Maine-ly Memories

November 21, 2014 UPDATE: Read about The Lost Kitchen in this NY Times article.

Sunrise in Maine

Dear Friends,

Your once peripatetic friend is grounded. I am sitting up in bed for the second week in a row, but getting stronger every day. Watch where you're stepping when you're out in your gardens at night.
I stepped out of my studio door and ended up with a fractured ankle, torn ligaments, bumps, bruises, a head knot, a sprain, AND my first ride in an ambulance. The worst is behind me, and I am feeling good and ready to get up and run...or maybe not run, but walk again.

Being in a wheelchair has REALLY taught me a lot about the challenges that people must face. Every small bump, change in ground level, or step is a challenge, sometimes a challenge that makes even the easiest chores turn into a grueling physical effort. Hats off to all of you who wrestle with canes, crutches, and wheelchairs. Let's try to make the road smoother for everyone.

Thanks a zillion for well-wishes, calls, food, and for cards and gifts. I am humbled by your many kindnesses and will try to pay them forward to someone in need. You know who you are...Vicki Boster, Lori Hibbard, Susan Branch, Susie Bassetti, Virginia Holihan, Vicki Greene, and so many others. You are in my heart. Oh, and I should mention that my family, and Jeff have been fantastic, just fantastic. I owe them, big time.

Since my last posting I have been in New Hampshire on Lake Sunapee and in our beloved cottage/camp in Maine. I also thoroughly lost myself in the culture of apples. Every tree looked like a gift from heaven, loaded with shiny, green and red fruits, and history, volumes of history.

Please join me for a too long overdue and too long posting. Oh, and I still have to mail out the Stillmeadow Cookbook. Life has been wild. I appreciate your patience.

BASKET LIST DREAMS

I have always wanted to visit Boston's famous Swan Boats and also the Robert McCloskey ducklings. Our dear friends Aline and Frank are Bostonians. They shared the adventure with us and introduced us to some of Boston's hidden treasures and neighborhoods.

There they are! I felt like a kid when I saw them!

Patrick was our captain.

Make Way for Ducklings!

Our dear friends Aline and Frank on the shore of Lake Sunapee. Pretty adorable, huh?

Just a small taste of Maine.

On Cottage Point Road in Damariscotta, Maine. A gift to any passerby from Sharon and Jim Aderman. Take a book, read a book, return it, or replace it with another. Their beautiful mini-library. I love it.

Gotta love this! On the road to Freedom, Maine.

One of my favorite little islands and lighthouses on Curtis Island. This is just outside Camden Harbor on the way to Vinalhaven, the beloved island of Margaret Wise Brown., author of Goodnight Moon (and a hundred other books, including The Little Island done in pseudonym Golden MacDonald). 

Illustrator/Caldecott Honor winner/author/ Melissa Sweet sketches as we plow through the waves toward Vinalhaven. During waking hours, the sketchbook is never far from her.

Traffic Jam

Bye bye traffic jam.

Approaching "The Only House" so named because Margaret had never owned another house. (See earlier blog posting that shows her New York City home, which she didn't own). "The Only House" is on the site of an old granite quarry.

Melissa Sweet and me on the deck of "The Only House." True bliss.

Margaret's mossy, lichened apple tree. 

I couldn't stop studying the beauty of the mosses and lichens. Look at the little British soldier lichen in full red uniform. The macrocosm is so amazing if we just take the time to really look.

No other words necessary.

 

If you're fascinated by Margaret Wise Brown, you should read this old classics and read Awakened by the Moon, which is a biography of her too short, but extremely productive and creative life.

Sitting on Margaret's settee beside her desk. The view is what inspired her to write her The Little Island, which maybe what inspired me to write my The Little Green Island with a Little Red House.

Here is the view of her little island.

An enlarged version of my book The Little Green Island With a Little Red House. Makes it easier for reading to big groups. This book is going into its second printing with DownEast Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, and should be out soon.

This was so touching to me. They've inscribed the tombstone with her words in The Little Island (video).

For my birthday, Jeff treated me to a dinner at The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine. The restaurant is in this old mill, which has been completely renovated. You enter it by walking over a pond and stream. It is magical. Pure heaven. Everything. Pure heaven. The food, my friends, the setting, the entire experience. You must (if you're in Maine) treat yourself to this expeience, but reservations are a necessity. I think my friend Lynn Karlin made the reservations about five weeks in advance.

In the dining room.

On our table.

Back at our camp, to get reacquainted with Audrey, I pile black sunflower seeds on my foot. It is literally the first step.

Sweet Audrey. My favorite chipmunk.

I'll leave you with a heart full of gratitude for family and friends. 

I originally wanted to write a big posting about apples and apple trees, but that will have to wait till next time.

Oh, and I guess I should mention the release party for my new book.

It is on Sunday, November the 9th at 2 p.m. at the Steynberg Gallery,  1531 Monterey Street, San Luis Obispo, California. All net proceeds from book sales will benefit the gardens of the historic Dallidet Adobe and Gardens in San Luis Obispo. Come join us!

With love across the miles,

Sharon

p.s. Leave a comment on this post or the previous one to be eligible to win the drawing for these gorgeous Josie Iselin books.

