At the post office yesterday I ran into Will, a carpenter-slash-folk-singer —  not the only one in the neighborhood, either, which can probably be laid to that lamentable ditty "If I Had a Hammer" — and we chatted awhile about our globe-trotting children. Will's son Seth is somewhere in Asia en route to Hanoi; my college-age kids spent the holidays in London and were due back in a few hours. It's all a bit bemusing to us small-town dads.

"Well, now's the time to do it," said Will.

Justin Stoll and his brothers selling cookies on the side of Rt. 139 in Unity, Maine.  They plan to use the money to buy binoculars.

Photo by Maggie C. Melvin.

The view from the eastern shore of Stave Island on a calm fall afternoon.  Photos by Carolyn Barnwell.

Armed with recording gear and a smile, Sara Curtis ventured to Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine with one question in mind: What makes people swoon? As the weather gets chillier and the instinct to hibernate arrives, think about what makes you swoon. It might just warm you up a bit…

“On this exposed New England coast the most conspicuous animals of the high-tide zone are the rock or acorn barnacles, which are able to live in all but the most tumultuous surf.  The rockweeds here are so stunted by wave action that they offer no competition, and so the barnacles have taken over the upper shore, except for such space as the mussels have been able to hold.”

-Rachel Carson The Edge of the Sea