Category: Nature

Hendrick Head Trail

Maine Moments: Outside & Inside

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HIKING TRAILS

This is a different Maine for us.  No restaurant meals.  Limited social activities and more time at home.  But if we want a change of scene, then there are local trails to explore.  The Boothbay Region Land Trust maintains preserves in Boothbay, Southport, Edgecomb, and the surrounding area.  A variety of trails are open to the public, some good for hiking, others suitable for easy walking. 

Several years ago, we hiked the wooded one-mile trail at Porter Preserve on Barter’s Island.  It has some gradual elevation and several great vistas of the Sheepscot River and one overlook with a welcoming bench.

Large toadstool

This week we went to the nearby Hendrick Head Trail.  This is a short trail, just a half mile one way that then loops back to the main road.  It’s wooded and quiet and the path was dotted with tiny pinecones and one giant toadstool.

The trail entrance is located just down from a little beach and from the beach, there’s a view of the Hendricks Head Light. This lighthouse was established in 1829, with the present structures dating from 1875.  It’s a squarish lighthouse with a keeper’s house that has a bright red roof.

Hendricks Head Light (lighthousefriends.com)

HODGE PODGE OF READING

I mailed a box of books to Maine and between them and e-books from the library, I have a motley assortment.  Here are just two of them.

Tough Love by Susan Rice

Susan Rice (nytimes.com)

Susan Rice is one of the contenders to be Joe Biden’s vice-presidential candidate which makes her memoir timely.  A Black woman who grew up in a contentious household (her parents ultimately divorced), she served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama and then as his national security advisor.  She was slated to become his secretary of state but was pilloried in the press and on social media for comments she made after the Benghazi incident.  Smart, extremely knowledgeable about a range of international issues, Rice is straightforward and occasionally blunt.

The book is long and covers some of the same crises that Samantha Power dealt with in her book, The Education of an Idealist.  I confess to doing a fair bit of skimming and, at points, being more interested in the personal details of how she juggled having young children with her very demanding schedule.  Nonetheless, I recommend it. I think you will come away impressed with her accomplishments and her talents. (~JWFarrington)

Kiss and Kin by Angela Lambert (1997)

I bought this novel in paperback some years ago (the paper is yellowed) and never had read it, so added it to my Maine stash.  It’s a story of love and loyalty in two upper class British families.  Harriet is a recent widow in London to celebrate her grandson Hugo’s birthday. He’s the child of her son, Roderick, and daughter-in-law, Jennifer. They are going through a rough patch with talk of divorce.  

The other grandparents, Oliver and Clarissa, are slated to attend, but Oliver arrives alone and is immediately transfixed by Harriet.  As Oliver and Harriet embark on a passionate affair, they agonize over what they perceive as their duty to their adult children.  Harriet particularly is concerned about the impact of their relationship, once proclaimed, on their mutual grandchildren.  I enjoyed this novel, but found it dated, an opinion shared in other online reviews.  (~JWFarrington)

Note: Toadstool and header photo on Hendrick Head Trail ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

SRQ Scene: Art & Nature

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The Fence at Nathan Benderson Park. (Sarasota)

The Fence2018 is a traveling outdoor photography exhibit that will go to eight cities across the country including Boston, Atlanta, and Santa Fe.  Currently in Sarasota, it is on two sections of double-sided fencing on the perimeter of Benderson Park.  The photos have been enlarged and are printed on fabric which is attached to the fence. Depending on the time of day and the light, the cross-hatching of the fence may show through obscuring the images a bit.  We were there just before noon and one side was somewhat affected.  

The photos are arranged by categories with explanations about the photographer and what he or she was trying to accomplish.  Subject matter ranges widely from food to former female prisoners at home to topography to dog grooming to families living on either side of the border meeting at a wall.  Whimsy, humor, pathos, and celebration exist in these photos.  The exhibit runs through the end of January and is worth a visit.

Part of “Hairy” series by Grace Chon
Azalea Trail Maid by Adair Rutledge

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Being obscured in nature by Brooke Didonato

Robinson Preserve (Bradenton)

A number of my friends have enthused about Robinson Preserve and how much they have enjoyed kayaking here.  We had never visited it before, but it’s close by and used my sister and brother-in-law’s visit as incentive to do so.  Located in northwest Bradenton, this preserve is very open and includes grasslands and saltwater marsh.  There are a number of hiking and biking trails and a pedestrians only path.  The pedestrian path is wide and made of a spongy material making it very comfortable under the feet.  It winds around several ponds and up and down gentle inclines.   We saw a large cluster of ducks as well as white pelicans, anhingas, and herons.  Even one lone roseate spoonbill.  The preserve is open from sunrise to early evening and has an observation tower and pavilion which we didn’t explore this time.  For a change of pace, this pleasant preserve is a relaxing way to enjoy nature.

White pelicans


Note: All photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Culture & Nature

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CULTURE NOTES

In addition to the other lectures and cultural events we regularly attend, this year we added Town Hall, the lecture series that benefits the Ringling College Library. Former CIA director John Brennan was the leadoff speaker, and his discussion of intelligence gathering, the United States’ place in the world, and what should be required of anyone holding public office was focused, pointed, and oh, so very timely!

Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion at the Ringling Museum. My sister Sally paints in watercolor and her husband Bruce works with fused glass to make jewelry so a trip to the art museum was a perfect outing. We were all impressed with the wide range of glass pieces on display here. This new gallery just opened and is a marvelous addition. Everything from blown glass to cast glass to slumped by artists from Czechoslovakia, The Netherlands, and Japan as well as the U. S. We also visited the Asian Center (opened in 2016) and explored some of the permanent collection in the main building. If you like glass, this gallery is a must and it’s free!

Shakespeare in Love at the Asolo Rep Theatre gets off to a slow start and then becomes lively and delightful! As always, the acting is wonderful, the staging creative, and the music an essential and lovely counterpoint to the action. Full of humor and fun.

 

SALT FLATS AND MANGROVES 

We live on a small island surrounded and bounded by mangroves, our buffer against tides and wind. The Chief Penguin and I took advantage of the opportunity to see less visible parts of the island, particularly two salt flats, each very different in character. One was dry and gray and bare except for the skeletal remains (gray limbs) of some very dead mangroves.  

The other salt flat gets covered over when it rains, but this day was just a damp stark black with scattered patches of a low ground cover with tiny red flowers and some bits of green foliage. The black surface looked soft, but it was actually about an eighth of an inch thick, and if you peeled up a piece, very leathery. Underneath was some pinkish brown earth.

Our guide and resident naturalist, Bruce, shared some of the history of the island and also showed us the three different types of mangroves we have: red, that are always in wet ground with new growth and curved shoots down to the earth; green, that often have traces of excreted salt on their leaves; and white ones on which some leaves have a small notch at the tip. Both the green and the white mangroves can tolerate a drier setting than the red ones.  You might say, “mangroves are us” here.

 

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

 

 

 

 

Of Manatees and Movies

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It was a week for birds, manatees, and several very good films.

WILDLIFE

My sister Ann is more of a nature person than I am. She and Paul visited us this past week and they both enjoyed seeing the shore birds from our lanai.  Lots of great white egrets, white and a few brown pelicans, gulls, a few herons, and even a flyby of three roseate spoonbills.  Of course, after they left, I got to watch three spoonbills up close, foraging for fish in the low tidal mud!

My sister also wished to see a manatee or two, so we drove up to Apollo Beach and the Manatee Viewing Center, near Tampa and adjacent to the Big Bend power station.  Manatees, also called sea cows, are large marine mammals related to elephants.  In the winter, manatees seek out warmer waters and the water around this power plant attracts them in droves!  We probably saw at least a hundred lolling in the water and surfacing every few minutes for air.  They looked brown, some with algae on their backs, and are somewhat bullet shaped, rounded and with very small heads and prominent nostrils.  They are quite an impressive sight.  The viewing center includes a boardwalk nature trail through shrubs and grassland and a 50-foot viewing tower.  

Another day we took our guests to the South Florida Museum to check out their manatees. The museum is part of a network of facilities that provide care for injured manatees. Critical care is done in Tampa and three other locations.  This museum provides intermediate care and rehabilitation before the manatees are ready to be released back to the wild.  Manatees are most often injured by boat strikes and there were three on view, one weighing only several hundred pounds.  The goal is to get them to 700 pounds at least before they leave; they are released near where they were rescued so that they can learn which warm waters to return to the following winter.  We heard a presentation while the manatees, here appearing more gray in color, were feeding which was fun to see.  Among them, these three manatees devour 200 pounds of lettuce a day!

MOVIES

Lady Bird.  You might pair this film with Call Me by Your Name as both feature teenagers grappling with questions of identity and seeking love.  Call Me limits itself to focusing on the intense relationship Elio (Timothee Chalamet) has with Oliver, a visiting older student, while Lady Bird tracks Christine’s (aka Lady Bird’s) senior year, her desperate desire to escape from dull Sacramento, her longing to go far away to college, her battles with her strong-willed and occasionally abrasive mother, and her sexual explorations.

It’s a very fine film and Saoirse Ronan gives a marvelous performance at this girl from the wrong side of the tracks who wants more from life.  Chalamet is also here as one of her boyfriends.

Darkest Hour.  This is a totally absorbing film about Churchill’s early days as prime minister and deciding how Britain will deal with Hitler and his expanding empire.  It’s about leadership, party politics, and the events surrounding Dunkirk.  I felt as if I was really there at that time.  Gary Oldman is superb as the stubborn, irascible, inappropriate, but often brilliant (and right) Winston.  Kristin Scott Thomas is his understanding, bemused, and sometimes frustrated wife, Clemmie.  Highly recommended!

All the Money in the World.  I’ve just seen this film and now want to Google the Getty family and find out how much of it was fiction and how much fact.  Teenage Paul Getty was kidnapped in 1973; his divorced mother implores his grandfather, J. Paul Getty, to pay his ransom money.   Although he was the favorite grandson, grandfather Getty is adamant in his refusal to offer the money.  Christopher Plummer, recruited on short notice after Kevin Spacey was booted out of the role, gives a bravura performance while Michelle Williams is young Paul’s self-proclaimed “ordinary” mother.  The film is too long and slow at the beginning, but I’d see it just for Plummer.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).