the Cabin

Now a part of the on Olive Street project, the Cabin at #8 Brook Street...  a companion to the Cabbage on the hill at #12 Olive Street.  Home of the community bonfire, and available for LCH summer of 2024

Lots of history here too

Haunted House

Get excited... Olive Street is hosting its very first haunted house!

At the Lodge, #18

From 6pm - 9pm on October 26th, 27th, 28th & 31st

Olive Street guest & artist

MJ Clifford has created more of her beautiful seasonal cross-stiched cards again this year. They are  5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches with matching envelopes. Sold as a baker's dozen for $10. Also available the adorable little magnets for $1 each. Shipping & handling on your entire order would be $5

Please contact MJ via email at emjsee@yahoo.com

updated logo

Keeping the pennyfarthing, of course, and adding a little bird and some wildflowers. New tag line "art : gardens : tea" is a throwback to the original plans for the Cottage on Olive Street (formerly known as the Sugar Tree Cottage), and elements that we hope will continue to be found at every cabin in our project. 
 

plein air artist space

Announcing new plein air artist space available! 

It is with great pleasure that we have added another to our family of camps on Olive Street. 

Resting very beautifully on Hayden Brook beside the Brook House, and across from the Perkins House, we have aquired number 16.

Though the camp itself will not be available for guests* until next season, arrangements for artists to visit this lovely garden are open! Please contact us for more information and to reserve a time to enjoy this spot.

*It is my desire that this be a community education building, where classes on the flowers, gardening, uses of botanicals, and perhaps painting workshops can take place; making the most use of it's location. We will be searching for a resident that has gardening knowledge/experiance, and applications will be available later this winter. If you are interested in more information about the position, please see here

sunrise & the new season

Watching the beautiful sun rise over Lakewood Theater from my porch* with my cup of tea & the cat.

This comming week marks new beginnings, with three new theater guests moving into the Tower House.

Colton Bagley is returning to the costume shop to lend his talent, and will also be found waiting tables at the Lakewood Inn Restaurant.

August Thornton returns to our stage -  you may remember him from  Mid-Summer and  Living on Love in 2021 -  and can be seen in  The Girl on the Train  playing June 9th - 18th, and  Great Expectations which runs September 1st - 10th.  He will be one of your waiters at the Inn as well.

Travis Harden is making his debut on the Lakewood Theater stage, in The Girl on the Train.

Tucker Atwood & Autumn Stupica are going to be staying in the Perkins House again this season. Autumn will be making her Lakewood debut in Critic's Choice  which runs June 23rd - July 2nd, and will also be in  Anything to Declare  September 15th - 24th. . Tucker can be seen in  The Drowsy Chaperone  July 7th - 16th,  and  Anything to Declare.

Arriving later this season, MJ Clifford & Willow-the-cat will be my very honored guests at the Sugar Tree Cottage again, with MJ performing in  Halfway There  July 21st - July 30th while Willow keeps an eye on the cottage and soaks up some sun: and then returning for Great Expectations. 

Already here on Olive Street of course is Jakob Sutton.  Jakob will be in the opening production of the year  Drinking Habits  May 26th - June 4th, an ensemble member in both of the musicals -  The Drowsy Chaperone  July 7th - 16th &  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels  August 18th - 27th - and in the closing production of the year Anything to Declare  September 15th - 24th.

Looking forward to the 2022 Season!

*The theater building itself may be hidden from view in the photo by the porch screen door frame in this photo, but it is surely there, standing fast. One of the benefits of being at the cottage through the late autumn to early springtime is the view during and following abscission, through the time of budding.

 

apple trees on Olive Street

We have planted six apple trees - four on the little hill behind the Perkins House, and two beside the Brook House - on Olive Street and it's exciting to see them bud! We have two Pink Lady, a Cortland, a Gala, and an Empire. The start of a tiny orchard. 

This beautiful spot of deep pink is, appropriately it would seem, on one of the Pink Lady varieties. Can't wait for the blossoms!

The gardens and flower beds are not put in yet for the year, but in makes my heart sing to see these begin their journey!

turn left

When Tucker packed himself up from his stay on Olive Street at the end of the 2021 season, he did so to go complete his goal of bicycling the East Coast Greenway. The ECG goes from Calais to Key West, Florida...3000 miles.

Of course he wrote about his adventures on that trip.

The book is now available via the On Olive Street bookshop link, through which proceeds of the sale will support the On Olive Street Project as well as Tucker.  

OOS Bookshop

Lakewood Theater 2022 Season

The official anouncement of the 2022 Lakewood Theater Season! Come enjoy two dramas, three farces, two comedies, and two musicals!  Opening night is May 26th, with  Drinking Habits*

Please visit thier website to read more about what will be presented, and to get your tickets! www.lakewoodtheater.org/summer-schedule 

Lakewood Theater can also be followed on facebook at   www.facebook.com/lakewoodtheatermaine

*Drinking Habits: Two nuns at the Sisters of Perpetual Sewing have been secretly making wine to keep the convent’s doors open, but Paul and Sally, reporters and former fiancées, are hot on their trail. They go undercover as a nun and priest, but their presence, combined with the addition of a new nun, spur paranoia throughout the convent that a spy has been sent from Rome to shut them down. Wine and secrets are inevitably spilled as everyone tries to preserve the convent and reconnect with lost loves. Accusations, mistaken identities, and romances run wild in this traditional, laugh-out-loud farce.

keep the light on

You may be familar with the ghost light in the theater -  a single bulb left burning whenever the theater is dark* - but I have been enjoying a ghost light of another sort this off season as well, as the large light in the Lakewood Theater parking lot has remained lit nightly, a clear and steady beacon visable from the Sugar Tree cottage. It brings me comfort. 

