You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Some distances from Eastport to wherever:
While driving from Eastport to Lubec, kind of in the neighborhood, as it were, I got to thinking about how far you could get from one point to another in the same hour elsewhere. Sometimes, it led to a lot more options.
Where could you drive in an hour from your home?
Have to confess the Red Barn posts have been moving along on schedule, but just not as many or as varied as usual.
Seems I’m not alone that way, here on WordPress or other social media, for that matter.
On this end, I’m knee-deep in trying to get a big project in gear – the part that follows the publication of a new book, which is just around the corner. These next steps are time-consuming and emotionally a roller-coaster. I’m always feeling I’m way behind there, as well as uncertain of the way.
As a complication, about a month ago I suffered a physical fall in the middle of the night and was reminded once more how fragile the body gets in older folks, aka the elderly, and how risky that can be when living alone. I’m still feeling some of the aches after the bruises and what else and won’t be resuming the twice-a-week fitness classes till after Labor Day.
Quite simply, that’s slowed me way down.
And then there was my week at the annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quaker) off in Castleton, Vermont, now that we’re gathering face-to-face again. Getting across northern New England, however, is a remarkably drawn-out trip, no matter how stunning some of the scenery can be. I did see parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont for the first time.
Weighing on me especially has been the surreal political and social nightmare unfolding here in America. It’s not just Trump, either, but closer to home the threatened return of Paul LePage to the governorship of Maine. Trying to write about that has been paralyzing, and the news developments keep mounting at a dizzying pace.
So here we are and summer’s almost over. It hasn’t exactly felt lazy.
The petals had fallen from a vase and got me thinking.
You think it’s all about the sun, but I’ve found that without clouds in the right positions, it’s just lights on, lights off.
It’s best when the sunlight can angle up under the cloud.
And that’s before you see it mirrored in the water.
The inlet gets its name from an early family rather than royalty, even if the British Navy did land here when it captured Eastport during the War of 1812.
Running out of baby’s first names for hurricanes and tropical storms has me wondering.
Can we turn to corporate behemoths, you know, for naming rights, like sports stadiums do?
Hurricane Amazon would be a natural. Or Geico, reminding folks of the need of home insurance. Victoria’ Secret Hurricane could be hot. You get the drift.
And let’s think about all the good uses we could put the money to, starting with relief for impoverished folks in those storms’ paths.
So how ’bout it?
What corporations would you nominate as the most amusing or fitting for the storms?
~*~
Refined Japanese, I’m told, would gather with sake to watch the full moon rise. First there’s only the crown of the head, and then the brow and cheeks and chin before the moon lifts altogether in the air. The passage is both slow and fleet, maybe five minutes, if that.
The event would be celebrated with the writing of hokku on the spot.
Here’s how it happened one summer night in Eastport, looking over Campobello Island. And this is what you get rather than a cocktail or poem.
Named for Upham Stowers Treat, the island once housed a fishing hamlet and then a Civil War battery. Today, as one of the Maine Coastal Heritage Trust preserves, it’s open to the public and has a 1.2-mile network of trails offering stunning views of the surrounding bays.
Kayakers are advised to get a guide who knows the waters’ treacherous currents.
Some early wag exploring the channel that separates Eastport and Campobello Island thought a rock formation visible only at low tide resembled an old monk and dubbed it the Old Friar.
The headland behind it soon became known as Friar’s Head.
As for the channel? It’s Friar’s Roads, curving along the island to its end on the Bay of Fundy.
The Old Friar himself may have lost some features during the Civil War when cannoneers stationed on Treat Island used the monolith for target practice. Canada, apparently, never complained, sparing the U.S. an international incident.
The Passamaquoddy, meanwhile, referred to the pillar as the Stone Maiden. The legend told of a young brave who left on a long journey after instructing his lover to sit and await his return. The distraught young maiden sat on the beach and waited for months. Alas, when he finally returned, he found her turned to stone, forever to wait and watch.
The currants we’re harvesting in Eastport are a different variety than we obtained from the conservation district’s plant sale back in Dover. They’re bigger and juicier, for one thing. And the bushes aren’t as thorny or sprawling, for another.
We got 4½ pounds from a single bush. Most of it will go into jelly.
Jnana's Red Barn 