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Still the talk of the town

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

So far, so good. The deer haven’t yet pushed the garden fence over or managed to get in despite the chicken wire.

That, in itself, gets a lot of the locals coming by to take a look at my fortifications and then talk, as well as a number of summer folk. Eastport is a pedestrian-friendly village. Others are in vehicles that slow down and roll down their windows.

Beyond that, many are also avid gardeners who admire what’s growing and then advise us while introducing themselves. Some have even left packets of seeds on our front-door steps.

Strangers have also come up to me downtown to say how much they like what we’re doing. As I acknowledge, my wife deserves most of the credit.

Either way, it’s one more positive small-town aspect of living here. You’re simply engaged with life all around you.

Nor have I mentioned how heavenly the buttery fresh lettuce tastes or how much a sugar-snap pea vine can grow in a day.

The fact that all this is in our front yard does, no doubt, make the garden more public, but it is where our best sunlight falls. Folks around here are practical and take that all in stride.

Speaking of practical? It’s that much less lawn I need to mow.

Making the best of a break in the fog and rain

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’re feeling sorry for vacationers to our end of Maine the past two weeks. Especially those with children in tow.

It’s been cold – our furnace is still on – and very foggy and damp, accompanied by showers and thunderstorms.

It’s not what you’d want to run into on your well-earned summer getaway.

At least we’re getting a break, however brief.

Today’s forecast is for mostly cloudy, followed by two partly cloudy days. And then another solid streak of rainy days resumes.

Glimpses of real sunlight and blue sky will lift spirits, no doubt. I might even stop reminding folks of six straight months or so of this for people living in Seattle. (You know, it could be worse. We might even have to start watching movies in German.)

One thing you can also anticipate is the sound of lawnmowers the moment the grass dries sufficiently. Otherwise, a failure to mow in time can lead to an impossible task, as I remember when I had to learn to scythe back in Dover … and my vow to myself never to do that again.

For us, it also means doing laundry. We have a washer here but not a dryer. So we’re anticipating hanging wet clothes and linens out on the line to dry. There is a backlog to address.

Another must-do is a big round of grilling. Maybe even dining al fresco, if the temperature cooperates.

Well, as we’ve been saying all along, this too will pass.

Now, for the latest installment of our island garden venture

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Few of our nights until late as June have stayed above 50 degrees, a detail that will likely surprise fellow gardeners across the rest of the U.S. That’s meant bringing flats of basil and other temperature-sensitive plants indoors overnight, in addition to the plastic tunnels my wife devised to warm the soil and protect our tomato and pepper seedlings outdoors until now.

Our new raised beds, as previously noted here at the Red Barn, are an attempt to work around extremely high lead levels in our soil. Beyond that, the chicken-wire fencing is an attempt to deter Moose Island’s ravenous urban deer. That barrier will be further reinforced in the coming days.

The first night our fencing was up on the first bed, though, a wayward critter wound up bending – not just pulling over – one of the corner posts. The steel post was the stronger, pricier variety. I couldn’t bend it, I’ll tell you – not without an anvil and heavy hammer or maybe some heavy jumping. (Sorry I didn’t get a photo. We were too busy getting that corner repaired against a possible second attack.)

So here’s where we are now, in the midst of about three inches of rain in a week or so.

With a garden, there’s always more to do. Sometimes it even involves eating.

Call it Victorian, if you must

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 11 Comments

By the time of the Civil War, Bangor as in Maine was the world’s leading lumber port. Some of that wealth is reflected in the proud Second Empire, Greek Revival, and Federal style homes that punctuate the Broadway Historic District and elsewhere through the city.

My elder daughter would find these to be models for her annual gingerbread houses.

Meanwhile, do any of them capture your imagination?

And you wonder where Stephen King got his inspiration?

Add to this to our list of items made obsolescent in our lifetimes

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Even before many folks switched to unlisted numbers, in part to evade obnoxious ding-a-ling solicitations, the annual telephone book began shrinking. The migration from landline to cell phones was apparently the final straw, along with Yellow Pages regulars who turned instead to website searches or FaceBook.

What was long a standard reference volume for local communities is now long gone.

When’s the last time you saw a phone book?