Like my personal lighthouse in the winter fog.

*A theater being "dark" means that the theater is currently not open, not just the state of physical lighting. No shows, no rehersals, no sets being built. In general, some say the light is on to keep away ghosts, some say it is to light the way for the ghosts that already inhabit the theater (which is more the case for Lakewood)... and some even say it is on to keep the stage manager from tripping when he first comes in to work

Peach

This is Peach. She's been at the Sugar Tree cottage since August, staying mostly hidden, being very shy. Seems to be enjoying winter cottage life and these months later is becoming a little more social; demanding, in fact, special attentions of belly rubs. Has she quietly been making plans to become the official cottage cat?

All the same, when Willow returns during the next Lakewood summer season, she will still be Queen, and Peach politely her lady-in-waiting. 

snow

Feeling happy to have a little snowfall here, and very much enjoying the repairs/remodel to the porch at the Sugar Tree Cottage as a place to observe the light as air flakes drift to the ground. 

Our hopes & plans are to be able to use the porch as a warming area for Cross Country skiiers coming down our way from the Lakewood Golf Course trails once enough snow piles up! We'll have tea, cocoa & coffee... and of course some cookies too.

Keep watching for more snow!

wreaths are hung

I don't do a LOT of seasonal decorating, but one thing I really like to see is a wreath on the front door! It's just so much more, um, festive now that the wreaths are hung here On Olive Street!

It just so happens that Quinn's Tree Farm is open every weekend now through Christmas. You can find your dream pre-cut tree, pick & cut your own tree, or you can even have one delivered! They even may drop off your wreath... or you can have one shipped.

https://www.quinnstreefarm.com/onlinestore

a pennyfarthing goes a long way

So as if I had nothing more productive to do with my time, while I was sitting here with my cup of tea I began to think maybe the "On Olive Street" project needs a new logo. 

The olive tree graphic was nice enough, and in marketing it's called associative-something probably... but other than the symbolic olive tree my son has growing in a large pot (a housewarming gift when he first moved to Olive Street in 2019) there are no olive trees on Olive Street. 

Olive Street, in case you missed that earlier post, is named after William Hayden's daughter, of course, Olive.  Olive, in case you don't remember, was postmisstress of the Madison Centre Post Office for ten years.  Sadly I have not been able to find photos of her as postmisstress or the Post Office here in Lakewood... so if you find any, please share!  In trying to find something to honor Olive, and a connection to this little community in the late 1800s - early 1900s, a discovery was made that in some places (indeed, my fact checking about Maine fell a little short, but I'm willing to forge on anyway) the mail was delivered by penny-farthing.  

Though it may be very, very unlikely that Olive Hayden did much of  delivering the mail this way, the idea of smartly dressed people riding their penny-farthings to and fro upon these paths through the neighborhood, gives the project an aire of fun and whimsy.

And, if you saw Tucker Atwood whizzing by this past summer, you know that bicycles are still a thing On Olive Street. 

hues of calm

Took a minute or two, or maybe lost myself for a half an hour or so, just staring at the beautiful autumn colors again, and listening to the calm on Olive Street today after a bit of rain... which seems to make everything more vibrant. The brook was singing it's song. The occasional leaf fell through tree branches. A slight chill in the air.  It was good for my soul. 

It could be good for your soul too.
 

unfinished

Showing the flowers last gasp of autumn colors perhaps. Could be. Acrylic painting tucked in the corner, unfinished, untitled, in the little studio room at the cottage.

Some works of art, in any medium, are simply like that. Put on pause. You have to set them aside for a while and come back to them again later. Don't over-think, don't crowd the colors. Step back, take a breath. There's no rush.

winter container gardening

Current project: winter container gardening. Did you know that there are several woodsy perennials and shrubs that you can root ball and lovingly swaddle in burlap that will wait the winter out with you? I suspected as much, but am doing the research and the work and am (as ever) making plans for some temporary landscaping on Olive Street for the snowy times

ready for her close up

Now appearing at the Sugar Tree cottage....

Hand sewn linen figure over wire formed arms, vibrant hand painted features, intricate gown. Artist unknown.

An antique store find, she drew me in, as something about her just seems so familar. 

wonderful rain

The fantastic rain has grown Hayden Brook beautifully! Not a very artful video, but I just had to share its incredible flow beneath the bridge at the Sugar Tree and onward to the lake  

 

near season's end

As the Lakewood Theater (and the Lakewood Inn Restaurant) nears the end of their season, it is bittersweet. I will miss the plays, the actors, the atmosphere. 

It also signifies that soon the summer residents will slowly go back to their homes, and Olive Street will become quieter; and that I do look forward to. Autumn on Olive, sitting on my porch watching the leaves fall and float down the brook. Then Winter on Olive, the snow covering my bridge...