Here’s how they look much of the rest of the year around here. And there are a lot of them who surprisingly disappear this time of the year.
Tag: Maine
‘There were no yachts!’
That’s what many of the autumn cruise ship passengers have noted on their arrival at the Breakwater here in Eastport. As they were told, that’s because ours is a real working fishermen’s harbor. Even in the height of summer, there are few pleasure boats.
The visitors have been largely charmed by the unspoiled nature of this place, especially in contrast to Bar Harbor, Camden, Portland, or Boston, and to the welcome they’ve received.
It did keep a festive spirit alive before winter kicks in.
Community life around here has definitely hunkered down now, at least until the scalloping season kicks in.
Western sunset
Yeah, all sunsets are in the west, but this looks like something out of a cowboy movie finale. Even if it’s in Downeast Maine.
Remember for future visits
The Green Store, Belfast
has banded men’s shirts
almost Amish
before collars became acceptable
God created man and woman or
wuz it boy and girl
fit for a jungle
a place where values and faith
are unencumbered
Window in the woods
The bark siding really captures my imagination.
To the north
Miles between houses in dense forest
Irving
Wood
Lands
Grange halls falling into disuse
Smyrna / Smyrna Mills
First, at the general store and then the produce market, the dim light the interior required some readjustment for us. We expect electrical illumination, after all. Instead, this was truly natural, apart from a few white-gas lanterns.
What we’re used to is like the sun came indoors, even the first 30-watt bulb in a store.
Or so my brilliant travel companion observed.
~*~
Light brown Amish
sheds, barns, homes
the men with mustaches!
~*~
As we’re backing out of the parking
two Amish kids
stare at me through a window in a door
but don’t respond to my wave:
Did I look like I belonged to another Plain people?
Maybe from somewhere in space?
Even though I was driving a simple white car?
Souvenirs on the wall
Stunning bridge over the Narrows
At the top of Penobscot Bay, this is the principal welcome to Downeast and Acadia. Or for those of us going the other direction, to the rest of America.
You can even go to the top, the equivalent of 40 floors, for a spectacular panorama.
Election reflections
These shoulder elections, where nobody’s running for national office, are still important.
In small places like Eastport, getting someone to run even unopposed for local office can be a challenge. We had all the bases covered, although the surprise was when a write-in candidate won one of the two city council seats.
I can’t imagine that happening in a bigger setting, but who knows. A write-in for president? My!
Statewide, a radical proposal to take over the two widely hated electrical utilities failed. Big money is hard to comprehend, even if we’ll be paying it one way or the other. The frequent storm outages won’t be going away, nor will the continuing higher-than-national bills customers here receive. Somehow, I don’t think the issue will be going away, despite the lopsided tallies.
Just how much do those emergency home generators cost altogether, anyway, as insurance against the current setup? It’s not that many households before we’re talking billions.
Otherwise, the initiatives moved in a progressive direction, including the right-to-repair measure.
I am relieve to see opportunities for right and left to come together at a local level, however gingerly.
Jnana's Red Barn 