The morel, from wikipedia

This fall like most we attended the Common Ground Fair in Unity. While there, we listened to a talk by Greg Marley, our local (Rockland, ME) mycologist (mushroom expert), mycophile (mushroom lover) and mycophagist (mushroom eater). His talk was meant to put an end to mycophobia.

Marley sees the world as divided into the mycophobic (like here and England) and the mycophillic (just about everywhere else). He tells us our society has an irrational fear of fungus, but then points out how mushroom poisonings in the mycophillic world number into the hundreds per year. The one thing to remember, he says, is to focus on edible and medicinal species which are not at all similar to poisonous ones. This means avoiding LBMs (little brown mushrooms) which are notoriously difficult to key out. Also, keeping a checklist of the traits of the most toxic

The death cap from wikipedia

‘shrooms is a good practice. The most toxic genus (the last stop before individual species) is by far, Amanita. One typical cap of Amanita phalloides, the death cap, can kill 5 people and will do so slowly over a week or so. Saving the life of the victim often involves a liver transplant. Amanitas have a white spore print, white gills which are free from the stem, a ring around the stem (an annulus) and a swollen base (a volva), as if it came out of an egg. The death cap is rare in Maine but other Amanitas, including equally toxic ones, are plentiful.

Now, are we ready for the edibles? Feeling uncertain? Good! Identifying edible fungus is best first done with an old hand. Someone who not only knows how to identify them, but where they are likely to grow. When I was a kid that guy was Smitty, a retired mail carrier and big band musician who lived

Shaggy Mane, from Sisyphus. A little past its prime.

across the street. Every May he and his wife Louise would take me into the woods and we would look for morels. This was northern Michigan, where morel hunting is a favorite pastime. The big benefit of morels, besides their flavor, is the fact that they look like sponges on a stalk and so can’t be mistaken for anything poisonous (actually, there’s one, but it’s easy to tell apart and it’s not as deadly as a death cap).

When I moved to Maine I had to leave morels behind. They do grow here occasionally, but you can’t gather enough for a meal, just the odd one. So after years of feeling sorry for myself I ended up listening to Greg Marley and realizing all I had to do was to substitute local edible mushrooms for the ones I miss. Greg presented the “fool-proof four” mushrooms for Maine. They are the morel, puffball, hen-of-the-woods, and shaggy mane. But he said these four are from

Hen of the woods, from AMG

another mycologist and the morels here are scarce. He also pointed out that the puffballs, while an easy target, are not the most choice. He advocated three more which may be more appropriate for Maine, the chanterelle, the sulphur shelf and the king bolete. I am looking forward to finding all these gems. I already came across a nice stand of shaggy manes, and I had a great meal.

There’s much more to getting started in wild mushrooming that looking at a few pictures and

Sulphur shelf, from wikipedia

warming up the frying pan. An intermediate step is to start an excel spreadsheet of all the specimens you find. Each row corresponds to the found fungus with columns for date, location (GPS is good!), habitat, link to photo, spore color, best guess (genus, species, common name) and notes. This will get you practice in identification, a feel for the features of different families and genera, and will give you a chance for a return visit next year. You need an up-to-date field guide. Mine is old and fails to reflect all the name changes that have occurred in the last 30

Chanterelles, from wikipedia

years.

Mycology is very much an evolving field, with genetic data starting to turn the old classification system on its head. Two  on-line resources to use are mushroomexpert.com and Europe’s Roger’s Mushrooms. Don’t do a google search for a picture of a certain species without realizing you will get pictures of misidentified mushrooms–stick with the above sources or a good field guide. Stay in touch with other mushroom hunters like Ari Rockland-Miller and his blog themushroomforager.com to see what’s popping up in the area.

Greg Marley’s book, Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore, and Mystique of Mushrooms is available in the usual places and is a great tour through the fungal world (did you know flying squirrels eat truffles?). Greg wrote in my copy, “Hope this gets you out into the mushrooms!” It did!

