Hunting For Maine Lobster.... In The Woods!

Here in Maine we are so fortunate to have a plethora of seafood available all year long. We regularly enjoy fresh scallops and shrimp right off the boat, mussels, clams and of course the famous and well loved, Maine lobster! However, when September rolls around, we get to enjoy yet another kind of lobster....except this one doesn't come from the sea and isn't so well known. It's the Lobster Mushroom, otherwise known as Hypomyces lactiflurum. This brightly colored orange spectacle is actually a mold that grows on and over a preceding mushroom. It almost looks like a lobster claw reaching out of the ground when you find it in the woods. You can't miss them.

Well, this weekend, when we went for our hike around the Catch Meadow Cottage property, we also hunted for Lobster Mushrooms. They were everywhere on the property. In fact, not much hunting was necessary, it was hard to take a step and not find one. Although they fill the house with a strong seafood-like aroma, I will clean, chop and then dry them in my dehydrator so that we may enjoy them in our soups and stews all winter long. Black Trumpet season is rolling around very soon so I hope they are as plentiful on the land as the Lobster Mushrooms. The Black Trumpet mushrooms are my favorite!

                             Here are a few of the Lobster Mushrooms we found at Catch Meadow Cottage

                                                                          So Beautiful!

                        After hiking and mushroom hunting, we added the finishing touches to the gate.

                         Round corbels on the posts and black iron hinges and handles complete the look! 

We have also been working on the beams inside the house. That will be included in my next post.

      Enjoy your day!

              A special thank you to Ron Gay from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rongay58/favorites/
                                                       for use of the #1 Lobster Mushroom photo. 

A Harrowing Experience

Although much work is being done inside the cottage this week, I thought I would share with you some of the exciting treasures I found on my daily woodland walks. Most recently I came across an old, weathered ladder hidden beneath an ancient pine on the edge of the meadow. 

I assume the ladder was once used by a hunter when he climbed up to his tree stand to wait for a passing deer. I think it's beautiful and I will prop the ladder up on the wall in the bedroom in order to reach up to the new attic loft we recently created. 

   

I also found a vintage can of Stanley's Crow Repellant, lying in the field. The can looks like something that a farmer used back in the 1930's. I did a little research and found that the ingredients were basically tar and water. The farmers were instructed to pour the goop on their corn seeds and then plant them, thus rendering the seeds unpalatable to pesky crows and other critters. 

The most exciting thing I found so far though, was an old harrow. Although rusted and tangled, it is still in good, solid shape. It will make a wonderful sculpture piece at the cottage some day. It is probably a cast off from the 1930's or 40's, most likely from the same farmer that used the 

Crow Repellant. 

This old harrow was probably pulled behind a horse or mule and used to level and smooth the soil of the corn field.    

         This is how it looked when I found it. 

                       This is a photo I found online of the same type of harrow but in usable condition.

With Michael's help, I loaded the old harrow in the back of the tractor and brought it up to the cottage.

I just love the big iron C's it's made out of! Perhaps I'll hang some on the wall to represent Catch Meadow Cottage, my initials CCM or Michael's last name which begins with a C. How fun!

  Today we are planning to do a lot more work inside the cottage but first we are headed out for a lovely Sunday morning hike on the nearby trails that lead through the pine forest. I wonder what else we will find!

                                                                Have a beautiful Sunday!

Shingles, Shutters & So Much More....

Yesterday being Labor Day, we did exactly that....we labored! I mowed down a large area of 3 foot tall grass and weeds while Michael continued shingling the gable end of the house. The area I mowed will someday be our vegetable garden. I left a large stand of bee balm and another stand of blackberries and a small grove a walnut saplings that we will soon transplant. Although you can't really tell from the photos, the land slopes down quite a bit so I'm planning on building stone steps that will lead down to the garden. The mowing and cutting was a slow process because so much was hidden in the tall grass. I found stumps and logs, baseball bats, soda bottles, tomato cages, horseshoe stakes and even a sand box. I had to walk through everything before I could mow, to ensure that nothing got tangled up or caught in the blades of the mower.

