we have wind, and wind gusts of up to 75 mph. And we will have surf with wave heights of between 20-30', they say on the Weather Channel. Not good for people living closer to sea level than me, but dramatic if you don't live there. This afternoon, at dead low tide, it was pretty exciting but not close in. The rocks and the seaweed kept the water away. Tomorrow at high tide at noon, it should be quite dramatic.

"And they called the wind,"...Irene?????

Altogether too much joy along with problems!

There's been altogether too much joy here in East Boothbay lately. Too many families coming together; too much wonderful weather; too many trips out to Monhegan to build fairy houses. But so be it. Take it in, breathe deeply, and enjoy. Even the garden threatens to take over.

My grandgirls came here, and then I went up to Vermont to see them again, plus all my boys and their Significant Others, for the first time in a long time. I had ex-in-laws for a visit which was good fun, too, and all my mother's family for a picnic. It's been too good.

So today, I took a friend down to Maine Med in Portland for an MRI because the local hospitals were too busy - not a good sign. There's no diagnosis yet, but she is relieved to have begun a diagnostic process.

And I heard a final story from the Shipyard Cup races. The largest yacht here, Christopher, at 154', has a keel draft of 9', but a centerboard which drops down to a draft of 31'. Thirty one feet is pretty much lowtide depth in much of Boothbay's harbors and coves, which Christopher found out. Apparently she grounded sometime during the race, was pulled off but could not get her board back up. So she had issues finding a place of rest and security. I haven't heard yet whether or not they got her board back up, and I've been speculating on how they could do it.

Divers? I'm sceptical.

I've been thinking that they should hire the crane that lifted one of the tugs finished by Washburn and Doughty after the fire in 2008. It was the crane that Howard Hughes had built to raise the Russian sub sunk off the coast of California, and is reputed to be the biggest in the world. On the other hand, the Navy is dredging the Kennebec as we write, in order to get a new destroyer out of Bath Iron Works with a draft of only 27'. So maybe they could get Christopher up the Kennebec to Bath, and raise her up on one of their giant cranes - to unstick the centerboard. Aah, the woes of boat ownership!

I will let you know what I find out. In the meantime, enjoy these last days of summer!

what a difference a year makes!

Last year, it was glory sailing. This year it is best not described. The big boats emerged out of the hazy fog, crept across the finish line and back into the Harbor. The air show at the end of the races helped, but yet I wish I'd been able to see some spinnakers flying. Still, the Shipyard Cup made everyone in Boothbay sit up, take a breather, and drive on out to the rocks on Ocean Point if they couldn't get a ride on a boat.

It's really been a grand and glorious few weeks. Priscilla's engine got fixed and I've had some great sails; the garden overfloweth; I picked a few blueberries from my canoe in New Hampshire again; and the grandaughters began a parade of family that still continues. Saturday, 27 people from my mother's family came for a picnic, and appeared to enjoy themselves! Babies and grandparents all. Perhaps the nicest thing of all, is that my son and his girlfriend have decided to get married!

I am quite pleased, knowing at the same time that I really have very little to do with it.

Despite the weather for this last day of the Shipyard Cup or perhaps because of the family picnics, this summer has been wonderful up here on the Coast of Maine. That makes it hard to think why Congress can't do what we elected them to do - reach reasonable compromise and make a decision in favor of the country and not their own reelection, when the possibility of spending time here in Maine during a beautiful summer hangs in front of them! let's hope the stock market thinks of this possibility also, this coming week!