Rolling On One

It’s a bit of a relief to find that the moose and raccoons don’t really go around hiding the signs to Poland Spring. There’s a big sign on route 26 pointing to Poland Spring Resort and Preservation Park, one big gate saying “Stress Free Zone”, and another saying “Welcome to Preservation Park.”

Right over THE SPRING itself is a nice stone springhouse:

The bigger building next to it is a little museum about the water cycle, climate and geology of that part of Maine (where does the underground water come from, and how much is there going to be in the future — not trivial questions, with the state legislature talking about restricting the amount of water bottlers will be allowed to take) and the history of the Poland Springs bottling company.

The place was not crowded. I think there was one other party in the museum when we were there. It was a beautiful spring day. The parking lot can accomodate lots of cars in the summer, but it looked pretty silly with our one car in it.

We walked the Montague trail down to the edge of Lower Range Pond and saw our first warbler wave of the spring, Pine, Palm, Yellow-Rumped, and Black and White warblers, and I’m going to say a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet also; and a Hermit Thrush. That wouldn’t be much in Mount Auburn, with dozens of other birders pointing out the hot spots; but for just the two of us, in a place we’ve never been before, it was good birding.

State as of weekend before last —

That’s the center brace fitting into one leg. The other leg didn’t have its mortise fully cut yet:

By the end of April 30 I had cut that mortise’s corners, bought lumber to make the top, glued the tops and bottoms of the legs to the uprights of the legs, and cut boards for the top to size. This picture has most of the top sitting on the legs, but the boards of the top are not joined to each other:

It’s actually going to get done some day!

When we drove to Norway (Maine!) with Anne and Matt two weeks ago, we came across a lovely little bridge, the Ryefield Bridge over the Crooked River between Otisfield and Harrison. Charley wanted to find an offbeat backwoods used bookstore. Arlene remembered that there was a bookstore in Norway that might fill the bill. We set off to retrace our route past the Bell Hill Meeting House and over the Ryefield Bridge.

It turns out that there were only two turns to remember. With minimal reference to the road atlas we got to the bridge, and from there to Norway.

This time I stopped and took pictures of the bridge. It’s not ancient, a little under a hundred years old. I’m not sure why it gets to be historic; to me, there should be something besides just being old to make something historic. Either something important happened there, or it’s the first or last remaining of its kind. I don’t know what the Ryefield Bridge’s claim to fame is, but I like it:

I think this bridge is really an example of the difference between just building something and engineering, that is, analyzing the problem to get a good solution with the least cost. The steelwork impresses me as being very light and graceful, built to last and hold the heaviest vehicle that’s likely to use it, with an adequate safety margin, but without any more material than it needs.

Maybe this gives you an idea of the lightness, as well as the nice stonework at the footings.

The roadway is wood, one lane.

Stephanie was signing her books yesterday (April 20) at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Really I should say “for Porter Square Books”, because the event was moved across the street to the Masonic Temple because they expected more people than the bookstore would be able to hold. I got there late, but there were so many people ahead of me in the line that it’s pretty clear that it was good that they didn’t try to do it in the bookstore.

The Masonic Temple is a good old early-Twentieth-Century building. I didn’t get to check the cornerstone, but I bet it was built before the 1930s. It could go back to before 1900, for all I know, but it didn’t impress me as that old.

The front doors were closed when I got there, at 5:40 for an event that was scheduled from 4:30 to 6. I had left work at 4:20, bicycled home, caught my breath, driven from Newton to Somerville (slow part: traffic light next to Alewife T stop on route 2 — it took at least four light cycles), left Arlene off at Charley’s house, and driven through Teele and Davis squares to get to the Porter Square shopping center parking lot.

I was in line behind a very petite 5’1″ woman named Omly (or that’s how she asked for her copy of the book to be signed) who was knitting toe-up socks in blue and self-patterning yarn. I brought my gray and maroon mittens, the first of which needs only a thumb and the second of which had a good start of the cuff when I got to Cambridge, and had almost a whole cuff by the time I got to the front of the line. Omly and I were talking about our knitting. The people behind me were having a spirited discussion of the Duke lacross team. I didn’t get into that conversation at all.

Stephanie seemed to be getting a little worn out by the time I got to the front of the line. I was very pleased that she remembered having seen me before and that I gave her (for TSF) some handmade wooden knitting needles. At that point it was getting awfully close to 6:30, which the Masonic Temple people had set as a real deadline for the event to be over, and there were still a half-dozen people behind me, so there was no time for more talk except to say a quick hello to Patience and Himself (who has a normal name! But those beans aren’t for me to spill.) Oh! I think I recognized Kimberly, and checking her blog I see she was there, but I didn’t get to say hello because she was way ahead in the line and had disappeared long before I got through the line.

I have read the first couple of chapters of Knitting Rules and I’m really enjoying it. So, if you have a chance to get a copy and have it signed, by all means do so, and get there early enough to hear Stephanie talk.