                                              This is what the area looked like before I mowed

And this is what it looked like after I mowed.

                                 
I also painted all the shutters we are hanging on the house. Although very gingerbread looking, I think they are ideal for Catch Meadow Cottage. These lovely shutters have quite a colorful history. I was able to rescue them from demolition at the nearby Winery, almost two years ago. My son Tim is the property manager at the Winery and he called me one day to say that the old Winery farmhouse was being torn down to make way for the new event space they were building.

I knew that the farmhouse shutters were handmade by the previous owners of the Winery and I just couldn't let them get tossed away with the rubble. With the help of my son, I was able to pull all the shutters off the house. I've been saving them ever since.

The old shutter is on the left while the newly painted one is on the right. They are now an olive green color. We took the purple backing off the shutters and later, shortened each one up to fit the new windows.

   This is a photo of the original farmhouse that once stood at the Winery. I took this picture from an old    
             magazine ad. If you look closely at the main house, you can see the green shutters I rescued.

Because we knew that big rains were on the way by mid-afternoon, we really pushed hard to get a lot done today. That included finishing the shingling on the gable end, hanging the shutters and moving the extremely large rhododendrons from the front of the house to the side.

                                     Michael and Mark finished up the shingling this morning.

           This is what the front of the house looked like this morning before we moved the two bushes.

       Mark and I uprooted the first one. Rhododendrons have very shallow roots and are quite easy to   
       transplant.

A couple of strong men really come in handy when the bushes are as big and the second rhododendron we moved. The approaching rain was timed perfectly for the transplanting!

                                                                 This one was huge!

And now the shingles, shutters AND bushes are in place on the gable end. We still have to add two small shutters on each side of the top window and finish painting the meter box pipe. Did you notice the rounded shingles on the peak around the window? 

Just as a reference, this is a comparison of what the house looked like during the first week of July....

                                          And this is what it looks like today... just two months later!

                     
                            There's so much more to do but we're very happy with the progress.

The Meadow Gate

What a wonderful Friday and Saturday we had at Catch Meadow Cottage! I cannot tell you how much we love it there. It is such a peaceful corner of the earth and I feel so very connected to nature, especially when I am hiking through the woods, walking along the brook or strolling down the path around the meadow. It all feels so hidden away from the world. I am so grateful to have this property.

Young Matt and his good friend Chandler stopped by to walk the trails and set up a trail cam and a blind in the woods. They wanted to see if they could catch some pictures of the different wildlife that might pass by.

                                             Both boys are avid fishermen and outdoorsmen

I continued to haul branches to the burn pile and collect large stones from the field while Michael's brother Mark started shingling the gable end of the house.

                          Michael showed Mark the first steps of shingling and Mark took it from there.

      Doesn't it look nice? He did a great job. The rest of that side will be finished today.

The most exciting thing that took place though, was the building of the new meadow gate! 

When my Dad was here, he suggested that we put something up at the meadow entrance to let folks know that trucks and cars should not be driven into the meadow. During the autumn hunting season, hunters often drive in and park so they can hunt the woods and the meadow. Now that we are living here and often have children and animals around, we do not feel safe or comfortable with that idea. Michael is also a hunter and is empathetic to other hunters but we just want to protect the safety of our home, our family and our neighbors. 

This is the entrance to the meadow. Our driveway is to the left (just out of the picture).

   We searched online and found several different ideas for gates but in the end, 

        Michael designed his own gate.

On Friday Mark and Michael dug holes for the posts and cemented them in. 

                                                            Then the laying out of the gate began.

Michael used a combination of pressure-treated wood for the frame and pine panels for the face.

                                                                   This is the frame.

Then the face boards went on.

The first side went up easily.

I started painting as soon as it was hinged in place.

                                            The second side went up just as easily as the first! 
                       This is the backside of the gate. We are going to get black, metal clasps and 
                        a lockset but for now we are just using temporary blocks to keep it closed.

I just love how the new gate looks! Michael is a true artist. He is going to add two small toppers in the middle of the gate and we will attach three long black, face-hinges on each side. He built the gate low enough so people passing by can still enjoy the view of the meadow. 