Vinnie B., rollin' stone

From time to time we like to feature guest bloggers. This is Vinnie B. from Tankbottom, New Jersey. His opinions are his own.

I gotta tell ya, dis place is awful. First of all, dis Lamoine is on d’way to nowheres. It’s a dead end. Nothing out dere but ocean and….Canada. The nice reassurin’ buzz of traffic and honkin’ horns is missin’. It’s too quiet. All dere is is d’sound of wind through d’pine needles and sometimes a gull call or eagle yell. Somehow d’air’s not right neither. Dere ain’t no diesel smoke or fryer fumes like back home. And speaking of fryers, fuggetabout yer favorite fast food joints. Oh sure, dere’s a few in Ellsworth but don’t expect a Steak and Shake or El Pollo Loco, and dey just shut down the Friendly’s! Borin’! And  dey ain’t got none in Lamoine or Bar Harbor!

a whole lotta nuthin'

In fact, d’locals eat dese big red spiders dey get out of d’ocean. And the proprietor digs in d’smelly mud for some kind of  mushy thing dat lives in a shell, and den cooks it in a hole in d’ground! Weird! Who wants to eat things dat don’t come from d’store? Dis is dangerous. And don’t get d’local beer! Ya can’t drink more’n four or five before you pass out.

And speakin’ of stores, there’s only one big box in town, Walmart. Unless you count Home Depot. How we suppose ta get stuff if we have ta shop in stores we ain’t never heard of? Suppose dey got only big red spiders instead of what we want? We want fish sticks, we get spiders!

Kinda rough...

And some of d’houses are kinda rough lookin’. And don’t nobody weed dere lawns? Just when I think a place is abandoned someone walks out d’door wit dere head held high, like dey was proud or sumpin’.

Da best part of d’trip was going ta Bar Harbor. Da long wait for a table at d’restaurant was almost like home. Lots of traffic too. Ahhhh! But why don’t dey put cell towers on all dese mountains? I couldn’t text from some places while I was drivin’. Outrageous! And d’water at Sand Beach is freezin’! Give me d’Jersey shore any day.

People here are strange. Dey wait a minute before dey say sumpin’ and den talk real slow with a funny accent. Dey try to mess with yer head, den you realize later dey was bein’ clever. Sayin’ things like, “I had to slow down just so’s I could hurry up,” and “ya can’t get there from here”. I think I know why Stephen King is from here. Everybody’s got dat wild Maine woods look. It creeps me out.

Stay away! Vegas is better. Florida’s good, especially Gatorland. Do yerself a favor. Maine is no place for normal dudes like us. Nature should be controlled, boxed up, like at Gatorland. Not out where you can see it, seepin’ into the local oddballs. Dat’s it! Maine is for oddballs. KnowhatI’msayin’?

Latona was a goddess of Roman origin. Daughter of Caeus the Titan and Phoebe, or, according to Homer, of Saturn, and mother of Apollo and Diana. For our town, I assume one particular legend of Latona’s applies. She was banished to earth and earth people were forbidden from giving her comfort by the jealous goddess Juno. Latona and her two children asked the farmers around a lake if she and her children could drink from it. The farmers, fearing the wrath of Juno, denied her. After repeated entreaties she finally decided she had had enough, and turned them into frogs. Lamoine people, by naming our spring after the spurned goddess, are certain to provide her water, and therefore need not fear being changed into frogs.

Latona Spring is downhill from Blunt’s Pond, once used for a public water supply, and kept relatively pristine by laws against bathing, motorboats and swimming dogs. This water is filtered through the aquifer and emerges at Latona Spring, where it is captured in a brick enclosure. From here water emerges through a pipe where visitors or Roman goddesses can drink or capture as much as they wish.

Many locals use the water for drinking if their own well water is less than tasty. We have recently used it as we “break in” our new well. We know that the bottled water from the supermarket is no better than that from our Roman goddess. The spring has recently undergone renovations by the owners, Lamoine’s Whitcomb family. The roof has been temporarily moved and is in need of shingles. Plumbing has been replaced and the outlet pipe has been artfully enclosed in granite stonework. New gravel now improves parking.

