wish you were
beautiful! the beach is a magical place loaded with possibilities…and coming to
popham now 25 consecutive years to the cabins at sea acres, has me nearly sold on taking a ‘regular’ vacation for
the rest of my allotted summers. don’t get me wrong, i still fully embrace
waking up to an unexpected snow, a whim of a wind, or a sudden break in the
rain, stimulating a change of plans and going off for a ski, a bike, or hike. but, there is something to be said about sun, sand and surf that makes even the
dedicated change artist in me want to just sit out and listen to the constant
crash of waves—over and over again.
we left canaan saturday with happy hearts, not only looking forward to a great week, but
satisfied that the inch of rain over Friday night would keep a dry garden from
blowing away. weeding and tilling a bit before pam got up for breakfast i even
got a bit muddy. the only disappointment i had, was my second planting of
parsnips didn’t come up—such a hard seed to germinate.
the drive to maine
kept up the food traditions we have been honing over the years: pam’s stop for ice cream at holderness, a cart load of
meals plus extras at the shaws in bath, along with a final stop at plant’s
seafood. we pulled up to the cabin, unpacked, and headed down to the beach—after
putting a potato in the *oven to bake. one of us had a swim suit on with intentions of using it.
maine water is always
cold, but swimmable. i didn’t stay in long but registered the temperature,
as mid range and if things stayed like that, i would be in again tomorrow. if
it got a tad bit warmer, i bet i could get pam in. on the way back up to the
cabin—conveniently just a couple hundred yards from the beach—the thought of
‘life is good’ crossed my mind.
as we came through
the front door, we got a bit of shock. the *oven was churning out a nearly
toxic smell--unmistakably rodent, formerly nesting, and now roasted in the
fiberglass beneath the stovetop. long story short, paradise stunk ‘to high
heaven’ (as my gram used to say), and would be a major—read vacation
breaking—problem, unless i could clean it up.
somehow we made it
through the night and i was up at dawn and down to the beach just as the sun
rose. at this hour i was alone save one person fishing out on fox island. i have made this early morning high tide line inspection for years. i hunt for
lost toys, flip-flops, hats, or any interesting items to make a week’s end sculpture. i dream about its design, which takes shape depending upon the beach findings. one
year i found enough clothes and shoes to outfit a stick beach family, complete with a beach chair. another
year it was lobster trap cordage for colorful lashing over shaped driftwood. but most often it is dozens of assorted toys, hanging off a washed up bush or
used for some sort of mobile.
besides that
pleasant fantasy—and thinking about taking apart the stove—there were all the
usual birds flying or floating, sitting or scooting about, mostly undisturbed
at this hour. it was a good count, 21 different species, including the two ‘threatened
and endangered’ species that popham beach state park works to protect: piping plovers and least terns. during
the nesting period and while the chicks are young, large areas of beach are
roped off from humans and the specific nesting sites are fenced from predators
such as gulls and fox. i didn't see any this year, but the plover chicks are the cutest creatures--like fuzzy little golf balls with legs.
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| http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=03-P13-00023&segmentID=4 |
i stopped for a
good bit to watch a spotted sandpiper dodge in and out of the marsh grass just
to the inside of a roped off area. whenever it stood, the non-stop bobbing of
its tail end made it look almost mechanical, like some exotic windup decoy. i gave the
terns equal time, attempting to sort out what i thought were three different
species. the least terns with their yellow bills and feeding habits—they don’t plunge-dive
for fish—were easy to pick out. common terns and what i thought to be larger
Caspian terns, as opposed to smaller royal terns, were out in numbers over the
river as well as the ocean. i used their relative size, beak and leg color,
wing color, and tail shape to identify them.
most often i hike
along until i hit the morse river
and turn back. each year the whole layout changes with winter storms dumping,
removing sand. this time the river’s mouth had shifted fairly close
to the main park beach and included a huge low tide pool. the extensive
sandbar that has generally appeared at low tide in front of the cabins--just to the east of the bar at low tide out to fox island--barely
showed this year (only saw it exposed once the whole week). the shore is constantly in flux, but as mentioned, i love change, even on an ‘everyday’ path.
heading up the
boardwalk, back to the cabin with the beach gleanings stuffed into a chip bag,
a pair of american goldfinches flitted about in the pitch pine, and a common yellow throat sang from the scrub bushes, adding a final two species for the
morning. as i dipped my feet in the sand-wash bucket on the porch, i smelled the oven
and remembered the other job for the day. with any luck, by the end of tomorrow’s
morning jaunt i would get back to ‘life is good’!
