Tag: Top Ten

Pumpkins are no longer just a Halloween and Thanksgiving thing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

At least in New England, pumpkins have become a ubiquitous autumn flavoring, from bread and doughnuts to muffins and classic cheesecakes and pies. I still balk at beer.

Here are some more facts to chew on:

  1. They’re actually fruits, though I’m glad they don’t grow on trees. And, yes, they’re technically also vegetables, something they share in common with watermelons.
  2. Each pumpkin contains about 500 seeds. For the record, many birds love those. Roasted, for humans, they’re low in calories and rich in iron.
  3. Some varieties can grow 50 pounds a day.
  4. Every part of a pumpkin is edible, including the blossoms – well, they share that with other squashes.
  5. As pie, pumpkin is America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert.
  6. For the record, small sugar squashes are superior in taste to pumpkins for making those pies or also soups.
  7. The orange color comes from the same chemical that gives carrots and sweet potatoes their distinctive look. It’s good for Vitamin A, which in turn aids eye and skin health and supports your immune system.
  8. The first Jack o’ Lanterns weren’t carved from pumpkins but rather turnips. The practice arises in an Irish tradition regarding someone who tried to get the Devil to cover his bar tab and failed. Irish emigrants to America found the pumpkin superior to a turnip for those carvings.
  9. Illinois produces more than twice as many pumpkins as its nearest rival in the USA.
  10. The heaviest pumpkin grown in America was by Steve Geddes of New Hampshire in 2018 – a 2,528-pound monster.

 

Now for Machias

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The governmental seat for sprawling Washington County is the town of Machias, or “bad little falls” in the river where it meets an arm of the Atlantic. Well, others have suggested the Passamaquoddy term would be more accurately rendered as “nasty” or something I suspect is much worse. From what I’ve seen, going over the cataract at the tidal line in a canoe or any other kind of boat would have been fatal. Not that I want to tempt anyone to prove me wrong, like those who have actually gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

That said, let’s look at some more facts about the town and its neighboring East Machias, Machiasport, and related neighborhoods.

Centre Street Congregational Church, erected in 1836.

~*~

  1. It’s pronounced “maaah-chEYE-us,” the central syllable running along the lines of a hardened SHY.
  2. Washington Academy in East Machias is not only among the oldest boarding schools in the country, but thanks to publicly-funded tuition students from neighboring towns, it’s also the largest high school in the county. It does attract an elite from abroad. Go Raiders.
  3. The state university branch campus is often ridiculed but definitely working toward an upgrade.
  4. An initial English attempt at settlement in 1633 was rebuffed by a French attack, creating a gap of more than 120 years.
  5. Machias is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy, and its inaugural victory was won, in part, with pitchforks. I’m not kidding. Look it up. I’ll even suggest it as a plot for a comic opera. Notably, Passamaquoddy Natives were instrumental on the colonists’ side.
  6. It briefly flourished as a lumber exporting center in the late 1800s.
  7. ATV riders will find a great entry to the Downeast Sunrise Trail here. The path follows an old railroad line.
  8. The flea market atop the causeway on U.S. 1 can be delightful, especially Earle’s fresh seafood truck toward weekends. I do have to wonder how the reconstruction of that crossing will affect tradition.
  9. Its emergency room and hospital are often favored over those in Calais. I won’t get into the details.
  10. We do love the general store and natural foods emporium. As for the tiny movie theater? Still on our to-do list. Best wishes.

 

The Pine Tree State was a shipbuilding mecca

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You wouldn’t believe how many incredible seagoing vessels were built in the Pine Tree State. Maybe it’s because we have thousands of miles of coastline and tons of trees.