Stone steps lead to easy access of cool, pure water

The entrance to Latona Spring is just opposite the sign for Latona Lane on State Route 184, Lamoine Beach Road, about 2 miles east of the school. If you visit, please remember this is private property shared with the public, and may not remain so if abused.

Out in front of SeaCat’s Rest are untold numbers of Mya Arenaria, the soft shell clam. This is the type of clam you will get most often when you order a clam dinner anywhere in New England. These clams settle in the intertidal mud vertically, with their “necks” (siphons) extended several inches towards the surface, where they filter seawater for food. When they sense danger, like a human stepping on the ground nearby, they quickly pull in their siphons and remain securely buried in six inches or so of the fragrant mud. As they pull in, they often squirt excess water, betraying their location. But even if they don’t squirt, they leave a little hole where you know where to dig. That’s where the work comes in.

The first step is to make sure you’re legal. In Lamoine, Maine, that means getting a license. It costs a whopping $6 for residents or $12 for non-residents for a recreational license. This allows you to dig one peck per day, 2-1/2 gallons or about 150 clams. Since I usually figure 20 clams per person, that’s enough for 7 people.  The next vital step is to make sure there are no closures. A clam flat closure can be due to either pollution or red tide, and is not to be ignored. The place to go is the Maine Shellfish Hotline, 1-800-232-4733

Next you need equipment. A bucket or “hod” (a slatted tray with a handle) to hold the clams, some rubber boots and a digging tool. Here, the clam flats are not pure mud, but a mixture of mud and rocks. This makes it hard to get to the clams without damaging them, and I’ve found the best tool is a straight four-tined spading fork. Mine is made by Ames and was found at Home Depot.  The tines are placed at least six inches from the holes and pushed down all the way. If rocks are in the way, try a different spot. When down all the way, gently lever the mud up. Often you will catch a glimpse of a clam’s neck squirting water. Grab onto the neck and hold firm as you continue to flip the mud. This is your first clam.

Reject any clams under 2″ across or with broken shells–you’ll never get the grit out, and you want live clams, not dead ones. Once you have made your first hole, now it’s time to hear the digger’s secret. Flipping back the mud might get you one clam, but there are more down there and the only way to get them is to thrust your hand down and feel for them! Go back and forth across the bottom of the hole and probe for the shape of a closed clam set vertically in the mud. Rock the clam back and forth to break the mud’s suction.  Don’t worry, they don’t bite. You will pull out rocks and more mud, but with a little luck, a few more clams. Don’t forget to go over the mud already pulled out with the first spading. Beware of broken glass! Commercial clammers in Lamoine have lubricated their activities with liquor for a century or more. Some pieces of glass are therefore quite old and may be worth saving.

As your clam bucket fills up you will eventually want to rinse them. Pour out your clams onto a bed of rockweed and clean out the mud in your bucket. Pour clean seawater over the clams and return them to the bucket with clean water. Now is the time to make sure there are no dead clams, closed but filled with mud. Your clams can stay like this for hours in the shade until you’re ready to cook them. If you use tap water be sure to thoroughly mix in 1/3 cup of salt per gallon. The clean water also allows them to expel any grit they may have inside. Some people like to pour in cornmeal to give the clams something to replace the grit with in their stomachs. Once your clams get their grit out you can store them dry in the fridge for up to two days, but using sooner is better. Do not seal live clams in plastic!

In an hour or two you will probably have enough for your meal. As the tide comes up you will find holes in higher ground, up to about 80% of the tidal range. Beware, it is hard to stop once you have tasted success. Just walk away! Rinse your digging fork with fresh water to keep it from rusting, and enjoy your clam dinner. You will have saved about $3.00 for each pound of clams you have dug (price as of 10/13/11) . A pound consists of 10 or so clams, so if you dug 100 clams you just made $30!

