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!

from wikipedia

Here it is November. The days are short, the visitors are gone and attention turns to the indoors. Good thing, since the woods are filled with orange men with guns. This part of Maine has more than a nose-to-the-grindstone aspect. We like to enjoy more than the normal dose of music and theater, probably due to our 150 year association with summer and retired people of the eastern seaboard.

This weekend, November 18-20, 2011 we have a choice of Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida at Ellsworth High School,  Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats at MDI High School and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at The Grand. Those wishing to drive a little farther could take in Footloose at Bucksport High School,  The Phantom Tollbooth at the Deer Isle Stonington Elementary School  or The Nutcracker at UM Machias.

"Earnest" partial cast: Leslie Michaud as Gwendolyn, Veronica Young as Lady Bracknell, Greg Mihalik as Jack, Melissa Burkart as Cecily and Zachary Robbins as Algernon.

Oscar Wilde, from wikipedia

Since I am not generally a fan of musicals, my pick for the evening was  The Importance of Being Earnest. I recently watched the 1952 film version and enjoyed it. I’m not claiming I was able to keep track of every plot twist and turn, but I like watching a movie which does not rely on color, scenery and special effects to keep my attention. The play was called by Wilde “a trivial comedy for serious people” and was his last comedy before being jailed and then exiled for “gross indecency”– homosexuality. This production, by a collection of local talent, was a reading only, meaning the actors read their parts from scripts they were holding. But this didn’t diminishing the effect, since the costumes, accents and delivery were pro. Although only a one-night event, the play promises to return in the spring with a full-blown production.

Memorable as Lady Bracknell, the elderly guardian of Gwendolyn Fairfax and all that is proper, was Veronica Young:

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did it would prove a serious threat to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

The play is a farce about stuffy Victorian social conventions and how to employ clever avoidance strategies, and ultimately how those strategies backfire.  But you want the underdogs to win and in the end, they do; with witty dialog. The play was first performed in 1895. I can’t wait for the spring production.

One of the sore points of our beautiful state of Maine has been the collapse of the ground fishing industry. This has been even worse in Newfoundland, where the human population had dropped from its peak in 1991 at 568,475 to 505,469 in 2006, a 9% drop. A neighbor recently bought a house in a fishing village there for $1. While the trend may be finally reversing due to new mines and oil exploration, here in Maine there’s new hope for groundfishing.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

First, a definition. Groundfishing refers to fish with fins, not lobsters, shrimp or shellfish, caught in nets.  Here in the northeast these are mostly haddock, cod, hake and pollock. The resource collapsed due to overfishing. Blame for this situation varies depending on who you ask; fishers, the government, foreign factory ships, healthy eating trends or homeowners with leaky septic systems, take your pick. In a very long and detailed article in Maine Coastal News Jane Lubchenco (see below for her title, it’s a whopper)* writes that the new fish management scheme is resulting in a turn-around. Previously, implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens  Act (the federal law enacted to manage fish stocks) focused on limiting days at sea and landing limits. This was not embraced by the fishing industry, as it resulted in fishing during bad weather and dumping lots of by-catch. Now, the new way of rebuilding our fish stocks involves participation of the fishers themselves. In an earlier article, we explored how Maine’s lobster industry has successfully worked with science and government to maintain health, now it seems the government is more willing to trust the groundfishing industry to self-manage.

from the Portland Fish Exchange website, http://www.pfex.org

Instead of limiting days-at-sea, the new scheme is called “sector management”. The sectors are actually volunteer groups of fishers in given areas which are charged with meeting certain catch limits. How they do it is up to them. Like farming, each fisher is limited by his territory and responsible for its productivity.  The results are encouraging. Dr. Lubchenco writes,

We are finally on track to end overfishing. For the first time ever, we have catch limits and accountability measures in place and clear ability to track progress. In 2010 fishermen fished within the limits for 18 of the 20 stocks. This is excellent news.

Stocks are being rebuilt and therefore catch limits are up….in the 2011 fishing year catches have gone up for 12 of the 20 groundfish stocks…

Atlantic Cod from http://www.nero.noaa.gov

Dr. Lubchenco goes on to praise the new cooperative system for resulting in more selective fishing and “fishing smarter” to avoid the taking of bycatch of weaker stocks.

While early signs are encouraging she warns that there are many tweaks to the system which may be required. Better data collection, more nimble reaction to stock levels and more trust building between government, science and fishers will need to be done in the next few years. And even if stocks are on the upward trend, the cost per pound needs to provide a decent income, something that can’t be guaranteed by anyone.

The article I have presented is at best a brief summary of this complicated issue. I will continue to report on the groundfish situation, and I expect the news to be good in the next few years. Yet another reason to love the state of Maine. Get the full story in November’s issue of  Maine Coastal News.

*Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U. S. Department of Commerce Before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U. S. Senate, Boston, MA.

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!

