Hanging Plank

Summer officially began with a vengeance this weekend. Temps in the 90's and enough humidity to sweat the porcelain. Any sane man would be out on the water getting wafted, but this inmate is still barging around in the dooryard, dripping on his tools.

Earl's Boat

Did get the sides of the ark planked, however, and she begins to flesh out. The smell of fresh-cut pine, and the curl of shavings, the snugging up of screws into oak, and the muttering of incantations filled our holiday to the brim.

After the usual uncertainties I decided to do what I'd intended to do all along, and isn't that the way of it? You have a quick glimpse of how to do something, then you second guess yourself into a quandary, only to go ahead and do it the way you first thought. I think this is called being over-educated.

Still I had to worry it. Wasn't until I'd puzzled on it that I could continue. When I realized that narrow planks expand and contract less, across their width, than wide planks, I understood how you could forego caulking with skinny planks. That and the advantage of being able to use any available stock to make narrow planks, plus the ease of bending them on, explained why a production shop might choose that method. On the other cheek, I've got this wide pine, and am willing to caulk. Plank Ho.

The strakes fell out nicely, once begun. I started hanging plank at the sheer, which is on the bottom, building upside down. Putting one corner of the widest board I had up to the lowest corner of the bow transom and leveling the top of it gave me a reference line. Extending that line to the stern transom showed me that an 8 inch plank would reach all the sheer from amidships aft, and cover the after quarter. I picked a board off my rick, and clamped it on to see.

I planed the straight upper edges square, then shaved off a 1/16" caulking bevel on the outboard side, clamped the planks on, scribed the sheer line and cut it away, leaving enough fat to bevel it fair with the decks to be, trued the butts where they met, buttered the butts with bedding compound, fitted a butt block behind the butts, thunked the butts tight, drilled the pilot holes and drove home the screws with a bit brace. Took me a day to get the first strake done on one side, and another day for its mirror image.

The second strake took a bit of wedging to snug up, but I was lucky enough to find four planks the same width, so I didn't have to rip any to size, just plane, butt, and hang. Even so, it took two more days to go round again. I considered ripping the planks so her next seam would lie on the waterline. A nice touch, I thought, and a way to get the paint line straight, but there's no telling if my calculations are right about where that line will be. Besides which, going full width on the second strake meant that I could get the rest of the coverage out of two wide boards I had handy.

Wedging

Side Planked

We're coming to the bottom of our house renovations, too. Seth is home doing finish work and he's got it all painted and mostly trimmed already. Ottavio will be back for a day of touches, and then Ellis and Rambo will hook us up. It's been cleansing to empty out our upstairs, stow away all the accumulations, gut it, and enjoy naked empty spaces in our world. Like clearing your head of all the old snarls. It helps to have Seth on the site to cheer us, too.

Changing seasons bring new perspectives, as well. Like how could we ever be as dour as March, or as foolish as April? Now it's all roses and salad greens. Peggy served up our first garden salad on May 25th, a fit feast to begin our second thirty years of marriage. Poppies and Rhododendron on the plantation. Buttercups and timothy by the airfield.

Flower Show

Bowdoinham International

Friday AM Brian pulled in the drive wanting to know if I was ready for the flight he'd been offering me. I'd mentioned an interest in seeing Bowdoinham from a new angle, and he suggested a ride in his plane might change the view. You'd think that living under the flight path to Bowdoinham International would have lured me into the air sooner, but, except for a white-knuckle barter with a stunt pilot, I've been strictly a terra firmite in this ham. Now I was invited for to sight-see in a bright yellow bird.

A bright morning with still air at low tide. The canopy of leaves has filled out, and the prospect is a lush green sea, cut by serpentine rivers, and a sparkling bay mottled by muddy spoil banks and bars of sand. I've spent the two years since we came back off the road walking and biking and driving around this town, looking intently, and trying to capture the shape of a place. Now I'm looking down on the familiar, and it's all new.

Cathance Curves

Chestnut Bloom

At ground level the scene is articulated by manscapes. Utility infrastructure and people junk. Pavements and signs. Housedressing and lawn ornamentation. For most of our days the vegetation is backdrop, something on the edge of these corridors of settlement. The rare scenic vista in Bowdoinham is seen across a pasture, or down a powerline. You feel enclosed in a web of human artifacts.

From on high this is deep rural. The house tops of town dwindle into fine details, while the acreage opens out into a quilt of woodland and watercourses, patterned by farm clearings and the linear slashes of powerlines and railroad, to be sure, but much more an image of nature than of man. Or maybe the message is that such distinctions are askew. Maybe we are more woven into environment than we are estranged from it. The ribbon roads wind along ridges, while water snakes glisten between the greens below.

Abby View

Looking to Sea

Lifting higher the White Mountains line the horizon one way, while the land fragments into islands the other way, fades into a sea haze. Up here you can't forget that this burg by the Bay is where six rivers wiggle together, mirroring the sunlight. Those vertical trees lining the roadsides, confining us to our petty concerns, are great mushrooming sunguzzlers blooming up at the sky. Hard to feel cornered in a small town, if you can joyride over it, and buzz the neighbors.

I'd expected to get new angles on the scenes I've been coloring. I hadn't expected the familiar to disappear in plane sight. I thought my mental images of this place could be collaged into a unifying view. Now I see there's a bigger picture, which I haven't begun to draw. I'm not even sure how.

Brown's Point Crossing

George's Herd

Brian say he hates development, and every time he sees a new house down there it bothers him. I think the houses are beside the point from up here. The ants are just crawling round on the artwork. I'm not sure I want to come down.

But wing over we did, and touched down with a roar. Back to reality. Now every time one of the local birds skims over our yard my mind's eye will lift and look out to far horizons. Thanks, Brian. Be hard to razz you at town meeting this year.

Scene of the Crime?

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