All that was left…
It was not a lobster pizza, but it had homemade sausage, made by a lobsterman and his son!
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Who has time to blog??
Yikes, summer is very very busy on a little island in Maine. Just as I was thinking of finally getting around to writing something, I noticed that my friend and neighbor, Ted, is of a similar mind. I’ve been squeezing in studio time and all manner of other things, whenever I can. It is hard to convey just what it feels like to live on an island where so many friends, from so many places, arrive for a finite number of vacation days.
If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, then all work and all play makes Jack a year round resident of the Cranberry Isles. It is exhilarating and exhausting to try to keep up with it all, and yet we do it every year.
Here’s just a fragment of what I’ve been doing in the last 2 weeks:
Giving a bread making lesson to my famous brother. (More about that in a future blog. His fame, not the bread.)
Dinners at the Islesford Dock Restaurant where stupendous sunsets are part of the menu.
Dinner on a rainy evening with a view from a different side of the island.
Meeting up with cousins who arrived on the day of the July Maypole festivities in the Town Field.
Getting to the beach one afternoon, so far.
Buying plants at Surry Gardens, for three different projects, with my friend Susie. We literally could not fit one more plant in her Volvo.
Replanting this garden with hydrangeas and rose bushes from the trip.
(In September, my son Robin and his fiancee Stephanie will be married in the front yard of this house. Plans for the wedding are keeping all of us busy.)
Learning just how helpful these little wire ties are if you want to make your own trellis for an enthusiastic mandevilla plant.
And, fitting in time to tend my own garden of perennials and vegetables.
Tomorrow is my mother’s 86th birthday. I’m taking her lobster salad for lunch and I just finished making chocolate mousse to take for dessert. Who has time to blog?
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One morning in Maine
As in yesterday morning, which started out incredibly foggy and then became clear before noon. Not bothering to look through the view finder (it was a quick walk and the mosquitos were starting to gather), I held my camera low to take a random shot of fog droplets on the grass.
As a photo on its own, it doesn’t interest me much in color or composition. But when I crop it down to a small section, the pattern of drops gives me some ideas for metal clay work this afternoon. Camera as sketchbook.
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Images from the long weekend
Early a.m. beach walk.
Jewelry dropped off at Winter’s Work.
Surprise party to congratulate Fire Chief Richard Howland on completing his training.
Joining the grill team at the annual 4th of July picnic. The town field was too wet this year, so the picnic took place at the Neighborhood House.
Too pooped to stay up and write more. Happy Independence Day!
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Only out of necessity…
…did I travel to Bar Harbor for groceries, two days before the 4th of July. Holy instant crowded summer scene! The trip was tempered by a very manageable number of customers in the hardware store, and by scoring some 6 packs of annuals on sale at Sunflower Farm on route 3.
There are plenty of activities happening on the island tomorrow and Monday, so I’m not sure when I will get a chance to further explore the possibilities of the goodies I bought from Kate McKinnon’s excellent sale last week.
I know exactly what I want to do with some of those triangular Thai silver beads. The rectangular earwires will convert to earrings in minutes with some of my own silver dangles. As for the other bits and bots, who knows how they will come in handy, but they will.
Could I have made these pieces myself? Yes, of course. But sometimes it stirs up the creative energy to add someone else’s components to the mix. One of my all time favorite beach rock necklaces has three fine silver beads that were made by Kate. Though I make plenty of beads myself, Kate’s beads were just the shape and size I needed at the time to complete this particular necklace. (This is not the greatest photo, but you can spot the beads at about 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, and 8 o’clock.) I’m glad my friend Donna Isaacs ended up with this necklace, because I get to see it quite often. And I’m going to toot my own horn here (not comfortable for me to do) and say that the necklace looks FABULOUS on her!
I have a batch o’ things I plan to patina, next week, including these brass paddles.
Kate added little surprise goodie bags to the orders she sent out from this recent sale. Eventually I’ll use the seed beads, and there are plenty of other little treasures in there that I haven’t even taken out of the bag.
Below, a seed beed mix in a blue and gold colourway. These are for a project sometime in the fall. (After our son’s wedding on the island in September which is a whole ‘nother story of future doings.)
I’m just not quite sure what to think about the word “colourway.” It reminds me of the word “henway” and a lame joke.
Henway? What’s a henway?
Oh, about 5 pounds.
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Pretty much a perfect day
That’s what I had today. Though, I thought I was going to be off kilter when I slept in and felt it was “too late” to go for an early morning walk. I went anyway and was rewarded with a cloudless sky, ospreys calling overhead, and the tide low enough to walk most of the way home on the beach.
At the water’s edge there were two herring gulls and a smaller gull I had not seen before. He looked like he wanted to hang with the other two gulls, but as they were snubbing him so he followed a parallel path to the one I was taking. From what I can tell it was a Bonaparte’s Gull.
As I got back on the road, my timing was perfect for an unplanned visit with my friend Amy, who was out running. We both tend to feel a little overwhelmed by people in the summer, so we each stick close to home and don’t see as much of each other as we would like. The chance to catch up with each other this morning, before our day really started, was a bonus for me.
My morning of work in the studio was productive, and as I worked on an alternate stringing of a beach rock necklace, I was thinking how the Thai silver beads from Kate McKinnon’s sale would work in perfectly with the new design. Et voila! When I went to get the mail, after lunch, my little package of goodies from Kate had arrived. Fresh energy for me as she clears out old stuff to make room for fresh energy in her own space. (More about this tomorrow, since I have to spend most of the day off- island and a girl just has to blog about something other than fighting the crowds of people arriving in Bar Harbor for the 4th of July.)
At 3 p.m. I headed into my garden to get the rest of it ready for planting the remainder of the veggies that have been sitting in their little 6 packs, waiting. The slugs have eaten the zucchini plants but not the cucumbers. Go figure. I ridded the garden of a few dozen snails and a few of those nasty tiger slugs, planted what I could, turned on the sprinkler and called it good.
I had plenty of energy to make a triple batch of granola after dinner, and took the time to reflect on what a good first day of July this has been.
P.S. As I was taking photos of my new goodies from Kate, at the dining room window, I looked up to notice there is a bud on my night blooming cereus plant! That scrawny looking thing has never blossomed and I’ve had it for 6 or 7 years. Yup, it was a darn good day.
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Barbara S Fernald Jewelry 