End of summer 2012 highlights reel

The Lobster Festival and the Union Fair

Four different houseguests, three days of sailing, two family gatherings, and a waxwing in the crabapple tree

Foggy Jonesport

A sailing trip Down East to Canada, just Himself and a friend from Outward Bound

Tostitos the Fish succumbed to galloping fungus and went to be with Jesus

Thing One had a fantastic summer as an apprentice on the schooner American Eagle

The mother of all seventh-grade-girls' sleepovers, aboard this 142' charter yacht whose captain happens to be Thing Two's friend's dad

Back-to-school shopping (ouch)

Three cords of wood delivered and needing to be stacked

And much, much more... but I've run up against my storage limit on this account, and life has changed enough since I started this little endeavor:  the kids are busier, my job is more demanding, and when the dishes are cleared and homework is done and I'm finally able to sit down of an evening, usually around 8.30 or 9, someone else is invariably using the computer.

So the blog is slowing down.    The occasional recipe or knitting project or shameless plug (which reminds me, I have one of those to share soon) or random thoughts.  

Thanks for following.

Playing tourist

Our very dear friend, the Rev. Dr. D, came to see us for a few days.

This gentleman was the chaplain at my college way back in the day, and hired me as the chapel organist when I was a sophomore.

Then he retired and moved to Oregon.  But he came back to Pennsylvania to perform our wedding.

Then he moved back to Pennsylvania.

We've kept in touch.  He loves Maine and had been wanting to come back for a while, and we were one stop on his whirlwind summer vacation.

In spite of breaking his leg last October and being almost 80, he ran me more or less ragged.


Here's what we did over the course of two days:

Cooked a mess of lobsters, steamers, mussels and corn, and made an unholy and thoroughly satisfying mess of the kitchen.

Got ice cream at Dorman's and seafood at the Rockland Cafe.

(Not in that order.)

Went up the Penobscot Narrows Observatory and all over Fort Knox.

Visited the Penobscot Marine Museum.

Walked around Camden and drove up Mt. Batty.

Had a picnic lunch at Marshall Point.

Poked around the Olson House.

(I can completely understand how someone could get hung up on this place and spend a lifetime painting it.)

















Met up with Thing One on the schooner American Eagle.

Went sailing.


Visited my grandmother.


Took about a bazillion pictures.


Revisited old memories and made new ones.


Had a blast.

Recipe: Winter Harbor Mussels & Pasta

We spent last Saturday night with friends in Winter Harbor, on the east side of Vinalhaven.  It's a narrow channel which the more adventurous sailor can pick his way up, threading around sand bars and outcroppings of ledge.

I am not an adventurous sailor.  Every time we go to Winter Harbor, I pour myself a glass of wine, lie down with a cold cloth over my eyes, and wait until I hear the anchor drop or the keel scrape bottom.  Whichever comes first.

It's worth the aggravation of getting there, though.  The scenery is amazing, and it's as good as landlocked, so a very sheltered anchorage.  There are granite cliffs to climb and old quarries to explore.  Bald eagles and osprey soar overhead.  The water is lovely, warm (by North Atlantic standards) and a translucent green.  And best of all, those sandbars at the tide line are loaded with mussels.

We gathered a mess of them and brought them home with us Sunday, cleaned them well and made pasta for dinner.

Winter Harbor Mussels & Pasta

3 lbs. small mussels (more or less), debearded, scraped, scrubbed, soaked and rinsed (or whatever it takes to clean them up)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/4 cup minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 28-oz cans whole Italian tomatoes, undrained
1 cup vermouth
1/4 cup each chopped fresh parsley and basil
Salt and pepper
1 lb. linguini or spaghetti, cooked & drained

Heat the olive oil in a large pot.  Saute the onion and garlic until the onion is tender.  Stir in red pepper, tomatoes (with juices) and vermouth; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the liquid is reduced by 1/4 to 1/3.  As it cooks, use a spoon or potato masher to crush the tomatoes.

Add the mussels; cover and simmer 5-7 minutes, until the mussels open.  Discard any that remain closed.  Stir in parsley and basil and season with salt and pepper.

Serve in bowls over hot cooked pasta, with plenty of bread for sopping.

Serves 4 generously.

Scenes from a weekend sailing trip

Carver Cove, Vinalhaven.  I want that house.

Little Hen Island?  Big Hen Island?  Some island.  Vinalhaven-ish.

Some island, probably called Hen.

Starboard Rock, Winter Harbor, Vinalhaven

The Monument, Fiddler's Ledge, North Haven

Lined curtains for a sailboat: A pattern, of sorts

Among the other upgrades to L'Heretique while she was on the hard for the winter, we had her tricked out with new cushions.

The old cushions

Fetching though the 1975 tweed plaid was, the foam was shot.  It was long past time.