On Friday (April 21) Arlene said she heard on the TV that there would be a spectacular meteor shower that night. I checked on spaceweather.com and read that there was indeed a meteor shower expected, but the predictions were for around ten Lyrid meteors per hour. That didn’t sound spectacular to me. But one of the attractions of the Casco house was that it has lots of sky. The trees across the driveway are a good ways from the house and significantly downhill. The sky is much darker than it ever gets in Newton, of course. The moon was in the last quarter, so there would be no moonlight until the wee hours. It would certainly be worth checking.

Arlene and I both looked randomly around the sky, mostly to the north and northeast, for a while. I saw one good meteor moving east to west low in the north. After quite a long while I thought I figured out where Vega was and looked more in that direction, where the meteors should be coming from. We gave up. An hour later I went back outside. Lyra was considerably higher in the sky, and I hoped I’d see more. This time I did see three meteors, and I got a distinct idea that they were radiating from above and to the right of Vega. I was very pleased to see that my impression was a good match for the picture of where the radiant is.

So though it wasn’t a spectacular meteor shower, I did see a lot more meteors than I would have expected just any old night. This was the first time I’ve ever really felt that a meteor shower has a radiant point, just based on what I saw.

I found out from an alumni publication that came yesterday that one of my college classmates, Scudder Parker, is running for governor of Vermont. Scudder is one of the people I respect most from my class. I remember him as a serious student, active with the chapel and social issues (society as a whole, not campus social issues – he was certainly not part of the fraternity, party crowd). I haven’t seen him since graduation. I suspect he disliked the jocks and fraternity crowd that dominated the college atmosphere so much that he’s never been back for a reunion.

Somewhere there’s a photo I took of him and another classmate at the start of a contest to see which was the best route to hitchhike to Smith (Williams was not co-ed in those days), east towards Greenfield and then south, or south towards Pittsfield and then east. I have no idea who ended up getting there first, but both guys returned safely.

When Scudder’s first child was born, he wrote a note that was published in the alumni magazine saying that they had done Lamaze natural childbirth and that he recommended it highly. I think Arlene was pregnant with Charley at that time. I hadn’t been thinking about the natural childbirth part, but after seeing Scudder’s note I read a book about it and got very interested. I owe him big time for having written that.

I’m convinced that Scudder is an honest, intelligent, straightforward guy who wants to run government for the benefit of the citizens, not special interests. Anyone out there from Vermont, vote for him!

The weekend of April 7 Anne and Matt were in Casco with us. On Sunday we drove up to Norway to check out a clearance sale at a furniture place. We went up the continuation of Mayberry Hill Road to where it hits 121 north of Pleasant Lake and drove up Bell Hill to show Matt and Anne the view from the top — that’s the White Mountains in the background, I’m pretty sure —

— and the Bell Hill Meeting House that’s right across the street from that view.

The map showed Bell Hill Road as being cut through, so we explored and found a way to Norway that didn’t require backtracking.

There was nothing of interest, well, beautiful wooden toy trucks, but nothing we wanted to buy, at the furniture place. There was still a New Balance shoe outlet in downtown Norway, though it’s closing this spring and moving out to the highway. There was a Western Auto which didn’t have the license plate light bulbs I needed (oops! I didn’t blog about being stopped by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s deputy the night before, on the way back from Windham with the fire door on top of the car, for burned-out license plate lights) but did have a charcoal starter chimney. The guy sent us to WIP auto parts, I think it was, just on the edge of town, and we did get the bulbs.

Matt had his GPS along and was greatly enjoying telling us what was coming up around the next bend. We were more than ready for lunch at that point. The GPS said there was a restaurant called “The Lost Gull” ahead. The name sounded appealing to Matt, so we found it (exactly where the GPS said it would be, of course). I didn’t take a picture of it, but here’s its sign and the former church, now an antiques store, across the street:

(added later:) We were back in Oxford with Charley two weekends later, and that time I did take a picture of the place:

It’s (as you can see) a classic New England fish and chips place. Picnic tables outside, room for a half-dozen people to stand and place their orders indoors. Not elegant dining, but just what you want when you’re hungry on a beautiful spring day. We got various fried fish , sat down at a picnic table, and had our picture taken by the waitress. Left to right, Arlene, Matt, me, Anne.

I think it was after that jaunt that we made another attempt to find our way from the conservation area on Mayberry Hill Road down to the back of our property. With the GPS we were pretty confident we wouldn’t get lost, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t have to pick our way around some swampy areas and stone-step over running water. Two thirds of the way back we heard voices off to the side. Who should turn up but the people who live three houses away, up the paved road on the other side of the gate, with their dogs Butkis (I guess; having just heard it, I can’t be sure it’s not spelled with two Ts and two Ss), Jessie, and Tawny. They were happy to have us follow them to the corner of our lot, and assured us that you really can’t get lost in that area, so long as you keep walking straight or follow running water downhill. There’s a beautiful brook right on their property, and a lot of the running water in those woods ends up in it. The chances are that if you follow the water you’ll end up at their place. They say they never run into anyone else in the woods. Here’s the picture they took of us out there in the middle of nowhere:

There were still apple trees to be pruned when we got back. I had done a lot of it the weekend before, but I was still at it when Matt took this picture:

It’s been a while since I posted any project progress pictures. Here are three, as of Monday evening April 17.

