February 8: US Toboggan Championships

Today was the last day of the US Toboggan Championships at the Camden Snow Bowl. Despite the low temperatures, the tobogganers were lively in the chute, food was hearty, and we left smelling of woodsmoke.

 

At the toboggan races

eating egg sandwiches

around the fire pit

Posted with Blogsy

October 20: After they saw the Wizard of Oz exhibit at the Farnsworth Museum

My mom and I took my two young nieces up the chair lift at the Camden Snow Bowl this morning, to enjoy the view from on high on Ragged Mountain: burnished golds of the foliage, glimpse of the bay and its islands.

She had to wear
her shiny new red shoes
up the mountain.

[Information on the Farnsworth's Wizard of Oz exhibit, which I haven't yet seen, here.]

February 10: Blue sky, white snow

Today couldn't have dawned more differently from yesterday's howling blizzard that created monster snow drifts and shook limbs off trees. Sunshine, blue sky, double-digit temperatures, and shining white snow to play in made it a day to be outside.

I spent most of my time outside helping to park cars for the US National Toboggan Championships at the Camden Snow Bowl, which because of the storm was condensed from a weekend event to a one-day event. I can't imagine a livelier place to have been, with the costumed toboggan racers, festive atmosphere, and snow-covered mountains. A boom box out on the ice blasted disco music, and people had built ice-fishing shacks and igloos from which to host on-ice parties. After a day trapped inside by the storm, the whole community seemed really happy to be able to romp in the snow and cut loose together.

Eagle soaring past again--
perhaps it too rejoices
in the wide open blue sky.

December 27: Riders on the storm

A nor'easter sent snow and freezing rain gusting around my office today. I live too close to work for the weather to be an excuse not to show up, and we didn't lose power, so I put in a full day there. I was, however, pleasantly distracted for much of that time by the birds flocking my tiny window feeders. The regulars--chickadees and titmice--showed up, of course, and what I think is a solitary White-breasted Nuthatch. And then some finches I hadn't seen in a while made an unexpected appearance: goldfinches, their yellow throats looking positively sunny against the snow, Pine Siskins, and at least three redpolls--a boreal visitor I've only had at my feeders a couple times before. The finches chattered away as they chowed down; I could hear them through the window despite the roar of the wind.

Redpolls peck seed from snow.
I catch myself thinking
of raspberries.

Redpoll visitor from last year (window too splattered with snow to get a photograph today!)

October 21: Chairlift ride

Rode the chairlift up Ragged Mountain this morning with my friend Janet so we could fully appreciate the fall foliage from on high, as it were. The Camden Snow Bowl is apparently the only ski area from which one has an ocean view. This time of year, when the surrounding forest is burnished gold and copper, the deep blue autumn bay shines in beautiful contrast.

View from just above the chairlift station, looking down Lookout

The highlight of the outing for me, besides the glowing landscape, was watching (and listening to) a pair of ravens circling the summit. Also, we unexpectedly came upon a little garter snake crossing a ski trail, undoubtedly on its way to a sunny ledge. But the real surprise was when we were back down the mountain, heading for the car. Behind one of the maintenance buildings I heard a singing phoebe. I think the warmth of this sunny day must have confused him into thinking it was spring.

Bald Mountain, as viewed from the Ragged Mountain chairlift

Phoebe's out-of-season song
makes the day feel warmer
than it really is.

July 18: Reminder

Hundreds of people from the community gathered together today under a big tent in the hot sun at the Ragged Mountain Recreation Area to celebrate the life of Ken Bailey, a man who did it all: he was a loyal husband and father, Vietnam vet, editor and columnist of the local paper, owner of the town shoe store, policeman, fireman, Rotarian, Maine guide, avid hunter and fisherman, executive director of the Megunticook Watershed Association, and lake warden on Megunticook Lake and Nortons Pond. He had a kind word for everyone, and his life was an inspiration. He loved life and outlived his cancer prognosis by about four years, engaged and alert to the very end.

I stood in the shade of a spruce tree while family and close friends recounted their favorite memories of Ken. Up the mountainside a raven croaked several times, distracting me for a moment. As I briefly shifted my attention, I could hear a goldfinch twitter and dip overhead. It struck me how here below we were all thinking about mortality, grieving a loss in our human community, while up in the sky the birds continue to fly and sing: life goes on. Beautiful things still happen, even when we aren't open to recognizing them.

Above the mourners
goldfinches flit and chatter 
in the bright sunshine.