Just consider:

  1. The first ship built in Maine was at the failing Popham colony in the winter of 1607-1608. Where did they even get the sails? Yet the pinnace, the Virginia of Sagadhoc, was not only the first ocean-going ship built by English in the New World, but it returned to Jamestown the following year.
  2. In colonial days, the tallest, straightest trees were set aside as King’s Pines, reserved for the masts of the Royal Navy. Conflicts with the French kept many of them from being harvested before the American Revolution.
  3. From the 1830s to 1890s, Maine built more ships than any other state. More than 20,000 ships were launched from Maine shores, many from impromptu shipyards built along tidal rivers.
  4. Bath, with more than 22 shipyards at one time, was arguably the center of action. The town isn’t far from the former Popham colony, where the first ship had been built.
  5. During the Civil War, Confederate cruisers captured more than 100 Maine-built or Maine-owned vessels.  Coastal forts built during the war included Gorges at Portland, Popham at Phippsburg, and Knox near Bucksport.
  6. In 1862 the screw sloop-of-war U.S.S. Kearsarge built at Kittery sank the C.S.S. Alabama in a crucial naval battle.
  7. Maine accounted for 70 percent of the ships, barks, and barkentines built in the U.S. between 1870 and 1899. On the East Coast it also could claim to have built half of the three-mast schooners, 71 percent of the four-mast schooners, 95 percent of the five-mast schooners, and 90 percent of the six-mast schooners. I’m guessing a lot of those tall, straight pines could still be found.
  8. At one time, tiny Shackford Cove here in Eastport had four boatyards. And nearby Pembroke was also prolific.
  9. The shift to steel vessels largely decimated the yards building wooden ships, which capitalized on the state’s deep forests. Unlike most of the state, the shipyards at Bath, Kittery, South Portland, Woolwich, and East Boothbay successfully converted to metal at the end of the 1800s. 
  10. Today the state has an estimated 200 boatbuilding firms, most of the small and working with composites like fiberglass, laminated wood, and resin-based composites.

 

There are things about aging I really don’t like

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Oh, my, facing this can be painful.

  1. My mountain climbing days are past.
  2. I’m not as flexible as I was, and my sense of balance is unreliable. It’s even led to feeling queasy on heights, a realm I once fearlessly loved. And a fall late at night can be terrifying.
  3. Along with spidery thin hair.
  4. As for the bladder?
  5. Slower mental recall, along with hearing.
  6. Declining mojo.
  7. Can’t get warm in winter. Or autumn. Or early spring. I’ve always been cold-blooded, but geez Louise!
  8. Being addressed as “Sir” by polite female teens. I am, after all, emotionally still 17.
  9. The shrinking horizon of life goals and dreams. Like is that best-seller ever going to happen, really?
  10. All the damned pills in the morning.

Gee, and we haven’t even gotten to an inability to understand pop “culture” or the appearance of varicose veins.

America’s most celebrated wildlife artist was a Frenchman

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Or more accurately, the bastard son of a Frenchman in Haiti.

Yet, despite the iconic honor given his name, few have seen his legendary work in its full glory.

I’m speaking, of course, of John James Audubon, in the anglicized version of his name.

While I had viewed his work behind glass framing in art museums, nothing prepared me for my hands-on encounter with the four folio print volumes. That happened in Indiana University’s rare book Lilly Library when a librarian interrupted to ask if I would help her return two of the volumes to the cart so she could take them by elevator back to the stacks.

Yes, they really did need two people to move. As I’m seeing now, the books measured about 29½ inches by 39½, otherwise known as double elephant paper, the 435 prints being the same size as the original drawings.

We decided to take a peek and were both blown away. It was as if the birds had been pressed full-size onto the plate. You could actually see the veins in each feather. And that was, it turns out, a copy of the original. Oh, yes, and each species was presented full size, with some favored vegetation.

As for the color? Unbelievable. You have no idea how much is lost through any glass.

We both admitted it was too much for a single viewing.

Well, we had an acquaintance who was terrified of blue jays.

Now, for ten more facts.