I finished (except probably for more trimming of loose ends on the underside) redoing the rush seat of the living room rocking chair sometime last week. The idea was to have it out of the way, that is, out of the kitchen, in time for the seder. It’s a much better job than my first attempt at redoing this chair.

The hat I’m making from my leftover Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed (long enough name for ya?) and Bartlett Mills sandstone is halfway through the Jo Sharp part that’s going to be on the inside over the ears where the softness matters. The sandstone part that’s done will fold up and cover it, so the hat will just be that brick-red from the outside. Maybe you can see the fold line, one row of k with a 4-stitch decrease to encourage it to fold the right way and allow for a bigger diameter on the outside.

The opal mittens are, well, one of the opal mittens is done up to the point of Kitchenering the top and picking up the thumb stitches. It was a happy accident that I posed it on top of the book with the pattern, Robin Hansen’s Favorite Mittens

I took two hours out of the middle of the day and stayed at work late yesterday so I could watch a little of the Boston Marathon. Arlene and I walked from our house to Commonwealth Avenue, and back. That gives us two miles walking, a lot less distance than the runners have.

It seemed to us that there were somewhat fewer people watching where we were than in other years. We found a place on the curb just a block down from Center Street, about mile 19.5 of the race. Some wheelchair racers had already gone by, so we didn’t get to see the wheelchair leader. Racers were few and far between when we got there. You could tell that a wheelchair was approaching by the cheering a block away.

The elite women runners started half an hour before the elite men this year. They were preceded by a pace car, police motorcycles, and a truck full of photographers, none of which I have a picture of, and heralded by a couple of news helicopters.

They came by us just at 1:19, having started at 11:30. The elite men had made up about 14 minutes on them, coming by at 1:35. You can (barely, way over on the left) see the pace clock on the pace car in this photo, which I took to show the grandstand truck which precedes the leading men. I don’t know how the runners like the exhaust in front of them the whole way!

The grandstand truck is full of press photographers with serious optical equipment

…and right behind are the two men leading the race at this point. There may have been a camera or two hanging from the motor scooter to take leg-level shots.

My father’s parents and his older brother Joe and Joe’s wife Minna used to go to a fishing camp in Maine, Castle Island Camps on Long Pond, Belgrade Lakes, for their summer vacations. Castle Island Camps was (and as of five years ago still is) a collection of little wooden cabins around a slightly larger central building which was the dining hall for the place, on a tiny island at the narrows of a long figure-8 shaped lake. Right there at the middle of the “8” was a road across the lake, one bridge large enough to take a small motorboat under on the east side, one bridge a little larger than a large culvert on the west side of the island, and the eight or ten or dozen cottages of Castle Island Camps taking up the middle. You would buy bait and replace lost or broken tackle at the main building, take a boat from the dock, and spend all your time fishing in the lake.

In 1958, it must have been, my family went there for our summer vacation. It was my grandpa’s 80th birthday, so there was a little pressure to participate. (We went there the next year, too. Apparently my grandpa wasn’t really sure what year he was born, and wanted to celebrate his 80th again to be certain he got it right at least one of the two times. So really, the following story may have happened in ’59 rather than ’58.)

We used to fish for bass a lot on our vacations in Vermont, but never caught anything longer than about 12 inches. Grandpa and Uncle Joe assured us that there were lots of bigger fish in Maine, but we were skeptical. My father said before the trip, “If anyone catches a bass over 18 inches, I’ll get it mounted.”

We had a great time fishing from boats and the shore, but never hauled in as much as my grandma, grandpa, Joe, and Min. Then one day someone looked down in the water under the smaller bridge. My father looked and said, “The submarine fleet is in!” There was a school of huge bass right there, waiting to be caught. My sister Helen got one just under 18 inches. It was close enough to the cutoff that my father agreed to get it mounted. Then my sister Sarah caught one about an inch smaller. It was close enough to the limit, and more importantly close enough to the size of Helen’s, that to stave off the sibling rivalry he agreed to get it stuffed too. I got one on a fly rod, something over 15 inches, but was enough older and more mature that I wasn’t going to argue for getting it mounted.

The stuffed fish moved with us to California and with my father to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and back to Connecticut. When my father died they fell into my hands. They’ve been in the attic in Newton for a couple of years now, but sometime in March we took them to Casco. Now, 48 years after they left their home state, they’re back in Maine.