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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Good day, Sunshine!














I don't know how many days of sunshine we’ve officially had in Maine for the month of July, but I can tell you for sure that my count would be too few. The sun has finally been out for the past two days, but I think everyone is waiting for the other meteorologic shoe to drop. My weather station barometer says in fact, that it's going to rain. I’m not sure it actually will, though. There's an icon of a cloud with rain falling out of it and a downward pointing arrow. Perhaps it's been displaying that symbol for so long, that as it's mother probably told it, "Keep making that face and you'll get stuck that way!" Or maybe the weather station has finally cracked up, like the rest of us. This poor, Double Crested cormorant (a ‘DC’ in birding circles) is panting it's so hot! Birds do that when they are overheated or otherwise stressed. Most of them are smart enough to get into the water, though! Even David and I got into our pool for the first time this season. The sun brought everybody out and their laundry. This rental cottage sits across the cove from us. There is no electricity there, thus no clothes dryer. So, the minute the sun came out so did every wet towel and article of clothing this family possessed! And we had the first rainbow of the entire summer, though it too was quite washed out compared to years past. We see Hermit Island camp ground from our house. Every year when it rains I think of the poor campers, huddled in tents and standing around smoldering, damp fires, pretending they are having fun. We know a family that camped there every summer for eighteen years. For sixteen years, it rained. They finally bought a cottage here and paid a King’s ransom for it, too. Anything for a roof, they said. There is a certain amount of “street cred” to be earned in enduring this kind of thing in the name of fun and family bonding. I earned my chops this year when I went to Baxter State Park for the first time to see the moose cows with their calves. In the two days I was there, the park had a record ten inches of rain. The water levels were ten feet above normal, so no moose were to be seen. They had been driven to higher ground and away from their aquatic food sources. Either that, or they were all waiting it out at a bar in Millinocket, drinking beer and watching ESPN on a flat screen TV. This has been the year that even a moose might contemplate, “I think I’ll save up and buy a camp.”








8 comments:

  1. How do they pay for it ,selling their moose droppings
    so some fool can cover them will gold plate ?
    bmc

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  2. MOOSE!! I really want to photograph moose. I've seen them before sunrise at Moosehead Lake but have never been able to get a shot (photographically speaking) at one.

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  3. I know where you are coming from...RAIN...a blessing in itself but, enough already! I've had a bad hair day for over four weeks now! I have a bush growing on my head! The moose are smart to hit the high land. Where we live there is only flat and flat land...no moose, either.
    Love,
    Hula Girl

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  4. I wonder how the campers across the bay like having their "dirty laundry" aired on Robin's blog....:^)
    .......no pun intended...........

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  5. The cottage shot was wonderful, with your big lens? srb

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  6. I'm headed up to Baxter on Tuesday. I am privileged to actually have
    lived in the park for four summers. My husband was a ranger at South
    Branch Pond and Trout Brook Farm for 10 years--I met him at year 6. We
    lived in the little crew camp at South Branch and then in the ranger
    station at TBF. I had more moose sightings at TBF because there's a big
    field. Mama moose and her baby would wander past the cabin every summer
    where I could watch her just feet away from the window. We also had
    bears stroll across the field every now and then. Of course that never
    beat the night we had to chase a bear out of the campground at South
    Branch. The birding was beyond wonderful, though I wish I'd known as
    much then as I do now. I'm sure I missed a ton of species.

    Now we're just regular campers so there is no cozy cabin to retreat into
    while it pours. Therefore there will be NO Rain while we are camping. Ha.

    Julia

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