Plan B - Bangor City Forest

We planned to visit the Orono Bog Boardwalk, which is a walk that we enjoyed in 2011 and again last year. But we arrived to find that it had not yet opened!  It turns out that the boardwalk has to be repaired each year to deal with the impacts of winter, and they didn't quite have it finished yet. We've since learned that it opened just 2 days after our visit!

So Plan B was the adjacent Bangor City Forest. This 650 acre tract of forest has around ten miles of hiking trails, and is a popular spot for walker, joggers, and birders!  It is still early spring here in Maine, with many of the trees just now starting to bud out. The ground is wet and boggy in many areas.

Skunk Cabbage

We had seen the massive green leaves in the past, but had never seen the maroon flowers so predominantly. It turns out the flowers emerge first in the Spring, with the leaves emerging later. Skunk Cabbage is named for the unpleasant smell of the flowers which attracts pollinators like flies. The leaves also give off the smell when damaged, which is thought to prevent mammals from feeding on them.

We didn't see a ton of birds, but we did see several species of warblers. The warblers spent their winter in Mexico and Central America and are now returning to their breeding grounds in North America. Some of the birds we saw will breed in Maine, while others will continue north into Canada and the Arctic. 

Blackburnian Warbler male

Our very first warble was a male Blackburnian Warbler. They have the nickname of "Firethroat" as their throats can get very red in breeding plumage. We later saw a female, who like most birds is not as brightly colored as the male. 

Blackburnian Warbler female

The most common bird was the Black-throated Green Warbler. The males have a striking black and yellow pattern. The females have a similar pattern that is not as intense. 

Black-throated Green Warbler male

Black-throated Green Warbler female

We got to watch some of the birds searching for insects to eat. You never know where you might find a delicious bug!

Many of the male birds were singing to establish breeding territories and attract mates. This Common Yellowthroat was singing his little heart out!

Common Yellowthroat male

We also saw several aptly named Black-and-white Warblers. What they lack in color they make up for in pattern.

Black-and-white Warbler male

Black-and-white Warbler female

We'll keep a lookout for more birds as Spring progresses here in Maine. 

Our First Couple of Weeks

Our first two weeks were just as much fun as we expected.  All the staff at the hatchery are very nice and we enjoyed catching up with everyone.

Our tiny little fish from the beginning of last year are now the future brood and have grown from 3/4 of an inch when we arrived last year to about 8 inches today.

It's hard to tell but these fish are about 8 inches long.

These are the new batch of fry that are the result of last Fall's spawning:

Hundreds of tiny little Atlantic Salmon.

Our first job every work day is to help feed the fish.  We are in charge of feeding the future brood and brood.  The brood fish are 3 and 4 year-olds.  They are separated into two raceways.  This coming Fall all of the 4 year-olds will be spawned and released into the Penobscot River and the mature 3 year-olds will also be spawned and released.  The immature 3 year-olds will be the mature 4 year-olds next year.

The 3 and 4 year old salmon are separated into two raceways.

We’ve started cleaning the outside feeders.  It will be a few weeks before they are needed but it’s nice to get them clean and ready to go.

We clean the old food from last year out of the feeder.  I scrape down the inside top part of the feeder then Mark scrapes the bottom.  Then he gets inside the pool and opens up the opening where the food comes out while I use a very long pole from the inside to push the old food out.  The old food is caught in a bucket and discarded.

The large gray box (upper left) is the feeder.

We’ve also started cleaning the outside tanks.  These are very large tanks.  There are two sizes, 20 foot diameter and 30 foot diameter.  We’re cleaning the 30 foot tanks.

Mark power washing the walls

Teri scrubbing/power washing the floors.

This machine turned out to be too hard for me to handle so

we switched jobs and I clean the walls and Mark cleans the floor

Washing everything down the drain.

All clean.

It’s nice to come back to the same place and know what to expect.  I don’t know if we will have any new projects this year but we already have plenty to keep us busy.

We work 3 8-hour days a week which gives us plenty of free days to explore and have fun.

Stay tuned - It’s going to be a fun summer! 

Bar Harbor, Maine

Our first outing was a trip to Bar Harbor.  We pulled over at several places along the way to enjoy the beautiful views.

