Summer guests

I get a little panicky when guests are coming. This week we we will have nine guests, all family, most of whom will be with us at camp for an extended stay. Oh, yes, and another dog too. I have so many lists, I can't find them all. I have written extensively about my guest preparations in this blog. One story was published in the Portland Press Herald and you can read that here.

My grandson Ben will celebrate his first birthday this week with us here at camp. I can't wait to get him in the water and on the boat (in the new life jacket I bought for him at L.L. Bean). He is walking now. So, another list: things to do to baby proof camp! Today my husband and I will run forty yards of netting around the perimeter of our deck, transforming it into a giant playpen. We will close off the steps with gates. We tried to remove all the splinters from the dock. I kid you not. We Velcroed the shaky book case to the wall and took the heavy tv off the top of the high chest of drawers. The glass knick knacks have been moved to high places, and we plugged up the unused electrical outlets. Welcome to Maine, baby Ben! And everyone else too, of course.

Living in the moment--lessons from the dog

This morning my dog Oliver and I took our usual walk along the dirt camp road. Oliver is an old dog (15!), and he no longer bounds ahead of me as he once did, but he still enjoys his excursions. I want to get in a good brisk walk and then get back to camp to do some work, but no. We walk a few feet and then Oliver stops to smell something on the side of the road. We walk a few more feet and then he stops to pee on a rock. It goes on like this for a half mile or so. This is definitely not the aerobic workout I need. However, it occurs to me that Oliver has much to teach me about slowing down to enjoy the sights and smells around me.




Here are a few other lessons from Oliver that remind me how best to live:

• Walk every day, even if you don’t feel like it.

• Live life in the moment rather than in planning what to do next. Do this on the deck.

• Skip the caffeine in the morning and feel better the rest of the day.

• Don’t snack between meals.

• Get in a good eight to ten hours sleep every night.

• Take a good long nap every afternoon. Do this on the deck.

• Ignore jumping up to check email every time you hear it chime.

• Spend at least three hours each day gazing at the lake. Do this on the deck.

Dirt roads

My camp is on a private dirt road. A road association maintains it and residents, year round and seasonal, pay annual dues for its upkeep. Volunteers work hard to keep the road smooth, but it is still rough and narrow in spots. There are lots of hills and curves. It is so dusty in midsummer that I have to keep my windows closed on the roadside of the camp or a layer of dust covers everything inside.


In early July, the road association folks post a sign at the beginning of the road announcing the date for the annual meeting. “Bring a lawn chair,” it advises. These meetings are held outside on a Saturday morning—or if it rains, inside someone’s garage or barn. I have been to a few of these meetings, and I was surprised to discover that most of the folks on my road are year round residents, not seasonal camp folks like me. The year round residents have to travel the road in the winter when it is covered with snow and ice. I’ve only once been on the road in the winter.

At the road association meetings I attended, some of the discussion—and it was sometimes contentious—was about whether to continue to maintain the road as a dirt one, or to pave it and turn it over to the town for maintenance. I am not sure why the paving option isn’t preferable to ALL of the year round residents, but I know why I want my road to stay as a dirt one. Here are a few reasons:



On a bumpy old dirt road like mine, cars have to go slower, making walkers like myself feel safer. First off, you can hear them coming before they get to you. Same thing for the dogs and cats that occasionally stray out into the road. Other than an occasional frog or chipmunk, I’ve never seen any road kill on our dirt road.

There’s also more to see on a dirt road than a paved one. In the sunshine, the mica in the dirt sparkles in like stars in a night sky. Some of the mica flakes are bigger than jigsaw puzzle pieces. I also like to look for animal tracks in the soft spots—I find them too—deer, raccoons and once, moose tracks. Big ones. Won’t see any tracks on a paved road.

I like the way the dirt smells after a rainstorm. And I like the way my footsteps sound when I walk in the loose gravel at the road’s edge. The dirt road reminds me of the camp where I spent childhood summers with my parents and sister. It too was a dusty old dirt road. Walking my dirt road is a trip down memory lane.