How lovely the birch tree looks sitting next to the gate. I will plant daisies and black-eyed Susans next to it to add color. During the Christmas Season, we plan on hanging a fir wreath in the center of the gate with a big red bow. (Oh, and that big pile of dried branches you see in the distance will soon be burned up to offer an unobstructed view of the meadow). 

    

                                                 This is how the gate looks from our driveway.

                                                        Our beautiful, new meadow gate!

"You Must Do Something To Make The World More Beautiful"....

About 25 years ago I was given a book that I have cherished ever since. It is a children's book written and illustrated by the late Maine author, Barbara Cooney. The name of the book is Miss Rumphius
and the lady who gave the book to me said I reminded her of Miss Rumphius because I planted lovely gardens wherever I went and made the world a more beautiful place because of it.

I was so honored to be thought of in this way and even more honored when I personally got to visit Barbara Cooney in her studio a few years later, before she passed away.

I once lived in a sweet little cottage on a stunning, old estate here in Maine. I loved living there and every morning and evening I found myself walking through the woods hunting for mushrooms or studying ferns and mosses. In early June my little cottage became surrounded by

 lupine and its delicious, spicy fragrance filled the air. I collected the seeds every year and just like Miss Rumphius, I would scatter them wherever I went. 

The touching story of Miss Rumphius tells about a little girl named Alice who has big dreams of travel and adventure. She is told by her grandfather that it is fine to do all these things but that she must also 

do one more thing in her life... 

"You must do something to make the world more beautiful"

A wonderful message that I have never forgotten and have pledged to do each day of my life. 

This is the little cottage I lived in on the big estate

I tell you all this because yesterday, Michael brought me a gift of lupine seed! His mother had saved all the seeds from her own lupine plants and sent them along with Michael to give to me. I don't think I could have received a nicer gift! I was so excited to have them because I wanted to fill the new meadow with lots and lots of lupine. 

The seed pods look just like little, baby mice. Their shells are soft and furry on the outside but when cracked open reveal the tiny, brown seeds inside.

This is just a sampling of the thousands of seeds Judy gave me

I quickly grabbed the bag of lupine seeds and set out to the meadow area closest to the new cottage. 

We already have some lupine plants that I found growing in a small patch on the west side of the cottage but this new bunch of seeds is enough to fill at least one acre of the north side meadow. 

This is the part of the meadow where I planted the new lupine seed. Can you imagine what it will look like in a few years? I don't think we will have any blooms this spring but next spring it will be stunning.

 I can hardly wait!

Just like Miss Rumphius and Barbara Cooney, 

let's make a promise to scatter beauty and goodness wherever we go!

"You must do something to make the world more beautiful"

In honor of Barbara Cooney, who did make the world more beautiful.

August 6, 1917 – March 10, 2000  

Changing Direction

It's been another busy week at Catch Meadow Cottage. I spent a lot of time outside, cleaning up scraps of wood and hauling them off to the burn piles. We have three separate piles going. One pile for brush, one for scraps and one for "maybe burn - maybe keep". 

If you recall, the yard looked like this on Sunday morning...

Now it looks like this!

The roosters kept me company the whole time I was working...they even came in the house at one point when I left the doors open.

When Michael arrived on Monday morning, the place was clean and tidy, inside and out...

thanks to my buddies and me.

Monday morning was quite rainy so Michael decided to start tearing out the cellar stairway 

while I gave my dear friend Abby, a tour of the place. 

                    Originally the stairs were heading down to the cellar from the living room area

                 Now they have changed direction and are heading down from the new entry way

                                Young Michael heads back to Architectural School this week.
                                          (His 3rd year at Wentworth College in Boston)
                                      We sure will miss him. He's been such a great help.

                                                Here he is helping build the new staircase. 

This was the direction of the stairs in the cellar before they were changed.

They used to end right at the wall.

Now they turn in the opposite direction, come to a platform and turn to the right. Michael designed it that way because of the large metal beam running across the basement ceiling.  

Ooh, so nice. Michael made sure we would have plenty of head room when coming down the stairs.

Perhaps next year we'll begin work on the basement....if we're not too tired...or broke!