NOTE: ONLY if you leave a comment as "Anonymous," begin your comment with "Sharon" to dodge our spam filter and be sure to list your name at the end of your comment.

Footsteps in the Sand

Canning jars filled with seawater.

Dear Friends,

Not such a long wait between posts this time. First, let me thank KJ for the card, article, and sweet thoughts. Your gardens DO look fabulous. Vicki Boster, your box of tasty delights arrived to great family fanfare. Thank you so much for everything. I don't know how you do all you do.

I just spent a few hours with our new caretaker, walking the gardens, showing him birdbaths, fountains, feeders, getting him into the swing of caring for this old house and my demanding (but worth it) gardens and container plantings.

As I write this, there are suitcases, computers, iPads, and more waiting by the door.

We leave for Maine in just a couple of hours. This won't be our normal long time, but it will be enough time to refill our depleted and tired spirits. Maine. Just saying the word makes me happy.

The perfect reading/bird watching/ dream spot on our little island in Maine.

Where do you turn when things worry you or you aren't feeling peaceful? I make soup, work in the garden, but mostly I walk, walk, walk. A few miles everyday helps to keep my soul happy and my brain receptive and creative. My favorite walks are on starry nights...

... or by day, a walk along the shore, bird watching, finding just the RIGHT rock or shell, or watching the Humpbacks breaching and spy-hopping inside the kelp beds.

This is a short walk with me. At the end of the walk, I am THRILLED to be able to offer a wonderful give-away from Josie Iselin, author, photographer, naturalist, and benefactor of nature. My first offering is the book An Ocean Garden. 

This Abrams book is gorgeous and full of information–a combo I adore. As I was purchasing this little gem, the other people in line were commenting on its beauty. The two clerks behind the counter also mentioned that it is exquisite. You'll love it, and it will change the way you look at seaweed.

My second give-away is another of Josie's fabulous books, but this is offered only to members of my Grimy Hands Girls' Club. You know who you are. Leave a comment, and you're eligible.

This is a coffee table sized book published by Chronicle Books, noted for their fine work. I love this one and you will too.

Won't you join me as I wander? And look what I'm doing with the treasures I found...

This is a By-the-wind-sailor, a mini jellyfish that has a sail (see shiny spot above). The beaches were filled with thousands of these.

Sometimes I am out on the beach for hours, but I don't walk more than a few feet. Why? I plop down and sift through the incredible rocks and shells. I pick up sand dollars, study feathers...

I feel like a child.

After I read Josie's book, I decided to try my hand at pressing seaweed. So, I grabbed one of my canning jars out of my trunk and wandered along the shore. Soon, I had a jar full of beauty.

Seaweed specimens

Mother Nature's lacework.

I walked along the beach until I found a tide pool full of water, which I collected in some canning jars. (See top photo). I dipped into the pools so as not to collect sand or debris in the water.

When I returned home, I poured the seawater into a long container and gently transferred the seaweeds from the jar to the container.

I toted my wildflower press out of "Sprig," my garden shed and set it outside near my potting bench, and I cut cardboard and thick, absorbent paper to fit inside my press.

I used a spatula to lift the seaweed out of the seawater, drain it, and spread it out on absorbent paper.

Then I used chopstick to gently fan out the seaweed. Note: I labeled where I found the seaweed, but at this point I didn't know WHAT I had found.

It has been a zillion years since I've worn nylons. So what better use for them than for the process of drying the seaweed? I cut these into small squares to stretch onto the top of the seaweed. When I press the seaweed, this will keep it from sticking onto the paper above it.

Seaweed under otherwise useless nylons.

Don't worry, I did smooth this out before pressing.

See the cardboard and paper on the right side? I put it into the press in layers.

This is the seaweed after two days. I change the paper daily to keep moisture away from the specimen. When I am finished with this, I'll mount it on fine rag paper and put it under glass, or maybe under the glass of a coffee table or my tea table. Isn't it elegant?

Ok, so enough of this puttering around and doing EVERYTHING EXCEPT the final touches on our garden and packing. 

I am happy to announce that the winner of the Glady Taber's Stillmeadow Cookbook is:

Donna O'Shaughnessy. Donna has a few active blogs. Check her out at 

http://midlifefarmwife.blogspot.com. 

Congratulations Donna! We will ship this out to you upon returning to California. Just in time for you to do some wonderful, old-fashioned autumn recipes.

Farewell to you all and love across the miles,

Sharon

P.S. For those of you who live along the Central Coast of California (or the valley), please know that you are invited to my book launch party on November the 9th (Sunday) from 2 to 4 P.M. in the heirloom gardens of the old Dallidet Adobe on Toro Street in San Luis Obispo, California. All book sales will benefit the gardens of the Dallidet. It is my hope that we will earn enough money to reconstruct the once magnificent arbor leading up the front pathway to the porch. We'll have food, music by Simple Pleasures (Mary Anne and Ames Anderson), drink, joy, and a short, short talk about publishing and its many pitfalls and adventures. Come join me in celebration of my debut middle grade novel Running Out of Night (Delacorte Press, the literary imprint of Penguin-Random House). Hurrah!

This pathway deserves a new arbor to lead the way to the old adobe.