Dog sitting Oliver

Last weekend, I went to beautiful Moosehead Lake in Greenville to whoop it up with some old college friends. I asked my sister to take care of our dog Oliver. My sister is more of a “cat person” if you know what I mean, so dog sitting is a big deal for her. I am grateful. Here, with her permission, is the email she wrote to the family while I was away.






AHHHHH-Friday, 4th of July week-extremely busy week, short-handed due to vacations-busy, busy, busy week at work-thank goodness, time to go to the lake, my modest little camp nestled in the woods at the end of of a 2 mile dirt road, just waiting for me to open the windows, pour a glass of wine, sit on my cozy screened porch and finally relax.......





OH NO - IT"S MARILYN'S GREENVILLE WEEKEND!!!!!!!



 Yup, this is the weekend Marilyn reunites with some of her college friends at Moosehead Lake to yukk it up, and I am caretaker of Oliver. I love Oliver, but as we all know,absence of Marilyn creates a bit of stress for him.



 I arrive at around 4pm (Marilyn left at 8am) Oliver is watching out the window (has he really been there 8 hours?) and after having some difficulty opening the door Oliver rushes out and heads up the stairs-yes, all 42 of them- to find her. Have I mentioned it is 90 and humid-I mean, REALLY hot for us? Anyway, I caught up and we came back down ...but not a good start.



 Settled in for "sparkly" time (not much wine here;glad I brought another box) and Oliver and I settled down on the deck. I decided he needed a bowl of water on the deck, so I poured him a bowl of Brita filtered water from the fridge (I think maybe the bowl I used is an expensive one Marilyn bought at the Cumberland Craft Fair-anyway, Oliver really is enjoying it).



Anyway, we're all settled in for now-planning to go for a swim later, so wait for our next blog! Love you all- hope you enjoy our blog!

A Dog's Life

At camp, it truly is a dog’s life. There are no sidewalks or leash laws (well, there might be, but no one pays much attention to them), and most of the dogs on my dirt road are allowed to roam freely.


My own dog Oliver loves to be at camp. One reason is that he has my undivided attention. I don’t get up and leave for work every morning, and because I’m at camp, I don’t go away on long business trips or vacations. I confess that all the dogs we have owned have been allowed to sleep on the furniture, and at night, slumber along beside us in the bed. Oliver sleeps attached to me like a tick. He doesn’t bother me much except for the occasional leg twitching during chipmunk chasing episodes during his REM sleep.

Oliver's dog friend Elli visits him every day.  She knows he is old, so she just touches his nose to say hi and then she leaves to find more frisky companions.

Oliver is an old dog. He’s lost a few teeth. He used to bark happily when I had been gone and returned. Now, he can’t hear me when I come home so it might be ten or fifteen minutes before he realizes I’m there, but then he barks happily, just like always. Oliver still likes to play “throw toy” after dinner. He enjoys the company of children and other dogs. He loves to swim in the lake and ride in the kayak.

Although his eyes are cloudy, he can still see anyone who approaches the camp by land or by water. Oliver is still a great watchdog, but he’s easily startled when anyone approaches him from behind. I can leave the room and he doesn’t realize I’m gone. Sometimes his hips hurt and his legs fail him after he’s been sleeping for a long time, and he has a hard time climbing the stairs. He no longer chases chipmunks, but he insists on a morning walk. We walk the same distance as always, but we do it much more slowly than we did, say, five years ago.

I once wrote a book about dogs, called The Dogs of War. It is a collection of stories about the role of companion animals, mostly dogs, during the American Civil War, spin off research from a historical novel I was writing at the same time. Oliver was by my side as I was writing both of these books, listening as I tried out my stories on him. I talk out loud when I write, and then I type what I say—it sounds strange, but it works for me. Oliver has heard many of my stories over the last 13 years. I imagine if he could tell me a story, he would tell me about a woman who spends her summers in Maine with a wonderful dog.

“Is that all?” I ask.

“Isn’t that enough?” he replies.