11-6-10 1730 Searsmont. The day is fading, temperature going down. Paddling on Quantabacook (Abanaki= ‘plenty of game animals” ) Lake this afternoon was beautiful, and also cold. Paddle hard, no excuses Alan. Double paddle kayaking has made my J stroke canoe muscles atrophy. However, my stereotypical teutonic reflexes relabeled what I was feeling as ‘good pain’. For open water, a Greenland style double paddle seems much more efficient. And it would probably not work well contesting with the snags of low hanging branches in those thousands of miles of small North American streams that canoe paddles evolved on, and that I haven’t experienced. The water is high enough to be flowing right over the dam that maintains the lake. Marty’s selection of paddles included one of those slender ones with the sensually delicious firm edged hand grip and the long smoothly swelling lines where it gently parts the waters folds. Qunatabacook is one of those rum colored lakes originating in peat bogs…sometimes containing some natural insecticides, as does the Rio Negro flowing from Columbia to join the Rio Branco at Manaus, and thus less mosquito ridden than those without. There were plenty of muskrat lodges, those smaller less well crafted lumps of reed and mud that the little fur bearers pile up and then burrow into to create a home. A wet version of the packrat nests of the Sierras. The more earthquake proof beaver lodges are downstream, apparently. A few water birds, but it was a generally still, slowly coiling, reed framed and tree girdled landscape. The buildings of beautiful downtown Searsmont came into view, and I turned the little canoe around and headed back up to pole my way across the dam, and paddle back North along the lake. The reeds, thinned by fall, and each one making a visually decisive curving statement in relation to the still water and the gently moving air, also made a mild audible comment, perhaps not a complaint, as the gunwales of the canoe strummed by them. A bluejay was brilliant messing around in the undergrowth. I wished for a cardinal. Or the loon. And it was perfect just the way it was.
Back in the house, Marty asked ‘Do you think you remember enough four letter words to help with the gutters?’. We joined our interdependent forces to finish the job of clearing the gutters and re-installing the gutter screens. He didn’t fall, and I didn’t let him. Now Marty has a blaze going in the fireplace. The main course is roasting, and Joanne and Sala are working and chatting, rich with their earlier trip to the Camden Yard Sale and at least one other antique and junk market. Brit, the beautiful daughter, and her family will be arriving soon for dinner. Mildly sore muscles, eyes full of lakescapes, and the prospect of dinner; what more can one want?
About hip fractures; Jamie writes to remind me that the bisphosphonate fracture risk is for the relatively rare SUBtrochanteric fractures..not the common Intertrochanteric kind. Jamie, you may not know your quiet example is the reason I walk up 5 flights of stairs at the JMP rather than calling that infernal elevator!!. And you will be pleased to know I ride a bike back and forth to work on the Cape. What a student; what a teacher!! Thanks again, Jamie!
Also, in the day that is gently fading away outside, lies Liberty. This is a town, about 10 miles from here on the road between Augusta and Belfast, and it has, facing each other, two local industries of note. One is Liberty Graphics, home of the 47cent cuppa coffee (good too..pumpkin spice is the special of the season) and the other , in a building that would gladden the heart of Charles Addams, Liberty Tools, a three story collection of the world of hand tools. Oh, there are some power tools as well, but really only the ones that fit in the hand, and mostly it’s wrenches,dies,hammers,pliers, taps,jigs,micrometers,mauls,drivers,cutters,chisels,bits,bites,and probably a bat or too. Order…oh sure, there’s order..most of the hammers are on the left about half way back, and most of the bits are in the second and third on the right (that would be ‘Store Right’, as in ‘Stage Right’..just in case you make it to Liberty and want to try following instructions). But up on the third floor next to the old magazines and in front of the (literally) termite infested loom frame, there is another stash of hammers, and I kept finding wooden carpenters levels in, on, under and next to other stashes throughout the building.
I was mostly in a file mood, and found some great little files, just the thing I wanted for my novice level jewelry making. I passed up the only slightly damaged adz head for $14, and the complete set of numbered drills ( I really only use the #55 for the stuff I am doing) for $18. A whole bundle of little mill bastards (yes, Dorothy, that really is what you get to call it) cost only $2.00. And I decided against the heavy wood rasp because it was flat, and I kinda wanted one side rounded…for $3!!!..what was I thinking??
What’s so special about this? Well, I guess I could say the place almost glows with the energy of machined, honed, polished and yes even rusted steel. It’s a cathedral..or a place of worship at least…to the glory of steel and to the ingenuity of humans in making such use of an intractable material like Fe. Did you know that one of the first iron works in the new world was on the Saugus, just a bit to the South?
$21.54 later, I went across the street for coffee and to rootle ( a word that I think Aminta made up, and that I find an occasional use for when rummage is too strong) through the bins of seconds. Some beautiful shirts for $4 each that I won’t describe because they are intended for gifts for some of you.
Well, now its morning, 11-7-10, 0745 old time, and 0645 in the glorious fall back time of today. Did you remember? Have you already arrived an hour early? Joanne has a lot of clocks, which she says are all individually set to avoid any synchronous striking. She says she will just stop them for an hour..Fall is easier than the saltation of Spring. The colors are coming alive again as the light increases…I can see enough green to remember what the moss at the base of the beech tree really looks like, and how the carpet of red and yellow leaves that begins at the edge of the clearing really blankets the woods so very completely. Fuji now has a bright orange collar muff, that will hopefully protect her furry little fox body from the unexpected fox hunter. And we will be getting down the road towards Cionas house, and then on to Sister Mary’s for dinner.
Abracos
Alan
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