Is there a tougher, more resilient or more beautiful plant in Maine than the rugosa rose? They love the seashore, soak up the salt spray, spread like crazy, and bloom their hearts out. MDOT’s (Maine Department of Transportation) landscape designers refused to plant them at the Beach a dozen years ago, instead choosing some fussy hybrid rose that keeled over, dozens of them, within two years. Apparently, they considered rugosas a nuisance. Trash tends to collect in their tangly, thorny middles, they told us, and they have to be cut back periodically.

 The Beach gardeners at the time nodded like woodpeckers, and scratched around the silly hybrids, waiting for them to die, and then went in with rugosas they’d dug in their own yards – white ones, the common single pinks, and somebody brought in a blowsy, pink double. Yes, a stray paper napkin will snag in the thorns, but what was a paper napkin doing blowing around anyway? And yes, they do spread; check out the enormous one near the bathroom kiosk at the Beach next time you’re down there. It’s gorgeous.

Bury your nose in one of the huge Beach rugosa blossoms and you want to fall in to it. I’ve been wandering around sniffing flowers lately, inhaling them actually, imagining that I’m doing it for two of us. Only my other half is done sniffing roses, and I have to resign myself to that.

 His work is done. Our marriage was built on work, not high pressure, tied-to-a-screen all day and even into the night work, but the good kind that strains your muscles and gets you dirty. Work was our fun; the Caribbean trip, the cruise, the walking tour of England, the nights out, none of which we ever took.

 We had good friends in our early, formative years as a couple, who firmly believed you could live well off the leavings of the affluent society. These people had fled to Rockland from Detroit (MI, not ME) after the 1968 riots came way too close to their building. And lucky, of course, for them that they could flee. They spoke of trash night in the city when everyone put the stuff they didn’t want out by the curb. It was free for the taking and so they did. I’m pretty sure Wally didn’t need this example, but I came from another world where no one would dream of wearing second-hand clothes or eating off a table someone else had discarded. Weird, huh? It was a lesson I picked up. Today, in a quick mental inventory of my household goods, I can come up with only two pieces of furniture bought new.

Of course, there was a job, his, that paid the bills. A single schoolteacher salary is enough for a family to live on if time is more important than money. Early on we decided I’d be a stay-at-home. No, there was never a discussion; I think we both just assumed it. We made it with the side-hustles: rag rugs, chair caning, lawn mowing, writing, picking up the Beach, selling eggs and milk. And never going on those dream vacations, instead wearing Goodwill, driving our vehicles into the ground, then replacing with another beater. Growing a lot of our food helped, but I gave up long ago trying to make economic sense out of our garden-pigs-chickens-cow enterprise.

It’s not everyone’s idea of the perfect life, and I’m not sure how we came up with it. One moment stands out with crystal clarity: we were in the front room, his room, hanging up the framed Masters Degree he’d just earned that spring, both of us feeling good about his accomplishment. He said he’d probably start on the next degree, to become a superintendent, in the fall.

 I said, why?

 He said, because it’s the next step.

 I said, but you’ll be out at night meetings all the time. We’ll end up moving to another town, then another. That’s not what I want.

 He said, you don’t?

 No, I don’t.

Neither do I, he said, promptly and at that moment, stepping down the ladder he’d started up.

And neither of us was ever sorry for a minute.

 We each had our chores: I tended the compost, he planted the beans and corn. I raised the onion seedlings and put them in the ground; he weeded them. This year I get to do it all (with, as I’ve said, much help from a daughter-in-law and visiting sister). Neither one of us worried much with straight rows, but this year I’m a fussy old woman, stretching string tied to two posts, measuring between rows. He couldn’t be bothered with sticks and strings. Eyeballing was more his thing.

 Mornings started, as soon as we awoke, heads on the pillow, with the same ritual: talk about our day, he’d say. Or I’d say. And so began the list of what we wanted to do that day. Weed the corn, move the chicks, mow …. something. We were happiest with work to do.

 Now there’s no one but the dog to hear my morning litany. It’s hop out of bed as If something’s after me, downstairs, dog, cat, coffee, keep moving. And on this place there’s never an end to work, or putting it another way, I never let there be an end to work. No sooner is one thing done than I find another to do. It puts me in mind of someone retiring, who paints everything in sight in the first month. Or someone on a manic high. Not sure which.

