Spring!

We've had day after day of sunny weather and that lovely smell of spring, enough to get a person excited about spring cleaning. The crocuses are coming up--never mind that the twinkle lights I put in the bushes in the winter remain stuck in icy piles in places--it's spring! The apple tree pruners came by and tidied up the orchard. We should have huge apples and pears this year. I’m not sure when the cider pressing will be but I’ll let you know.

Guests have been in and out of the Cape House, checking on properties, working in the area, visiting family. A couple from Europe stayed almost a week--"This will be a great memory that we can bring back home to Sweden!" Soon we'll have members of the Western Mountain Trash Can Band staying as they take part in the 2008 New England Pan Festival here in Blue Hill.

I pass North Country Textiles as I walk to the post office. They, like the crocus, are blooming--gorgeous rugs drape the railing and, inside, the gallery is filling up with yummy new stock.

I just finished a Maine-based book, Bride Island, by Alexandra Enders. She quotes Sarah Orne Jewett from the Country of the Pointed Firs (You can visit Sarah Orne Jewett's home in South Berwick when you're in Maine next!): "In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness." Remote and islanded, endless regret or secret happiness…

Enders also quotes Dorothy Simpson, an author I'm unfamiliar with, from The Maine Islands: "If a man is lucky enough to possess a whole island--even if it's the merest speck of rock and turf, and a few spruce trees and raspberry bushes--but can only spend a few summer weeks on it, spiritually he is an islander all year round. This is particularly true of children who have had island summers. They become islanders for life at an early age." I was especially struck by this as I had just taken a reservation from a woman who knew Maine from a few weeks on an island each summer. She said that even now when she thinks back to her childhood summers, the memories are always from those weeks.

I am mourning the passing of Lloyd Capen, whose book The Price of Clams I so enthusiastically wrote about in my New Year's entry. I regret not having told him in person how I adored his story.

Rain is forecast for the weekend so it will be indoor work—inventory and interviews. The raking of rocks from the yard will wait for the sun.