Day 14.049: Exile #2's Sunday Column #336

Exile #2 writes...

It was a bit of an indoor weekend, partly due to a rainy Saturday, and partly due to Exile #4 being quarantined. We pottered about, knowing any results of the test Exile #4 took won’t show up until tomorrow at the earliest. As a precaution, the rest of us will be adjusting our activities. E5N1 will attend school online. Exile #1 will work at home. Exile #4 will have to complete their quarantine no matter what but the rest of us will hopefully be able to resume our normal routines shortly. Otherwise, it will be another round of cancellations and reschedules. I think we’re all going to be pretty flexible (or entirely spontaneous!) by the time this is through, don’t you?

Day 14.048: Snow coming and going

After a week with some pretty warm temperatures, the snow pack on the ground had held-up pretty well. However, although today started like this:

as had been forecast, later  the snow turned to rain and I suspect that will have made a lot bigger dent in the snow on the ground than the warm temperatures did.

Day 14.047: Quarantine again

One member of the household was identified as a close-contact of a COVID case this week and is in quarantine. The rest of us are keeping a relatively low profile  (I did a day and a half of work from home for example) as a precaution. Hopefully a negative test over the weekend will put things back to early-2021-normal for most of us.

Day 14.046: Throwback Thursday - tiny people at the library

I know I did a throwback post yesterday, but it's Thursday now, so I can get away with another one. Here is a picture from Day 46 (February 25th) in the first year of the Exile:

I'll leave it to you to decide whether there are two, three or four tiny people in this photo.

Day 14.045: Rather warm for the time of year

At around 8 o'clock this morning I glanced at the weather app on my phone to find it was 45°F (7°C). Bizarrely warm even for middle of the day at this time of year. It wasn't enough to melt all the snow on the ground, but there were some pretty big puddles around this evening. I don't think they're going to freeze even overnight.

By contrast, this came up in my memories from 6 years and a day ago (I guess it was a bit below average temperatures that morning):

Day 14.044: Fortunes Rocks

Our easier-walking option having given up on Timber Point was Fortunes Rocks Beach. The sky was quite moody: 

as was the sea:

The waves made for some good surfing (for those willing to brave the cold water):

but (to us at least) it looked a bit too exciting for stand-up paddle boarding:

Day 14.043: Curtis Cove and Little River

We would probably say we visited Timber Point on Saturday afternoon, but the truth is that would be a stretch. We parked at the Timber Point trailhead and looked out over Curtis Cover where we saw what were probably common eider but we were on Granite Point at the time:

Then we walked down Timber Point trail, down the narrow spit of land that joins Granite Point to Timber Point but didn't get much further because although the trail looked lovely:

It was very bumpy ice covered in a thick obscuring layer of snow so you couldn't tell what you were going to find with each footstep.

We did make it as far an overlook over Little River on the other side of the isthmus where we saw a pair of mallards:

At which point we decided to head back to the car and go somewhere we could stretch our legs with a bit more confidence.

Day 14.042: Exile #2's Sunday Column #335

Exile #2 writes...

We found a very busy parking lot when we went down to the beach today. It must have had something to do with the gorgeous blue sky and the almost warm temperatures. It didn’t help that one section of the parking lot was unusable due to a large mountain of salt or sand. You get used to areas of parking lots being claimed for the dumping of snow but who knows what this pile was for. A horse box had somehow managed to wriggle in alongside it anyway, in order to take a couple of horses for a walk on the beach. We were impressed that the horses managed to cope with the slippery mess in the parking lot and it made us wonder if horses have winter shoes that they have to change into during the winter in Maine. Does anyone know?

Day 14.041: Fluffy

We woke to a nice thick layer of fluffy snow on top of what was there before. It was quite pretty:

Day 14.040: Another brush from winter

Another snow storm passed by today - one that at one point was predicted to bring us a foot of snow skirted by to the south and dropped a couple of inches as it slipped out into the sea.

Still, it made everything look white and clean again.

Day 14.039: On Surfside beach (and thereabouts) [corrected]

When we arrived on Pine Point beach on Saturday morning, the sea looked dead calm. I wasn't optimistic about identifying the distant ducks, but they turned out to be black scoters.

We were surprised to see a hopeful surfer (both due to the cold and lack of waves):

Even more surprised when it turned out that they were having some luck:

We watched this gull wrestle with this periwinkle for some time - repeatedly dropping it like they do with the mussels and clams - with rather less success as far as we saw.

Due to the time of year, these tiny "peeps" must be - surprisingly - western sandpipers as they are the only ones that winter here.  [It now appears that these must be sanderlings as the western sandpipers do not make it north to Maine although they do winter on the Atlantic coast further south. They were very much doing the sanderling behavior of running back and forth as if to try to stay exactly at the leading edge of each wave as it came and went.]

The other thing that surprised us were gulls sitting on the beach - although these first two seemed a bit self-conscious about it when I took a photo.

We saw quite a lot of other gulls doing the same - not sure why. On another day, they were all standing facing away from the sea. I daresay they have their reasons.

Day 14.038: After the ice storm

As parts of the southern US deal with serious issues from winter weather, everything was back to pandemic-normal in Maine - except for the beautiful glazing of ice on everything that had been out in the storm.

I spent the day pulling over to point my phone at beautiful sights knowing that the photos probably wouldn't do them justice. I was right, but here are the least unsuccessful efforts:

Day 14.037: Pancakes

The kids did pretty well with the pancakes this evening:

We can still teach them a thing or two though:

Day 14.036: The other end of Saco Bay

Saco takes its name from the river which in turn is named for the bay as far as I can work out (Bahio de Saco - Bay of the Sack). For the most part, the shore of the bay is the sandy beach that runs from the mouth of the Saco River at Camp Ellis to the verge of Scarborough Marsh at the mouth of the Nonesuch River at Pine Point.

Today, our morning walk started at the Scarborough end and we walked the northern part (Pine Point Beach, Grand Beach and Surfside Beach) down to Old Orchard Beach Pier on this impressive stretch of sand (in places amazingly flat):

All in all, it was a little over five miles and we were ready for breakfast when we were done.

Day 14.035: Exile #2's Sunday Column #334

Exile #2 writes...

Exile #1 and I zipped off to the beach early this morning so we could be back in time for him to carry out some techie duties for our online church service. As is so often the case, they ended up being a bit more complicated than anticipated, but despite a few seat-of-the-pants moments, all was well. In the afternoon, we spent some time on basic hair maintenance. Then, while E5N1 went to online youth group, Exile #1 and I Zoomed with family.

It’s school vacation week for E5N1 and Exile #4 but even Exile #1 and Exile #3 have tomorrow off for Presidents’ Day. E5N1 is hatching plans to do some sledding with friends before it starts to snow again. As for the rest of us, we’ll see!

Day 14.034: Ferry Beach State Park

Ferry Beach State Park is closed at this time of year - but that doesn't stop it being a popular destination. I suspect mostly for locals - but the "Keep Maine Healthy" sign is up in case of out-of-state visitors!

We managed to get everyone out of the house after lunch for a visit. We saw skiers and snowshoers, but most were just walking in winter boots like us - with or without dogs in tow.

The trails in the woods are pretty magical and we walked the length of the pond on the ice as well - which after several days of even maximum daytime temperatures below freezing was feeling quite secure underfoot.