Leaving Owl's Head

Tuesday morning, we said goodbye to Jim and Mary, very grateful to have had a lovely visit and a chance to be in their new home. We stopped in the little village of Owl's Head to have breakfast at the Country Store - which has very nice little cafe - and to mail postcards.

                Owl's Head Post Office

                      Country Store cafe in Owl's Head

It started to sprinkle on the drive home. We stopped for bread at When Pigs Fly and for fish chowder at Bob's Clam Hut, and arrived home at about 4:30 p.m., enough time to unload the car and finish printing out music for River Singers - a process I had started in Maine. By the time we left for rehearsal - the first one of this season - it was raining in earnest.

Scottish dancing

Monday evening, we went with Jim and Mary to their Scottish Dancing class which is held in an American Legion Hall in Belfast, ME. On the way, we had supper at Mr. Wat's restaurant in Rockport, a Japanese restaurant. Our food was served on a very nice platter - like a tray divided into sections. We had a chuckle over this sign that greeted us as we entered the restaurant:

                      We had a very nice meal of No Sushi

It was fun watching the dancers. There were about eight couples in all. Jim and Mary are good! The dancing involves very intricate patterns. 

              Scottish dancing 

Owl's Head Light

Monday, I had a little time by myself while Jim was working and Ellen and Mary were in Hope. So I took a little trip to the Owl 's Head Lighthouse, which is about 2 1/2 miles from Jim and Mary's house. It is now part of a state park. You park your car and walk about 1/4 mile to the lighthouse. It is a beautiful structure and a  beautiful spot.

    The approach to the lighthouse

53 steps up to the base of the lighthouse 

           Up at the top

           View from the top

There was an information kiosk that included this very nice 1927 postcard. Notice that back then the ramp and stairs were enclosed. Of course, then, there was a resident lighthouse keeper who had to be able to access the light year-round, in all kinds of weather, day and night. 

         Old Owl's Head Light postcard

Rain adventure

We're back home and it is raining steadily. It has been raining for over 12 hours and will continue to rain through the morning at least. So this entire area is under a flood watch. Feast or famine! Looking out right now, there is a waterfall behind our house that is rarely there.

     That patch of white is water!

Here's one that has sprouted on the hillside by the new shed. 

Last night I had a little scare. Getting ready for bed, I couldn't find my iPhone, and spent probably a half-hour at least looking in every place it could possibly be. No luck. But then I had a dim sense it might have fallen on the ground when I was getting in or out of a car when we car-pooled to go to our River Singers rehearsal. I had a dim memory of hearing sort of a soft "thunk." So I got dressed again and drove to the place where we had parked. It was dark and raining, but with the car lights and two flashlights I made a good search. No phone. I was relieved in a way because I had no idea what shape the phone would be in if it had been sitting there getting wet for several hours. But where was it? If I heard a "thunk," maybe it had fallen between the seat and the door. My memory was that I had heard the "thunk" as I was getting into Eliza's car. That would entail driving to her house and looking in her car. At 11p.m.! But then I thought - maybe I was getting out of my car. So I looked and - voila - there it was!  Almost hidden under the seat. Much relieved! Of course, if I had thought of that earlier, I could have saved myself a trip. 

Saturday at the Common Ground Fair

Yesterday, I spent the day at the Common Ground Fair, but it was more like being at sort of a far-out alternative university. I attended what amounted to seven "classes" or at least fragments of classes.