  1. As an 18-year-old, Jean-Jacques Audubon was sent to Pennsylvania on a false passport to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army.
  2. A feud originating during his research in Kentucky closed off American support for young Audubon’s work. Instead, his backing came from England, where subscribers underwrote the classic Birds of America.
  3. One bookseller claimed it would never succeed because the book took up an entire table to view and would render other volumes useless.
  4. A reduced-size two-volume collection, a gift from my younger daughter, has me appreciating the radical design and style of many of the images. There was no way, after all, to approximate the original color, yet any approximation opened other dimensions.
  5. He worked from actual specimens he had shot and killed, arranged in lifelike settings.
  6. He did create a controversy regarding the smell of turkey vultures, or what some of us call buzzards.
  7. Some of the birds he discovered remain a mystery.
  8. He’s known mostly by copies of copies or even additional copies, each time diluting the impact of the originals.
  9. He had nothing to do with the national Audubon Society or its Massachusetts and New Hampshire spinoffs.
  10. He’s buried in New York City.

Forget what you think you know about pirates

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The popular image, shiver me timbers, comes straight out of Disney.

To set the record straight:

  1. They didn’t punish people by making them walk a plank blindfolded. Instead, the victims were killed immediately or keelhauled – tied to a rope and dragged behind the ship.
  2. They didn’t say “Ahoy!” or “Matey!” I’m not so sure about “Argh!”
  3. Female pirates had to disguise themselves as men to protect themselves. But, by some accounts, there were many of them.
  4. Forget the buried treasure. And their loot was often something other than gold or jewelry.
  5. In fact, maps and some books were more treasured as booty than gold.
  6. Captains were elected and could be removed. Who would have thunk?
  7. The eyepatch wasn’t to hide a missing eye but rather to allow for rapid visual adjustment between above deck and below. Anyone want to try that for verification?
  8. Conditions aboard a pirate ship were often more civilized than those on merchant vessels, where lousy rations and low pay were often common.
  9. The skull-and-crossbones Jolly Roger wasn’t the only terrifying pirate flag, by far. How about Black Bart’s one having himself holding an hourglass with the Devil? Or Captain Low’s blood-red skeleton standing at the ready?
  10. Pirates still flourish today, especially in the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific.

Well, Eastport’s annual pirate weekend festival’s coming up. We’re bracing for the invasion.

Calais, the one just north of us

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The biggest municipality in sprawling Washington County is the city of Calais, pronounced CAL-us, like hardened skin, rather than the French Cal-LAY, its namesake port on the English Channel.

Set north of Eastport and having a population of slightly more than 3,000, it’s the retail hub of the county and neighboring Canada and the principal international border crossing for traffic to and from the industrial port city of Saint John, New Brunswick, and other coastal points.

With that in mind, here are a few more facts.

  1. Thanks to the border traffic, much of it as Sunbury tractor-trailer rigs, Calais has all of the permanent traffic lights in the county. Three, make that four, if I’m counting right. Yup, pay attention.
  2. It’s the eastern terminus for the Airline Highway, a section of State Route 9 that connects those trucks to Interstate 95 in Bangor and all points south and west in the U.S.
  3. Calais abuts Saint Stephen in Canada, which has both a candy museum and manufacturer and the best health fitness center in our region. The Saint Croix river separates them before continuing upstream as the international boundary.
  4. Calais has the only new auto dealership in the county, as well as the only Walmart.
  5. It’s home to the community college.
  6. The first European to explore the place was Samuel de Champlain in 1604.
  7. That year he was one of two leaders in settling on an island in the tidal stretch of the river. That effort was abandoned the following spring after a brutal winter in which more than half of the colonists perished. Had the venture succeeded, it’s possible we’d all be speaking French here. Today the site of this first French settlement in New France is commemorated at the Saint Croix international historical park.
  8. While its name honors French assistance to the American Revolution, I should also point out that the original had also sometimes been part of England.
  9. It was first settled by Daniel David Hill of York County, Maine. He was likely a descendant from an old Quaker family affiliated with Dover, New Hampshire.
  10. In summer, it’s often much hotter than Eastport. In winter, it’s typically colder.

