When my older son was three, he gave an aggressive pruning to a peony I had in a vase. Reading my face when I took in the pile of petals before him, he said, “We need to get Daddy to fix the flowers.” This ingrained belief that Mark can repair (or regenerate) just about anything, […]
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Is there a month in Maine more fickle than June? “Yes,” I can hear you saying, “remember the heat wave we had last February?” (I do — my family was sweltering on the slopes at Sugarloaf, an oxymoron if ever there was one.) “And what about the random chilly days we get every July and […]
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I came late to the Maine camp tradition. When I was a kid, my family would sometimes spend a summer week on Frye Island in Sebago Lake or Long Lake in Naples. We liked these areas enough to make repeat visits — heck, my brother and I never wanted to leave! — but we rarely […]
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In the second installment of her Building On An Island series, Laura Serino, of Island Apothecary, shares hard-won design lessons. What would you add to this list? Leave a comment and let us know! – Sarah There are less than three weeks until my baby is due and a miracle has happened: A well is being […]
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Living in Portland, we don’t have to contend with as many creatures as suburban and country folks do. There are the voles, of course, that dig up our lawn, the Japanese beetles that ravage our sand cherry, the slugs that slime and munch on our annuals, and whatever recently beheaded our crocuses and burrowed behind the front porch […]
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There are moments with my family when my thoughts recede and I feel as though I’m viewing a scene through the eyes of my future self. When I’m “looking back,” the peripheral drama and frustrations fade away and I see only the visceral beauty in a particular snippet. The mental separation also brings the fleeting […]
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The other day, the sound of chainsaws on my Portland street, and the accompanying scent of freshly cut tree limbs, instantly transported me to my family’s first home in Buxton. I only lived in the small ranch my parents built in the rural town until I was five, but the memories I have of stacking […]
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I am excited to introduce guest blogger, Laura Serino, who is currently toughing out a home building project on North Haven island. Laura will be contributing a series of posts, starting with this one about the challenges of building in an isolated location. Leave a note and let her know what you think of her […]
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Nine years ago, on the September day Hurricane Kyle was upgraded from a tropical storm and blew in from Bermuda, Mark and I were married on Portland’s Great Diamond Island. Watching the weather forecasts inch closer to “100 percent chance of precipitation” during the week before the event, I fell into a deep despair. How […]
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Last Saturday — precisely four weeks after Mark and his brother demoed our kitchen — Ben and Mike put in a 10-hour day and largely wrapped up the renovation. Once again, they had plenty of help: Here’s how things looked before and after: Note how we used to use the top and sides of the refrigerator […]
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