(1) I heard the keynote address by Steven Druker on Altered Genes, Twisted Truth - an "expose" of an alleged cover-up by the FDA to withhold, from the public, scientific information which would call into question the current presumed safety of genetically engineered food products, so-called GMO's. This is a serious topic, and it is a highly controversial one. People like Druker believe that the FDA, and a majority of the mainstream scientific community, are "in the pocket" of,  controlled by,  corporations like Monsanto who profit from GMO's. On the other side, the scientists whom Druker believes have been "bought out," consider Druker an ill-informed crank, and equate him with people who believe vaccines cause autism, or worse. They typically say, "Don't bother to read his book: it's full of distortions, illogical thinking, unscientific "howlers" and outright lies." It's hard to find a solid place to stand in this debate. Druker's presentation was convincing enough to cause me to buy his book. I've read enough of it to see that he probably is guilty of some common logical fallacies, and cause me to wish he had had a good editor, but on the other hand,  he is probably on to something. The food industry is fighting tooth and nail to prevent GMO labeling. There is a bill in Congress right now  (HR 1599) which would federally override the attempts of states like Vermont and Maine to require GMO labeling. It has been dubbed by its opponents the DARK bill, i.e., the Bill to "Deny Americans the Right to Know." It has passed the House and is in the Senate. You have to wonder, why are corporations spending millions to prevent people from knowing that their food has been genetically altered? They, and the scientists which support them, claim that what they are doing is no different from what nature does "naturally," (e.g., pass genes from one species to another), and what humans have long been doing to help nature (e.g., creating hybrid corn), and they also claim that there is no "credible evidence" that anyone has actually been harmed by GMO's in food. Druker claims that there is such evidence, and that it has been suppressed, and that what corporations like Monsanto are doing is not like that scientists were doing up until about 25 years ago, it does pose a real risk, and needs to be tested under rigorous scientific controls for its safety, something which the FDA does not currently require. I'm not sure I have the scientific background to wade through this minefield, but I'm going to try.

(2) I attended a workshop on "Home Burial." I had attended the same workshop about three years ago, but wanted to be refreshed, and indeed, things have changed somewhat. The personal aspect of this is whether I would prefer being cremated or having a "green burial," i.e., just having my body placed in the ground and allowed to decompose naturally. The latter is a real possibility, especially if I wanted to do it on my own land, but I'm not sure it can be done in the Dummerston Center cemetery. The presenters yesterday said that varies widely and that I need to check the actual bylaws of the cemetery. Some of them were written when that's exactly how they buried people, and therefore may not actually be outlawed in so many words. So I'll check that out. They also gave me some contact information in Vermont. The key organization is the Funeral Consumer Alliance. I also learned about highly creative ways of preserving one's ashes. I don't think any of these particularly appeal to me, but some people have, e.g., had a phonograph record pressed from their ashes, with their favorite music recorded on it; others have had their ashes mixed into fireworks, which are then set off at a grand party. One very creative idea  was having your ashes handed out in little bags at your funeral and asking people to dispose of them at a place of their choosing, but taking a photograph of the place and the act of dispostion, making an accompanying narrative,  and then mailing that back to the family, who make a big board (onlne?) with all the photos and descriptions.

(3) I also attended a presentation on prison reform. I got there late, so missed some things at the beginning. One of the presenters was Ray Luc Lavasseur, an activist who had adopted violent means of protest against war and other injustices which had gotten him 20 years in federal prison, 15 of which were in solitary confinement! It isn't every day of the year you get to listen to someone with that kind of a story. I wondered if he was something of a modern-day John Brown. He was passionate about the need for prison reform, and his arguments, based in part on his own personal experience, were pretty powerful. The other presenter, Lance Tapley, is a Maine journalist who has extensively researched what is happening inside Maine prisons, especially the Maine State Prison in Warren, and does not hesitate to call what is happening "torture." This was a very sobering presentation.

Ray Lavasseur and Lance Tapley

(4) and (5) were on building practices - "Designing and Building a Small House,"  which Ellen and I continue to be interested in (but are having a hard time figuring out how to afford one), and "Passivhaus-Building Ecologically in Maine," which Ellen attended in its entirety and I heard a bit of. These were both interesting and informative, though perhaps providing little we had not heard before, but it's always good to have it reinforced.