Another joyous Oktoberfest  Saturday has passed with the usual measure of fun and revelry. The 2011 Southwest Harbor Oktoberfest was not as crowded as previous years, probably because the weather was too nice to spend in a tent. This weekend has been almost other-worldly, with temps in the 70s and 80s, but who are we to complain? Someday we can figure out how the weather affects attendance at Oktoberfests, but for this time, it appears that a little cold and rain would have been beneficial for ticket sales.

Thanks to this fellow for letting me photograph him

For the attendees however, the extra space was welcome. It was possible to drift from brewery to brewery without feeling like you were in a NY subway. Unfortunately, my favorite brewery from 2010 was missing. Marshall Wharf of Belfast, where were you?? Rumor was they just didn’t get it together. I did see lots of new breweries however. A favorite was Maine Beer Company of Portland. Their humbly named “Lunch IPA” was phenomenal. Their website is http://www.mainebeercompany.com . My second taste was from the bottom of the bottle and full of yeast. These folks are bottle-conditioned believers. It’s impossible to dispense 4 or 5 samples from one bottle without getting yeast in, a minor gripe.

I have to confess, I am always in search of a very hoppy IPA, so other beer types: lagers, pale ales, wheat types (yucch!) and fruity concoctions (double yucch!) will disappoint me. So among these 21 breweries, only three met my interest. Besides Maine Beer Company I found good hoppy brews at (in alphabetical order) Baxter Brewing Company (stowaway IPA) and Black Bear Microbrew (Bad Omen IPA).  There were other decent IPAs out there, but these were the best.

from http://www.blackbearmicrobrew.com

I just heard from David from Marshall Wharf about why his brewery wasn’t able to make an appearance. Marshall Wharf has their own beer festival the weekend after our Oktoberfest, in Belfast, Maine, an hour or so away. He says,

I have created a bit of a monster in our own festival which is always the
weekend after the SW Oktoberfest.  This year we are pouring 34 different
Marshall Wharf beers, and expecting upwards of 600 people to descend on
us…….SO……we had to focus on this event.  I have been hammering my
brew crew pretty hard over the last few years.  BUT, that is not an excuse
and if we can figure it out well enough in advance next year you can bet
that we’ll be there with bells on and lots and lots of Marshall Wharf
beer.

Cheers!  and if your in the neighborhood on saturday stop by…..it’s
going to be crazy!

So that Belfast event is called the 4th Year of Beer and Pemaquid Mussel Fest and it’s happening at 2 Pinchy Lane, Belfast. Doors open at 5 PM on Saturday, October 15, 2011.

Clambakes came to us from Native Americans, who would cook their clams on hot rocks. Early colonists expanded the practice to include other ingredients.

from http://media.photobucket.com/image/clambake/ronandmia/Whidbey/ClamBake3.jpg?o=27

A clambake combines several genuine Maine shore experiences; the gathering of the sea’s bounty, building a nice fire, exotic seaside aromas and a great feast. Local professionals will build you one and supply all the food for a hefty price.  You can even get a “clambake” delivered to your door, minus the fire. But with just a little work you can do your own. Besides the ingredients you need a venue. A shoreside fire pit fits the bill. A lonely stretch of beach with the pit dug during low tide will work, just make sure the tide doesn’t rise too soon and that the land owner is  on board. One of our best clambakes was in our driveway!

The rockweed goes on the fire

The primary feature of the fire is rocks and hardwood. The hot rocks will do the cooking after the fire is reduced to embers, so they should be big-ish (like your head). The hardwood will burn hot enough to get the rocks hot. The rocks may split from the heat, but that’s par for the course. Think of it as a bonfire, quick and hot. Just make sure the rocks are hot enough to steam any water they contact. As the fire burns down you need to be ready for the next step: the seaweed. Collect about 25 gallons of rockweed from the shore. That’s the ubiquitous brown bladder-bearing stuff that is so common you will have no problem finding it unless you look for it at high tide.

Meanwhile, another crew is preparing the food. Corn should be cleaned of silk but not husks, the husks are folded back over the ears. Our October feast was corn deprived; grocery stores were out.

A tarp covers the seaweed and food

Clams should be in mesh bags. That’s often the way they come from the fish store (like Downeast Lobster Co., 1192 Bar Harbor Rd, Trenton, ME 04605). Otherwise  use loose fitting potato or onion bags, or improvise with cheesecloth. There should be plenty of room for the clams to open. Mussels and other shellfish can also be prepared the same way. Mussels can often be collected at low tide right on the shore without a license, but be sure there are no red tide or pollution closures for your area. Pollution closures occur often after heavy rains when poo washes down from the land. The Maine shellfish hotline is 1 800 232-4733. The lobsters need no preparation besides last rites, but I like to cut off their bands before they go in. Potatoes should be quartered and partially precooked, since the big problem with this process is overcooking of the clams.