Measuring the flow at 260 feet

We had a great summer season, but there was one fly in the ointment. We were on the edge of running out of water all summer long. One of our groups of guests had to endure several hours of no water, alleviated only by our kind neighbors who allowed us to connect their water system with ours while our well recovered. Thanks Kelleys!

We made a difficult decision in August to get a new (second) well. Not a cheap item! Our income from SeaCat’s Rest will pretty much be exhausted this year by this decision, but we will no longer have to expect the dreaded dry faucet. That wheeze of air is etched into my memory.

The process of getting a well has been interesting. We settled on Williams and Taplin from Blue Hill, Maine based on their price and a recommendation. Mark Taplin drove his massive drilling rig here and spent a day drilling the well all by himself. The rig was awesome, consisting of a big diesel engine (separate from the truck engine) powering both a huge air compressor and hydraulic pump. The rig stood 25 feet high (maybe more), had 400 feet of drilling shaft in 20 foot lengths and two pads which dropped down from the truck to level it. The hammering was deafening, and was used when there was rock to drive through. Through it all, the drill shaft dropped down at what seemed a constant rate; there were no breakdowns, stoppages or head scratches.

Now we have a new well and our guests will not be bothered by water shortage. Check out the video and see what well drilling is all about! And forgive my misspelling of “ballet” I really did try to correct it!

Thanks to google for this image

It’s been a month now since I launched Eleccentricity, my electrically powered boat and perhaps primary symptom of mental illness. After all, who does stuff like this? Why can’t I just mow my lawn like normal people? Anyway, I’ve had a lot of fun cruising around and trying to figure out how far I can go on a charge. I still don’t know. I had the bright idea of setting out into the wind for a set distance and heading back, figuring that if I ran out of juice I could just blow back. I could do this multiple times until I ran out of power, thereby arriving at my range for one charge.

But I got bored, and the wind kept changing, and I started to stray off course. After all, the reason for building the boat was to experience the water and I was succumbing to the rapture. Besides, I was going back and forth and the boat was showing no sign of pooping out. So for now, the range will remain a mystery. After 5 or 6 days of light use I still got 37.5 volts, which translates to around 70% charge, so I am unsure of the range. Best estimate is about 20-25 miles.

A big beautiful fisherman's anchor!

On one of the days I decided to pull up an abandoned mooring I spotted close to shore. I knew it was abandoned because the orange ball was only visible at low tide. It sank under as the tide rose. So at low tide I tied Eleccentricity’s bow eye to the mooring and hoped it would not pull her down as the tide rose. I set about painting the interior to pass the time. Eventually I noticed  the stern was lifting higher. With just a little sinking of the bow the mooring was off the bottom! Now I could wait for high tide and move the mooring close to shore until it grounded. I was hoping the spot where it hit the bottom would be visible at low tide. Next day at low tide I surveyed my treasure. A big fisherman’s anchor had become tangled with a lobster trap and both were completely colonized by marine growth. I untangled and cleaned up the anchor and put it to use as a close-to shore mooring for charging Eleccentricity’s batteries. So far the scheme has worked fine. I have about 6 hours during which the tide affords me the water depth to keep the boat off the bottom for a full charge.  Next year I hope to charge using photovoltaics on a canopy.

The final entry in this story is Irene, the hurricane. I have seen lots of fizzled hurricanes in Maine, but on Saturday I was cruising about and noticed a very empty harbor at Lamoine State Park. The lobster boats were all in the parking lot. This caught my attention. There’s something quite unsettling about being one of the few boats left in the bay. Even the whale watch ship was booking it toward protected waters.  My friend Chuck (the veggie farmer, find his wagon at Lamoine Corners) was anxious, and had already pulled his sailboat. He offered to pull mine, I agreed. So now Eleccentricity sits in the park’s lot, waiting Chuck’s return. Irene was powerful, even up here. We lost power for a short while; the wind howled and the rain hammered. No telling what could have happened if I had left the boat in. Thanks Chuck.