(6) was a talk on gardening by Will Bonsall, whom we have heard several times, and always learn from (again, Ellen heard it all, I heard a part).  He has his own very special philosophy of gardening which he is trying to make truly "organic" and "sustainable." His primary source of nutrients is leaf litter, and other growth, which is "naturally provided" by nature itself and just needs some human labor to get it to the right place. He also uses "humanure," which is another very local source of nutrients. He believes that "organic," means "not bringing in nutrients from somewhere else (like fertilizer)." Which of course means that much of what is called "organic" isn't, in his book. Nor is it sustainable. He visualizes and tries to realize a completely self-contained organic system in his garden, and he is largely successful.

Will Bonsall

(7) Finally, I attended a presentation on "humanure," by people who are doing it. I won't go into detail here (and no photos!), but the workshop was held next to a compost pit in which "humanure" was mixed with sawdust and other household compost and it was purring away and was oderless. Hardwood sawdust is definitely the way to go. One of the practitioners has three such piles, one per year, and after three years the first pile is perfectly safe and great compost. There is a book, The Humanure Handbook if you are interested. I tried to buy it, but they had sold out.

At the Episcopal Church in Thomaston, Maine

This morning I met Phil and Deborah McKean at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Thomaston. It is a small congregation, and a fairly elderly one, but the church was comfortably full. They have a very nice pipe organ, and the man who played it, Dr. Anthony Antonini, is on the faculty of the Music Department at Bowdoin College, so the music was good, a good selection of hymns and chants in a traditional Episcopal liturgy. There was no choir, however. I think they may have a choir for special Sundays like Easter and Christmas. The Rector, Rev. Peter Jencks, gave a thoughtful sermon on a passage from Mark which has Jesus saying, among other things, "if your hand offends you, cut it off - better to be missing a hand than to be cast into hell with your whole body!" Now one cannot argue with the logic of that text, but the image is pretty horrendous. Rev. Peter affirmed that it was silly to think that your hand could be responsible for a moral failure. If you are trying to lose weight, and you open the fridge, see a piece of pie, and reach out for it, you can't really say, "that wasn't me - that was my hand that was at fault." So he went on to talk about getting things right "inside us" at the seat of where we make decisions. But what are we to make of Jesus saying something like that - if indeed he really said it! If I had been preaching on the text, I would probably have wrestled with that question a bit more.

Adorning the wall in the sanctuary was a very striking image of the Madonna and Child. Deborah pointed out to me that years ago, she had been a Deacon in this church, back when she and Phil lived year-round in nearby Cushing, Maine. During that time, she made a mission trip to Haiti, to visit a "sister church," in Fiervil, Gros Morne. While there, she acquired this painting of the Madonna and Child, and another of the Last Supper, painted by Haitian artists, and brought them back to present to the church in Thomaston.

Dr. Antonini at the organ

The altar at St. John the Baptist in Thomaston

"Madonna and Child" by a Haitian artist

"The Last Supper" by a Haitian artist

We'll be meeting Phil and Deborah for supper tonight at a restaurant in Rockland for a last visit before we go home. They will be heading back to Claremont, CA on Wednesday.

Promised pictures of house

Today is yet another gorgeous day! Sunny and cool. The organizers of the Common Ground Fair must be ecstatic. Three days in a row of perfect fair weather. That's where Ellen and Mare are. I stayed in Owl's Head, met Phil and Deborah at church in Tomaston, then came back to the house. Jim and I had lunch together and now he is outside working on shingles and I'm inside blogging. I just took some photos of the new house, which we are enjoying very much. You'll get a good sense of how much light comes into the house from these photos.

This is how the house and garage look as you approach on the road as it curves around their lot. 

Then you turn up their driveway. If you look carefully at the ridge of the house, you'll see something that projects above the ridge. Those are newly installed solar panels on the south side. They project a bit above the ridge, and that is not the way Jim and Mary wanted them to be placed. The builder had assured them that they would not be visible from the north side, but they are. So they are trying to decide how to handle that. 

Pulling in front of the house. Cedar shingles have yet to be installed, and there is a lot of landscaping yet to be done.

The south side of the house. The livingroom is on the right, where the three large windows are. Left of that is the kitchen. Then the entryway and the three windows on the far left are all in the studio.