 But my kind of work, the kind where I’m the boss, let’s me go at my pace. Walking the dog I stop at a faint whiff of the sea wafting up the Ducktrap River valley. I can inhale the scent of lilacs or lemon lilies for him since he won’t. The glistening glimpse of an earthworm disappearing into the soil makes my heart jump, conjuring up a little plastic bag full of gleaming trout, slimy, muddy, smelling convincingly of  trout fresh from Frohock Brook.

 Sitting on the deck these warm evenings I revel in the tree line - his treeline. In a town of spectacular views the row of oaks that border our pasture was his favorite; he loved his own tree line above all the mountains, islands or lakefront. Add in the phoebes nesting under the eaves, the hummingbirds fighting at the feeders and the pileateds raiding the chokecherry trees, and he was a happy man.

 As for me, I stopped to smell the roses this morning. For me.

Slab City Closed

David Kinney sent out a notification via the Bulletin Board that Slab City Road will be closed to through traffic starting July 10 until Sept. 3. The culvert that carries the waters from Coleman Pond under the road, just about half way across Slab City, is being replaced with an open bottom pipe arch. This type of culvert, required by environmental regulations, replicates a natural streambed and makes it easier for fish to pass through, but it also takes longer to install, thus the six week road closure. The town acquired a number of grants which will pay for a large portion of the work. So those of us who live on this side of town will have to find other ways to get where we’re going, basically through the Center.

Check out the final report of the Lincolnville Harbor Evaluation, Planning and Feasibility Study online.

Strawberry Festival

The 24th Annual Strawberry Festival will be held on Saturday, July 8th from 9 a.m. -1 p.m. at the church grounds, United Christian and Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road.  As always, there’s something for everyone in the family: the parade through the Center starts at 10, puppet shows at 10:30 and 11, children’s crafts and games, music, and strawberries served in every way.

 Children can ride their bikes in the parade; come to the Library parking lot at 9:30 to decorate them. Music throughout the day will include the Lincolnville Band, Rosey and Friends, and the Soup Café Harmonica Boys led by Sam Manning. Children always love to pet Annie Sue, the miniature horse from Moose Ridge Farm and have their picture taken with her. The main attraction is the homemade strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. My own favorite is the grilled hot dogs with Bob's delicious fried onions and relish; sausage rolls, popcorn, jams and other strawberry goodies will be for sale as well as antiques and crafts featuring Barbara Bentley's unique totes and handbags made from repurposed grain bags, and Mary Lou Carver's handcrafted bird ornaments.

 If you’ve never poked around the inside of United Christian Church, built as the town meetinghouse in 1821, now’s the chance for a guided tour. See the original boxed pews, high pulpit, balcony, and rippled glass windows.

The public is invited to an opening reception for an exhibition of new paintings by Chris Polson on Saturday, July 8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Twin Brooks Stretchers at 59 Calderwood Lane in Lincolnville. The paintings are ones Chris has done during the past three years in the Baxter State Park and around Midcoast Maine. A brand new 84-by-120-inch painting of Roaring Brook and a 72-by-72-inch painting of Katahdin from near Blueberry Knoll in Baxter State Park will be featured in the show, along with a number of other large canvases and smaller field study paintings.

 Chris has been painting and showing in Maine for more than 23 years. Along with Joe Calderwood he’s the co-owner of Twin Brooks Stretchers, which sells its custom canvas stretchers to artists across Maine and throughout the world. 

 The exhibition will run through September 8. Hours are 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to Friday or by appointment: email info@twinbrooksstretchers.com or call 800-856-1567.

Indoor Flea Market

One recent morning Lucy Pincince was sitting on the rocks by the shore with her morning cup of tea watching an otter swim lazily by. She’d seen it off and on over the past few days, and had initially wondered if it was a baby seal, poking its head above water. Then one day it scrambled up onto the rocks, and on its four legs, walked to a nearby stream that emptied into the sea. Not a seal with those legs!

But on this day she was startled by a ruckus in the trees behind her. Then a mob of crows appeared, cawing loudly and chasing an eagle, driving the bigger bird away from whatever mischief it was causing. The eagle escaped the crows and then spotted the otter, floating on its back in the waves, belly exposed. The eagle started to dive, and Lucy, dropping the teacup, scrambled helter skelter down over the rocks, shouting at the otter to dive! Dive it did, whether at Lucy’s suggestion or its own good idea, and disappeared, just as the eagle’s talons skimmed the water and came up empty.

Just another quiet morning by the seashore.