On July 31, 2011, a day ahead of schedule, we launched Eleccentricity, my electric launch (and someday, lobster boat) from the ramp at Lamoine State Park. My friend Chuck Weber, the veggie farmer at Lamoine Corners towed my trailer the mile to the park and the launch proceeded without incident. What happened after was a little off-script, but in a funny way.

Author/builder on right

Once the boat became afloat and upright (an achievement in itself, I might add) all that remained was to drop in the electrified outboard and connect the big thick wires providing 36 volts of current to the permanent magnet motor. This I did while chatting with Ben Fuller, curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, ME. He and many other small/wooden boat enthusiasts were present for the Small Reach Regatta winding up at the park for the second year. My frenetic preparations prevented me from attending the event, but I was bathed in attention from the crowd during my launch.

Connecting steering with Ben Fuller

Once I got a push off shore from the helpful crew I encountered the reason why my friend Dr. Jim counselled me to launch the first time in the dead of night. I twisted my throttle (actually, a little knob like you’d find on an old transistor radio),  I noticed the motor humming but no forward motion. In fact the boat was moving in reverse, back toward shore. OK, easy enough. Just reverse the big wires on the motor. It took about a minute, and I managed not to drop the nuts in the ocean.  Now everything was set for a spin around the harbor. I goosed the throttle and away I went. But the steering was weird…I turned the wheel and the boat went the other way. BACKWARDS STEERING!! I had connected the steering backwards and never noticed! I was so confused I steered the boat into the shore and my alert shore crew prevented me from grinding on the bottom as I cut the power.

Cruising with electrons

So the steering’s backwards! OK, just deal with it. I steered my boat to the dock and picked up three more friends and we took a cruise into Frenchman Bay. Among them were several who were sure the batteries would go dead within seconds of departure, but they were proved wrong. We cruised back and forth to Mount Desert Island and around the bay without depleting the batteries more than 30% from a full charge. I brought along my car’s GPS so I could see my speed and managed to top out at about 6.1 MPH, real close to the calculated hull speed (note: “hull speed” is used in reference to “displacement hulls”, which have a maximum theoretical speed, based on the square root of their waterline length. Speed boats have planing hulls which rise out of the water and can go much faster. Eleccentricity is a displacement hull design).

Prop wash

In the week since I have been working on getting power to recharge the boat and putting together a mooring. Currently Eleccentricity sits at anchor, slowly discharging as batteries do. Soon I will take her mackerel fishing.

This shows the fancy Lovejoy coupling, which transfers power to the shaft.

With my August 1 launch date fast approaching the pace of boatbuilding is speeding up. The electrified outboard is complete and so is it’s water-tight well. The batteries are in place and wired up. The steering is complete. All these tasks had glitches, cost overruns and frequent trips for stainless steel bolts but they’re done.

My artistic daughter and her boyfriend are taking charge of the exterior hull painting. The third and final coat is about to go on. Earlier today I shimmied under the boat to paint the bottom. What joy.

I ordered custom lettering from the internet and the letter transfer onto the transom of “Eleccentricity” and “Lamoine, ME” should take far less time than painting the letters.

Thanks Dave and Amelia (Photo by Amelia)

The first 14 inches in front of the transom are reserved for the motor well, but there was room on either side to create two other sealed boxes to house various electrical components. On the port side is an additional 12 volt battery which will power all necessary 12 volt stuff like the bilge pump, stereo, GPS and running lights. I could have tapped into my 36 volt battery bank to get the 12 volts but that would have resulted in uneven battery discharge, which would cause trouble eventually.

In the other watertight box are the 100 amp circuit breaker, the PWM (pulse width modulator) speed controller and 36 volt battery charger.  From here two big orange cables feed the motor, which by the way, runs fine and spins the prop just like it should!

I have yet to finish some carpentry; I need to build hinged lids for these boxes and some sort of covering for the motor. Then it’s time for fitting final hardware; the boaty stuff like cleats, chocks and oarlocks.