The south side seen from the road.

The living room as you enter from the front hall.

The living room from the dining table. Jim is on the couch. The kitchen is behind him.

The kitchen from the hallway

The studio - the piano is visible at far right; temporary bed in the far right corner. This will eventually be both where Jim paints and where he meet students for music lessons.

The bedroom - normally where Jim and Mary sleep but they have graciously given it to Ellen and myself for our visit.

There is another small room - Mary's office - which is off the entryway. There is a full bath and a half bath/laundry room. There is a full basement. And that's it. It is a compact house, and it is very energy efficient. We like it a lot.

Oh, one more photo:

This is the view standing on the road in front of their house, looking east at the ocean. You can get a little glimpse of the water from the house, and it will be a bit more visible once the leaves fall. They have right of access to the water down this road. I'll post some photos of the little beach later.

Common Ground Fair

Today was our first day at the fair, which is sponsored by MOFGA - the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association. It is considered one of the best agricultural fairs in the East, maybe in the country, attended by 10's of thousands of people, yet with a home-spun flavor. Lots of exhibits, demonstrations, workshops, crafts, music, food booths, etc. No midway, no rides, nothing like that. And the theme is "alternative," - ways to grow, market and consume food that are earth-friendly, small-scale, non-chemical, energy-saving, healthy, etc.

We met our friends, Phil and Deborah McKean, who summer in Cushing, ME and are at Pilgrim Place, Claremont, CA the rest of the year, a retirement community esp. for clergy, missionaries, teachers, etc. Phil qualifies in all three categories. My friendship with the McKeans goes back to 1964 in Providence, RI, where I was a chaplain at Brown University and a graduate student in Religious Studies, and Phil was an assistant minister at Central Congregational Church and a graduate student in Anthropology. A long friendship! Whenever we're together we always talk about important things and laugh a lot. 

Today we met at noon, bought fish tacos, and sat at a picnic table, talking and eating. Then we watched the amazing demonstrations of sheep dogs corralling small herds of sheep, goats and ducks - immensely entertaining. They always bring a group of children out to see if they can manage the animals as well as the dogs, and of course they never can, but it's fun to see them try. After that we got an early supper and had a bit more time together at one of the performance tents where there was a place to sit. It was good fair weather - if anything a bit on the cool side. After P&D left, Ellen and I looked around a bit more and left at about. 6p.m. We'll go back tomorrow and probably Sunday too. There is a lot to see! 

                   Phil and Deborah McKean

                              Herding sheep and goats....

                                ....and ducks.

               A satirical exhibit devoted to stamping out big $$ from politics. 

                              And six very content piglets

Here we are in Maine!

We are at Jim and Mary Tolles' new house in Owl's Head, ME. They themselves have been living in it only two weeks-it's that new. It is a modular house which they have put a lot of sweat equity into. It isn't quite finished, but almost. Here's the view from our bed:

           The closet doors. Beautiful! Jim still needs to install the top trim. 

I'll post some pictures of the house later when I get a chance.

We left home after 11am.  It was a beautiful day for a drive. We listened to Pope Francis address Congress, and then a lot of commentary about it. It was a moving address. Leaves were turning here and there. It was lovely, just riding along together. We stopped at Bob's Clam Hut in Kittery for a late lunch. Our usual meal there - haddock, fish chowder, cole slaw and onion rings. We arrived at Owl's Head at about 7p.m. A lovely supper and then we watched Upstairs, Downstairs, which Jim and Mary have been following using Netflix. They missed it the first time around. I think I watched it decades ago, but remember very little, though Mr. Hudson, the butler, seemed very familiar. 

                                   Lunch at Bob's

Heading for Maine

Today I worked on bringing in wood - cleaning up from the earlier work that cleared a large area east of the house. Also cut up kindling left from tearing down the old shed. And we both worked on music quite a lot. Ellen feels better tonight and we both went to Concert Choir rehearsal. My voice is at maybe 80% of where I would like it to be. I hope that with regular singing it will gradually come back, but it may be partly age.