Our first stop was Cadillac Mountain.

View from Cadillac Mountain

Cadillac Mountain is 1,530 feet high.  It’s the highest mountain on the Eastern Seaboard of the US and the only mountain in Acadia National Park with a motor vehicle road to the top.

Between October 7 and March 6, the summit is the first place in the US to see the sunrise.

Our next stop was Sand Beach where there is a 12-foot variance between high and low tide.

Sand Beach is one of the few cold-water, shell-based sand beaches in the world.  Sand beaches are uncommon in Maine because cold water traps gases that dissolve seashells.

Bar Harbor is definitely a tourist town!

The town encompasses the entire northern and northeastern section of Mount Desert Island.  It’s the third largest island in the continental United States.  It was originally settled in 1763.

We were very lucky that there were no cruise ships docking today!  The cruise schedule for this year shows that between April 28 and November 7, 177 ships will be docking in Bar Harbor carrying 275,200 passengers!

We spent a little time walking around and I bought a cute little magnet.  This is a beautiful area but we will avoid it once the summer tourist season starts after July 4th.

Out Our Window

As Teri mentioned in the last blog we decided to take the "other" RV site this year. One advantage that it offers is a larger open area in front of the trailer, and that means more room for bird feeders!

We put out black oil sunflower, thistle, and our peanut butter log. This log was made from an oak branch from our old home in Elgin, and is at least 25 years old. It is such hard wood that even the most determined squirrels from around the country have been unable to destroy it!

Downy Woodpecker male

 A pair of Downy Woodpeckers found the peanut butter mixture almost immediately and have been steady customers. Last year we had the slightly larger Hairy Woodpeckers so we'll see if they make an appearance. 

American Goldfinch males

Our most numerous visitors have been American Goldfinches. We've seen as many as 25 of these beauties at once, and they love the thistle seed. The four in the picture above are all males in their breeding plumage. 

Pine Siskins are another bird that loves the tiny little thistle seeds. They are not as numerous as the Goldfinches but show up now and then.

Pine Siskins and American Goldfinch

Not long after we'd put up the first three feeders we had a hummingbird look into our window. It was as if he was saying "Hey, what about me??"  So we immediately added a hummingbird feeder to the lineup and we've seen as many as three Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird male

We also enjoyed a short visit from a Black-throated Blue Warbler who was either confused or just liked sugar water. 

Black-throated Blue Warbler

We had been seeing reports of Orioles arriving in Maine, so decided to put out orange halves as they are fruit eating birds. Within just a couple of hours of putting them out we had a Baltimore Oriole. It is amazing how quickly these birds find the food. 

Baltimore Oriole

At the rate this bird is eating, we'll be lucky to get more than a couple of days out of each orange!

It seems like you can't have bird feeders without attracting squirrels. We've got two varieties here, the Gray Squirrel and the smaller Red Squirrel. They too found the feeders almost immediately!

Gray Squirrel

Red Squirrel

We take the feeders in every night to prevent raccoons and (heaven forbid) bears from messing with them. So far, so good!

Maine 2019 - The Way Life Should Be

We are back at Green Lake National Fish Hatchery where we spent last summer.  Everyone here is very nice and we’re glad to be back. 

We took a different route getting here this year. 

We stayed overnight in 10 different states and drove through an additional 5 states.

Overnight stays: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, N. Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine.  This was our first time to stay in N. Carolina.

Mark played 22 different disc golf courses.  13 of these courses were new for him.

We left our place in Medina, Texas on March 31, 2019 and arrived at Green Lake NFH on May 11, 2019.

We traveled 2797 miles pulling the RV.   With all our extra excursions we put a total of 5296 miles on the truck in 6 weeks!

The other volunteers that were here last year, Jerry and Judy, did not come back this year due to health issues.  We decided to take the spot they were in last year.

Follow along with us this summer.  We’ve got lots of fun things planned!!

Route 11 Chip Factory

We’re starting to move a little faster on our way to Maine.  We stopped for 2 nights in Virginia.

I found the Route 11 Chip Factory close-by in Mount Jackson, Virginia and Mark found a disc golf course to play in that area.

