Monthly Archives: October 2013

The thumbnail of a moon was striking as I loaded my goods onto the 6:30 boat. I’m headed to Rye to see my friend Susie and for show number 1 at the home of Val and Cliff Storms in Greenwich, Connecticut. If you are in the area it would be great to have you stop by!

As I left the island the sky got brighter, but the boat trip is too early to watch the sunrise. As my friend Kate (on her way to her high school teaching job)  said, “This is the best part of the sunrise anyway!”

Bye bye my little island home. I’ll be back in 10 days.

Passing by Bear Island.                The jet contrail in the sunrise looked like a neon comet.

It was a cold boat ride, but well worth standing outside of the cabin to watch the sky. When we got to our cars there was frost to scrape. Temperature 28°. It was cold enough that there was vapor coming off the water.

My trip begins with a stop at Stanley Subaru for an oil change. “By the way Mrs. Fernald, your car is overdue for inspection.” Also, I almost forgot to reregister, so the next stop is the Motor Vehicle office in Ellsworth. Eventually I’ll be on the road.  Who knows, maybe I’ll have time to blog again while I’m there……

I’m looking forward to seeing costumes throughout my trip today as people celebrate Halloween. I’m prepared with Groucho glasses if I need them.

Oh. Show number 1? Does that mean there is a show number 2? Yes indeed. Next week in Baltimore. C’mon over to Robin and Stephanie’s house on Wednesday if you live in the Baltimore area!

It involves things like  putting together and sending out an e-mail like this when I am SO challenged by desktop publishing stuff! Wish I could make the size bigger or have spent less than a whole morning trying to do this and making labels for post cards. Ah well, back to the studio where I am WAY more comfortable. Meanwhile…the day is so gorgeous it keeps calling me to go outside.

…don’t wait too long to blog! The longer I go without writing, the harder it is to get back to it. Fall may be quieter on the island, as far as the population goes, but there was a whole lot that went on in September that I never got around to mentioning after the first day of school. I’ll wait for another post to tell about my studio shenanigans. (And I won’t wait for another month to do it.)  Here’s a (partial) September synopsis of what went on outside the studio:

Lunch on Sutton Island (part of our town, but the next island over) with my new friends Donna and Dave Nussdorfer. I took photos of the island, but none of Donna and Dave?! Donna and I both enjoy making jewelry. Check out her Etsy shop. And it turns out we share the exact same birthday, except I am  2 hours older. Donna made some amazing grilled cheese and fig sandwiches and we talked about the similarities and differences of our islands and of course, about jewelry. Their house has been in Dave’s family for over 90 years. Our family’s house  was built in 1906, so Dave and I compared our summer island childhoods. After lunch we took a walk. As we got ready to head back to Islesford a squall came up:

All was sunny by the time I stepped back on my own island. There are no roads on Sutton, so I felt like I was coming back to a city!

The next day I caught up with my mom and her brother Jim who was visiting from Maryland.

The following week I took the 6:30 a.m. boat off the island twice. Once for an early appointment in Bar Harbor. (The other morning boat leaves Islesford at 8:15, which would have been too late.) Lucky me, I had time to drive through part of Acadia National Park (before the inane government shut down….don’t get me started….) to look out at my island home from the top of Cadillac Mountain. From left to right the islands are: Baker, Little Cranberry (aka Islesford) Great Cranberry and Sutton. To the right of Sutton, but out of the photo is bear Island. 5 islands, one town.

 It was only 45° and very windy. Brrr. I was outside to snap these two photos, but was glad to see the rest of the gorgeous views from inside the car.

Same week, two days later, my sister-in-law Karen and I took the early morning boat off so we could drive a couple hours up the coast to Machiasport to go to Jasper Beach.  Neither of us had been there before, and I had heard the stones were pretty cool, so off we went. We got lost a few times but we didn’t care. The beach was quite pretty and much more reddish brown than our beaches here. I spent an hour sorting through rocks and picking up some to drill for beads. Due to the structure of jasper, it doesn’t “round up” in the waves like granite and some of the others. The nicely rounded pebbles I had in my mind were not what I found. There were enough others that are slightly different in color from what I usually find here, so I still came home with a bit of variety. Karen went off birdwatching and saw a Solitary Vireo, a new bird for her.

That has to be it for now, as I’m headed off the island again to pick up some groceries. I plan to cover some more beach antics tonight then back to the studio. I love this time of year. The sky, everything,  just seems more dramatic.