Reverse is kind of a last priority. I can either use the existing gear shift (and figure out how to do that from the front of the boat) or do it electrically, utilizing a big expensive high amperage double-pole double-throw relay. This would just reverse the motor rotation.

Guest are flooding into our SeaCat’s Rest Oceanside Suite and are very tolerant about the rough-looking host working away on the boat in the garage. I even got an impromptu shove from two guests who saw me pushing my boat back into the garage after I switched it end for end. This came after the realization that I couldn’t load it onto the trailer transom-first.  So a quartet of wagon wheels fastened onto the cradle and away I went.

I have begun messing with the outboard. The vile stink engine has been removed and I am now puzzling with how to connect the DC electric motor which will run on the 36 volts produced by the six 6 volt batteries. Out came the water pump (pictured) which resulted in much less friction. It won’t be needed for an electric set-up. The shaft turned much more easily with the thing gone.

The other water cooling related item to remove was the outlet pipe where the heated water exited the outboard. This was unceremoniously dispatched with a sawsall, and plugged with wood and epoxy. This task was recommended to me by a helpful boat guy on the west coast, who did a similar conversion on his outboard. He has a nifty .pdf file of his conversion. Go here and right click “Swe’Pea Conversion Story” and save or open with your .pdf reader.

I also checked the gearbox, which contrary to perceptions, is (or should be) completely sealed so that the water stays out and the gear oil stays in. I found mine to be in perfect shape. Still, I plan on draining and changing the oil before I finish.

Sort of like vanilla and strawberry

Back on the boat it was time for floatation. This will keep those heavy lead batteries from sinking the boat like, well,  six lead-filled batteries. I cut up and put about 7 cubic feet of foam into area under the floor. A cubic foot of salt water weighs 64 lbs, so seven cubic feet of foam would displace 448 lbs minus the weight of the foam, which is about 11 pounds. This gives me a net buoyancy of 437 lbs, more than enough to counteract the 370 pounds of batteries plus a bit more. Now,  even a partial flooding would be ruinous for the batteries, so I don’t plan to let salt water over the tops of the batteries. They are each in their own plastic boxes and are protected by a sump pump which will keep the bilge dry…hopefully. Still, if the worst happens I may lose the batteries but not the boat, thanks to the foam.

Now the foam is epoxied into place, the floor can get screwed on and no more bad footing while working inside the boat.

Next:  It’s time to build the bulkhead which will isolate the motor well and serve as a mount for the outboard.

I have a request for more boat progress pictures.  This is Eleccentricity, my wacky electric boat, which is now upright in my garage and moving ever closer to completion.

Glassing the insides

After flipping it over I fiberglassed the insides and then cut out the floorboards. They got glassed too. Gunwales (the strips of wood at the tops of the sides, inside and out) were next installed. I was looking for ash but found instead a pair of amazing fir boards, twenty feet long.

20 foot fir boards were recruited for gunwales

Next came decisions about where I would install the dashboard, which would also define the size of the foredeck.

Floorboards cut but not fastened

Remember, I’m making this up as I go along.

I positioned a lawn chair on the boat’s floor and tried various spots for where I would sit behind the steering wheel. For some unknown reason, the steering is always on the right in power boats–like England, Japan, and India do with cars.

Fitting the dash

After deciding where to put the dash I cut out a piece of glued-up ash and glued and screwed it into position. Then I built a framework in front of it to support the foredeck. I wanted to curve the foredeck so it would shed water (rather than dumping water in the captain’s lap). This could not be done with anything thicker than 1/4″ plywood. Now, 1/4″ plywood is pretty thin stuff and not likely to support a middle aged guy with a little extra padding, so I had to use two layers. Amazingly, when you epoxy two layers of curved 1/4″ plywood together you end up with something so stiff it feels like concrete. Getting it to curve in the first place was very difficult, involving lots of clamps and screws, stainless steel of course. Next up: floatation foam in under the floor. Then I’ll start dealing with the daunting mechanical and electrical systems. Stay tuned.

Second layer going on

Framing the foredeck