Their website says that there are big windows that allow you to see the entire process of making chips, with the exception of the peeling of the potatoes.  Looking through large windows is pretty typical of food factory tours.  Their website didn’t mention if pictures could be taken.

After a fun 21 holes of disc golf.  We headed to the factory.

The front entrance is very plain.

The door says they are cooking today and to come on in.

There is a large lobby/retail shop area that was is almost empty.

The website was right - there are big windows to see through.  The problem was, all the action was far from the windows and hard to see.

Every window had a sign stating no photos allowed.

The cashier walked us over to one of the windows explained the process to us.  The peeling of the potatoes is behind closed doors.  She explained the reason we couldn’t see the peeling process is because it’s messy.  She was very nice and had all the pertinent information about the process.

There were eleven flavor samples available.  We were surprised that we liked the dill pickle flavor.  We bought a few bags of the flavors we liked.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find this tour souvenir magnet worthy.  It was just too hard to see the actual chip making process.

Mrs. Hanes’ Cookies - hand made - by a person!

I wish the blog had smell-a-vision because you would not believe how good this place smelled!  Today they were baking Ginger cookies and the whole place smelled wonderful!

Mrs. Hanes’ Hand-Made Moravian Cookies is in Clemmons, North Carolina.  Reservations are required for a tour and the costs is $5. 

We had a few minutes before our tour started to look at some of the numerous articles about Mrs. Hanes’ Cookies.

Even Oprah says they are one of her favorite things.  Sales skyrocketed after Oprah mentioned the cookies on her show.

The tour is about an hour, we stopped at 6 different areas and each time we stopped we were given a different cookie flavor to taste.

Ginger cookie.

Our guide, Holly, was very friendly and gave a wonderful tour.  We walked to the back of the factory where the shipping area and the kitchen are located.  One of the ladies had gone back earlier so we could see where and how the cookies are hand packed in the red tins.

Hand wrapping cookies.

The ginger cookie is the best seller and also the cookie that can be stored the longest.  These large tins hold ginger cookies that will be shipped during the Christmas season.

About 100,000 pounds of cookies are made each year.

Mrs. Hanes is a seventh generation of Moravian cookie makers.  Her and her husband live next door to the factory.  Their children run the business now.

They advertise that all dough is hand-rolled by a person.  Each cookie is hand-cut by a person.  Every tin, tube, or bag is hand-packed by a person!

We saw her original cookie sheets.

The Moravians came to America and established a settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  From there they came south to what is now Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Mrs. Hanes factory is located on Friedberg Church Road.  The road received its name from the Friedberg Moravian Church built in 1779.  Nine generations of the Hanes' family have been members since the beginning.

We saw the shipping room.  This is a very small operation.  Most of their business is November and December.

Shipping boxes for the red tin.

Since they were not using the mixing room, we were able to get a look at the giant mixer.

This smaller mixer is the original mixer and is still used when needed.

Butter, flour, shortening, and spices are measured and ready for the mixing machine.

Each year approximately 65,000 pounds of flour, 40,000 pounds of molasses, 35,000 pounds of sugar and 45 pounds of ginger are used.

Sugar

The dough is refrigerated until ready to roll.

Gold Medal flour in front of large refrigerators.

The factory is now over 30,000 square feet.  Since the first building was erected in 1970, the factory has expanded seven times.

These cookies are very thin and crisp. 

Each cookie is rolled and cut by hand, the same way it was made a century ago. Then flavor is rolled into the cookies.  There are six different flavors:  Ginger, Sugar, Lemon, Chocolate, Butterscotch, and Black Walnut.

There are large windows for watching the process. 

Dough is rolled out by hand. 

Keep rolling till it’s very thin!!

There are 100 cookies in a pound of cookie dough.

Cookie cutters are used.  We saw heart and scallop shaped cookie cutters.

Did I mention that these cookies are thin?

14 pounds of cookies are baked at a time, at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

10 million cookies are baked every year.

This is a great factory tour and highly recommended!  No magnets to buy but we did pick up a few tubes of delicious cookies.

Of course we had to buy one of every flavor!