Tomorrow morning we'll head to Maine for the Common Ground Fair. Stay tuned!

The Hermitage

Today, I've been helping John build his "Hermitage," a small cabin which he will use as a place to practice his contemplative life. It is located about 300 feet from the house in a little glade by a brook - a dry brook right now, but which always flows in the spring and some years, flows year-round. It is 9x12 in size, with a small front porch. John has totally designed it and for the most part built it by himself. It incorporates a lot of the materials he salvaged from the old shed which I took down earlier this summer,  2x4's, 2x8's, OSB board, etc. He is also incorporating some 8x8 beams he salvaged from a barn. It is essentially a post and beam structure, but he calls it a hybrid because at the two ends, the stud wall is sharing the load of the roof with the vertical beams. That's because the beams have some dry rot, and he wanted to be able to take them out if he had to. It is all put together with screws. It is really a nice structure. Today he was putting up the rafters. Since it is far enough away from the house to make an extension cord impractical, he has used hand tools a lot, although he has used a cordless drill. He has had to do a lot of cutting of boards near the house and then carry them to the hermitage. It's been quite a job! Here are some photos I took yesterday (forgot my camera today).

Approaching the Hermitage

Closer up

Starting the rafters

My job today was basically  handing things up to John, which saved him having to go up and down the ladder. After he had done all the rafters, Cynthia took us out to eat at a nearby Chinese restaurant.
 Meanwhile, Ellen stayed home nursing a bad cold. She's been pretty miserable with it, but feels a bit better this evening;

 While we're on the subject of buildings, let me go back and pick up a couple of photos from Swarthmore. Our friend Wallace has done a great job of creating a garden around her house, and also creating a warm and lovely home inside. Below are some before and after pictures.

Wallace's house, which she rents from Swarthmore College, back before she had moved in, about six years ago.

The way it looks today

The living room, back when it was being repainted by the college before Wallace moved in.

The living room today. 

Full Sunday

Today we went to church in Dummerston.  Pastor Susanna Griefen's sermon on Genesis chap. 2 made a brilliant correlation between the movement of that chapter and the overall progress of evolution - sort of a "theology recapitulates ontogeny" argument. Intriguing! She also made a long and heartfelt prayer for Betsey.

After church, on this crisp fall-like day (the last day of summer!), we took a lovely walk on Black Mountain Road and then headed down to Amherst First Church where Katie, Savanna and Brendon were performing with others in a Peace Concert - celebrating International World Day of Peace. Both Katie and Brendon sang several solos, Katie played acoustic guitar and Savanna electric guitar. 

         Brendon (middle), Katie (at mike) and Savanna (far right) performing. 

                                        Brendon singing a solo

                        Katie singing with her friend, Dorothy

                    Katie also sang duets with another old friend, Roger. 

                  A group of drummers had us all dancing in the aisles ! 

After this event we all had supper at a nearby Chinese restaurant. A good time together! 

Family time

These past two days have been family time. Yesterday, Friday, we had lunch with Katie and Savanna at their place, a very nice lunch on their screened porch, and it was lovely to see them again after three months away. There was a lot to catch up on. Brendon came home after school and we got to see him a bit. Then they all went off to an appointment and we headed home, but we called the Feinland's to see if they were home, and we stopped at the Sugarloaf Frostie in Sunderland for a bite to eat. Julie called while we were eating saying "come over," so we did, and we were there for their Shabbat ritual, which included lighting candles and sending the light out to Betsey, Rob and Katie. We also each said what we were grateful for and something about ourselves we liked. We were glad to hear Ben say he was grateful for his high school teachers! 

Tonight we will round out the family time by having John and Cynthia over. 

Oh yes, I promised a photo of our new shed. Here 'tis:

                              Our new shed. Cute!

Inside the shed. I hope eventually to build some shelves. 

                   We also have a new lawn! Things are looking nice!

The work done included making the driveway and parking area in front of the house look neater.