And of course the old curtains (navy) didn't match the new upholstery (moss green), which is how I got sucked into a sailboat project.

(Himself spent three years nagging me to make the cushions, so I consider myself lucky for getting off relatively lightly here.  And the new upholstery doesn't match the laminate on the table, so there's another project for him.  Ha.)

His projects

Hers projects

Anyhoo, to the curtains.

Our Sabre 28 has two long windows in the main cabin, each requiring two large panels (roughly 13 1/2" high and 33" wide), and four small windows in the head and v-berth, needing eight small panels (roughly 11" high and 12" wide).

To the finished size add margins for the hem:  2" for the sides (1" each side), 1 1/4" for the bottom hem and a bit more for the top pocket seam - 1 3/4" for the smaller panels and 2 1/2" for the larger.

So we needed four panels cut to 17 1/4" high and 35" wide, and eight panels 15" high by 14" wide.  Three yards plus a fat quarter (which was all the local quilt shop had) and some ingenuity (one of the small panels is pieced together) of fabric was just sufficient.

Newspaper templates are helpful.

As is a drywall T-square for measuring and marking.

It works.  Shut up.

Now, cut a panel of muslin to correspond to each curtain panel - except make the muslin about 2" shorter and 1" narrower than your curtain panel measurements.

For each panel, pin the muslin to the curtain fabric, right sides together.  This will be the bottom of the curtain.

If your fabric has a directional print, this is where you want to confirm what's top and what's bottom.  Ripping out stitches sucks.

.

Stitch a 1/4" seam.

With the wrong side facing up, press the seam toward the curtain fabric...

... then bring the muslin to the top of the curtain panel, folding up 1 1/4" of the curtain fabric.

Press the 1 1/4" fold.

This will be the bottom hem of the panel.

  Now fold each side edge in a quarter of an inch, press...

...fold over 3/4", press again, and pin.

(You will notice up there at the beginning when I gave the finished measurements I said "roughly."  In case anyone is doing math here and about to post a comment pointing out a mistake or three.)

Stitch the side seams.








Almost there.

Fold and press the top seam - 1/4" for the smaller panels, 1/2" for the larger.

 - then fold another 1 1/2" and press again.  Pin.

Stitch along the edge of the fold.  Voila - a rod pocket.








Press one more time to set the stitches.  And that's it!  Hang them and enjoy.

Shade for sheep

Those are, indeed, what you think they are.

Beach umbrellas.  In a sheep pasture behind my office.

For shade, apparently.

And yes, in case you were wondering, the person who owns them has named every single one.

Allegheny College Choir Reunion 2012

Senior Recital, 1994

Every three years, my college's regularly scheduled reunion bash includes a gathering of choir alums.

The school's choral program has its roots in the St. Olaf tradition and there have been only three directors since its inception in the 1920s, the third being my teacher, Ward Jamison.

To say that we choir kids are passionate would be an understatement.  Any given reunion year draws 150, 200 singers from the graduating classes of 1940s to present.

But this year was special, because Ward and his wife Vicki, my voice teacher, are retiring after 31 years.  This year more than 300 of us came back.  The auditorium stage had to be built out to hold everyone.

Rehearsals ran from Thursday night through Saturday morning, with the concert on Saturday afternoon.

2012

And then Ward passed the baton.

How bittersweet.  Many tears, but also a celebration of my mentors' careers and a joyful welcome for his successor, my friend James who graduated a few years after me and has gone on to get a doctorate and teach at the college level and generally make his parents proud.  James is married to the lovely Carol (also an alum, and a soprano like Vicki) who will be joining the faculty as a voice teacher (like Vicki).

The end of an era, but the beginning of a new one.

The next choir reunion, in 2015, will coincide with the college's bicentennial.

James is already planning the program.

Memorial Day in Camden

Memorial Day.

Before the tourists show up.  Before the mob scene in Thomaston every July 4th and before the giant commercial endeavor that is the annual Rockland Lobster Festival.  Memorial Day is an intimate, small-town celebration of heroes and each town honors its own.

In Camden, there is a small ceremony on the Public Landing

Then comes a parade, led by an Honor Guard and the Cub Scouts.

They paused here by the village green to lay a wreath at the veterans' memorial.

A moment of silence; a trumpet player stepped from the ranks of the high school band...

...and played Taps while the wreath was laid.

The rifle salute nearly caused Wilson the Agoraphobic Goldendoodle to spontaneously evacuate.

Then the parade moves on.  Thing Two is there in the center with the tenor sax.  By the time this day is out the kids from Camden Hills will have played for ceremonies in Rockville, West Rockport, Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville and marched in two parades.

There were old cars...

...and the Little Leaguers...

...and every single damn fire engine in the town department...

...and time to say thank you.