Oh, yes, there’s even a tiny movie theater we want to check out.

 

The interior static continues

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Ten more random notes in no particular order:

  1. The “award-winning” writer or actor or whatever is such a cliché anymore I will assume everyone’s won prizes. It’s the ones with money that count.
  2. Jail visitation makes the inmates feel safe, gives them respect.
  3. A surprise way to increase your wealth. Hit square on the calculator! Beats the interest multiplier for sure. Could this be the secret of cryptocurrency?
  4. I see she’s moved back to Allentown from Rhode Island.
  5. Cops at the coffee shop. What an iconic image.
  6. Playing cards were invented during the reign of Tudor king Henry VII (1485-1509) and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Their portraits have appeared eight times on every deck ever since.
  7. New leap for storing leeks through the winter: peat moss! Rather than hay or straw or sand.
  8. Overhead light in the car interior … not just replacing a bulb anymore …
  9. The blue haze in the forests that gives the Great Smoky Moutains their name is actually a fog released by volatile organic compounds in the region’s vegetation.
  10. Marden’s Surplus & Salvage has 14 locations in Maine. As for Remy’s?

 

Urban deer, oh dear

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Eastport – centered on Moose Island – is one of many small cities being overrun by deer. You may have met some of the culprits here at the Red Barn.

Here are some random bits as a result.

  1. In the Wampanoag language, they’re known as “the ones with wet noses,” for the way they investigate the world around them.
  2. Why do fawns have white spots? I suspect it could be a good opportunity for a storyteller to develop. Along with the question of why fawns eventually lose them.
  3. They like apples. Man, do they. Some will dance on their hind legs in reaching for the branch overhead.
  4. They can destroy a garden overnight.
  5. That said, they’ll eat just about anything. One even swallowed a spigot on our bird feeder.
  6. Speaking of which, a bit of cayenne pepper in the feeder seems to repel them. As the adage goes, better late than never, regarding some lessons.
  7. They’ll eat out of your hand if you’re patient. Not that I advise that.
  8. Bucks get bumped out of the circle as they come of age.
  9. The most we’ve counted in our small yard at one time was ten.
  10. We’ve had an albino in the north end of town. I first thought it was a goat in the night.
Here’s a shot from our dining table. Or hers, as well.

Much of what our commercial fishermen catch isn’t ‘fish’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Eastport’s fleet doesn’t use nets to fish. Rather, they use dragging gear or baited traps, mostly.

Technically, the bulk of what they catch isn’t fish, which are vertebrates, have gills, and lack limbs with digits. Fish fall into the scientific superclass of Osteichthyes, as noted in a previous Tendrils.

Shellfish, meanwhile, are invertebrates, have external skeletons, and are classified as molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. See a more recent Tendrils.

So today, let’s look at what the local commercial fishermen catch. Or, in some cases, used to.

  1. Lobsters. The mainstay.
  2. Scallops. Some of the world’s best, in our humble opinion. The haul, though, is tightly regulated.
  3. Clams. While many of these are raked on sand or mud flats at low tide, others are dredged by boats at sea. They add up to the state’s third most valuable fishery.
  4. Urchins. A specialty niche making a comeback. Japanese foodies love them, but the market’s tricky.
  5. Crabs. See a previous Tendrils.
  6. Alewives, herring, and mackerel. Often caught for use as lobster bait.
  7. Shrimp. Well, not anymore, but we can keep hoping the stock will rebound.
  8. Mussels. There are some interesting attempts to establish farmed beds around here. Now that would be lovely.
  9. Cold. I’m talking about the crusty fishermen. They do bundle up in the depth of winter, though, and rarely complain.
  10. The sunrise. They head out early, all seasons of the year. Some of the views they catch are unbelievable.

Let’s not overlook salmon, a major product here, which are farmed in pens and harvested directly by special boats using tubes that work something like a giant vacuum hose. Not kidding.