Back to the fire. The big heat-producing phase is over and the hardwood is reduced to coals. A tender with a rake is making sure all the wood is burned or raked away, and the rocks are pushed together. Now everyone gets in the act.  Start throwing seaweed onto the pit. Immediately you will hear popping as the air bladders explode and send their flavorful steam through the air. Keep dumping on seaweed until you achieve a six to eight inch layer. Now it’s time to throw on the food. Reserve the hottest areas for all but the clams, place the clams at the perimeter or on top of other food. Some like to put in a raw egg. When the egg is hard boiled it means the bake is done.  Cover with another layer of seaweed and a wet tarp or old bed sheet. Anchor the sheet with rocks at the edge. You will see steam rising through the weave of the cloth. Start timing. After 1/2 hour uncover the food and look for open clams, that means it’s time to eat. The process may take up to one hour or more based on the heat of the rocks. You may find some items are not quite ready, but if the clams are done, don’t leave them in! First course! Keep a hose or water bucket handy in case the tarp catches on fire.

I can’t claim to be an expert at this. Be prepared like I am to pop some potatoes or corn into the microwave because they weren’t over a hot spot.  But overcooked clams are to be avoided, unlike lobsters, which can stay in longer without harm. The best part of a clambake is not the perfection of the timing, but the flavors of woodsmoke and seaweed which infuses the food, and the fun you and your friends have putting it all together.

If you want the flavor of a clambake without the pit and the big group, consider wrapping the ingredients (seaweed, lobster, clams, corn, etc.) into an aluminum foil pouch and cooking it on the grill or in the oven.  It comes pretty close!

Fall is barely showing its face to us on the shore of Frenchman Bay, yet we can see the end of our tourism season.  Not even the most creative liar can present November in Maine as something worth experiencing (weather-wise, at least), so SeaCat’s Rest will soon be empty once again. Still, this has been our best year so far, and even 2012 is starting to fill up (fair warning). The reports from Spring of 2011 indicated that visits to Acadia National Park were down 17% from 2010 in the first 5 months, but the weather was unusually rainy. Soon we’ll know how the rest of the summer went.

Here at SeaCat’s Rest  for 2011 we had visits from 13 states and one country besides the US, and the results are below. One group each from Maine, Vermont, NY, CT, MD, VA, FL, MN, WI, MI, WA and HI with 3 visiting groups from Pennsylvania. One family came all the way from Norwich, England. Our Hawaii visitors actually have a summer home nearby and used our place for overflow during a family reunion.In the spirit of catching up on SeaCat developments, we got the water analysis for our new well.  How many of your other vacation lodgings publish their water analysis? Bottom line, our water is safe to drink. We have a bit too much iron and manganese but that doesn’t affect human health. The most important part of the report, performed by the Maine State Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory is our low arsenic, bacteria and uranium.

PH   8.4    (highest allowed limit 8.5)

E. Coli   less than 1 per 100 ml

Coliform, total   less than 1 per 100 ml

Chloride   21 mg/L (highest allowed limit 250)

Fluoride   .05 mg/L (highest allowed limit 1.7)

Total hardness   71.9 mg/L

Nitrate Nitrogen   less than 0.05 mg/L

Nitrite Nitrogen   less than 0.05 mg/L

Arsenic  2.0 micrograms/L  (highest allowed limit 10)

Calcium 20 mg/L  (no limit set by EPA)

Copper .023 mg/L   (highest allowed limit 1.3)

Iron 2.1 mg/L   (exceeds aesthetic limit of .3)

Magnesium 5.5 mg/L  (no limit set by EPA)

Manganese .074 mg/L   (exceeds aesthetic limit of .05)

Uranium 5.1 micrograms/L  (highest allowed limit 30)

Photo courtesy of http://www.gardenpreserve.org

Paired up with Asticou Gardens, Thuya Gardens offers a beautiful formal English  garden set in a native Maine woodland. Asticou tends to the Japanese, so visiting both in close proximity is quite a world tour.

“Thuya” is a derivation of Thuja, which is the genus of the northern white cedar, Thuja occidentalis. While botanists know to pronounce the j like a y, I’m guessing garden founder and Boston landscape architect Joseph Henry Curtis (1841-1928) chose a name meant to avoid mispronunciation. His major contribution was Thuya Lodge, his home on the hillside, where visitors can find a broad selection of botanical and horticultural books. After his death the gardens were developed by Charles K. Savage in 1958, replacing the original orchard with a broad spectrum of colorful annuals and perennials arranged as borders to an expansive lawn. The lawn leads to a formal pavilion on the north side and a reflecting pool on the south end.  Mr. Savage designed the gardens in the style of English designer and author Gertrude Jekyll, as interpreted for the coast of Maine by island gardener Beatrix Farrand.

Photo courtesy of http://www.gardenpreserve.org

Visitors have a choice of how to get to the lodge and gardens. They can park at the lot on Rt 3 and walk up the steep steps on the hillside, complete with rest stops and covered shelters, or simply drive to the top on Thuya Drive.  We chose the former. Both Thuya and Asticou Gardens are accessible using the Island Explorer bus, and while both gardens ask for donations, there is no admission charge per se.

from Google maps

There is still time and lots of color in our fall season for both gardens, but Thuya Lodge is now closed (open mid June to mid September from 10-4:30). The gardens remain open until Halloween, during daylight hours. Both gardens are owned and operated by the Mount Desert Land & Garden Preserve, a non profit, which would put your tax deductible contribution to good use.

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!