February 11: National Toboggan Championships

Spent the day at the Camden Snow Bowl for the annual US National Toboggan Championships, first working at the West Bay Rotary Chowder-Chili Challenge tent, and later hanging out with my friends while waiting for my brother-in-law's team, the Schleddy Balls, to take their run. The Toboggan Championships is a festive weekend at the Snow Bowl, with vendors offering fair-like treats and lots of tents, geodesic domes, etc. on the ice for partying. People-watching opportunities abound, from the costumed teams--including the Royal Dutch Toboggan team dressed up like some sort of cross between Marie Antoinette and geishas, a hula-skirted team from Hawaii, my brother-in-law's team with giant sports balls on their head, to Little Sled Riding Hood, a four-person team composed of Little Sled Riding Hood, a wolf (that repeatedly upset a small Boston terrier), grandma in her flannel nightgown, and a woodcutter whose axe did double duty as a meatball-spearing utensil--to observers ranging from locals checking out the scene to visitors from afar marveling at the entertainment. A lot of tail-gating was going on, and one tent seemed to be offering a dance party with hula hoops. I ate a corn dog for the first time in years (as well as many meatballs). And all day the snow fell without seeming to accumulate, as the sun appeared but shone in vain. At day's end, as I was picking up my car in the shuttle parking area, fireworks were bursting over Camden harbor. This event is one of the reasons I love living here--crazy, eclectic, active, and embracing the winter season and a broad diversity of people; what more could one ask for in mid-February?

The ride down the chute
is the least of it: winter
needs this festive break.
 

November 2: Flies

This morning I attended a meeting in the Camden Snow Bowl lodge, an old A-frame that turns out to be the perfect habitat for those big, lazy house flies that literally come out of the woodwork this time of year. The side of the building that faces the ski slopes is all windows, and I couldn't help but notice hundreds of black specks crawling on the inside surface of the glass. When I exclaimed in horrified amazement to a staff person there, she directed my attention to a window in the opposite peak, over her office. It was covered with masses of flies, so many that they obscured the view. We joked that the place needed 20-foot strips of fly paper.

Throughout our meeting I kept catching, out of the corner of my eye, the sight of flies moving--a sensation similar to seeing stars, only they didn't go away. Luckily, most of the flies were far above us. But every now and then one would land on one of us or the table and just cling there in a slow, creepy way. I could have easily caught one with chopsticks. I kept feeling them land on my hair, whether they were there or not. The creepiness went up a notch when a big ventilation fan that had been humming loudly throughout our meeting turned off. Suddenly we could all hear the buzz of hundreds--maybe thousands--of flies...

White noise of black flies
in crawling constellations
above us: wall's gift.

October 23: Conclave of Ravens

This morning I joined a group of friends for brunch atop Ragged Mountain. We rode up the chairlift two-by-two, with bags of bagels, a box of coffee, and sundry bagel spreads, and found a spot in the sun for our picnic. The sunlit fall foliage looked brighter, the bay sparkled in the distance, and we felt fortunate to have picked such a beautiful day for our outing.

View from Ragged Mountain to Penobscot Bay, Mount Battie

At one point I noticed a swirl of dark birds in the sky above the summit of Ragged, to our northwest. I figured they were a kettle of vultures, which live in these mountains and are often seen soaring over the ridge line. This was, after all, a perfect day to ride thermals. But they weren't vultures, they were ravens. While ravens also live in the Camden Hills, it's unusual to see such a large group of them all together, hanging out, as it were. This time of year it could be a family group, or it could be a flock of young birds gathered to spend the winter together in a little corvid conclave. They were joined by a red-tailed hawk, which didn't seem to be interacting with them in an aggressive way. Rather, the birds seemed to be enjoying the unseasonably warm morning air together, much as we all were down below on the sunny ledge.

Twelve humans observe
nine ravens, all enjoying
sunny mountaintop.

January 16: View from the Chairlift

Recently I participated in a team-building exercise in which nine of us had two illustrations each that together made up an eighteen-page sequence. Looking only at our own two pictures and then describing them to the group, we had to lay them face-down on the floor in what we thought was the correct order. The end result was a pictorial narrative that began with a view of Earth from space and ended with the face of a chicken from the cover of a book being read by a kid on a cruise ship (with many other steps in-between). The goal was obviously to develop communication skills as a group, but the fun of it was in the unexpected perspective shift that telescoped (actually, "microscoped" would be more appropriate) from something literally universal down to the most minute detail.

I was reminded of that exercise while riding the chair lift at the Camden Snow Bowl. The view of the snow-covered Camden Hills on the way up Ragged Mountain is spectacular, especially the near view of craggy Bald Mountain. I kept looking over my shoulder, wanting to take it all in. I love living in such a beautiful place. About half-way up, however, I heard a high-pitched noise that I first dismissed as the chairlift pulley running through the tower. But it really sounded like a golden-crowned kinglet. And sure enough, I heard it again as a tiny bird flew into a nearby tree. As it landed below my dangling skis, its crown flared brightly. In that one instant, my attention shifted from the mountains to the tiny head feathers of a bird smaller than a chickadee--each sight breath-taking in its own way.

Mountains surround me,
but the kinglet's bright gold crown
is what draws my eye.