Sunset Haven

10/06/2024

We are cleaning the camp for the next guests and I sincerely regret not bringing snacks.

09/29/2024

Mother Nature puts the sunset in Sunset Haven.

09/29/2024

Probably the last paddle of the season for us on Little Sebago before we turn the cottage back over to visitors now through next spring. A gorgeous early fall evening.

09/15/2024

Threshold replacement. Antique buildings provide hours of fun.

07/17/2024

Great show on Maine Calling about water safety.

Best practices for staying safe in and around the waters in Maine—whether at the ocean, lakes, ponds, rivers or pools. Live at 11am & rebroadcast at 7pm. Call 1-800-399-3566; email [email protected]; or comment here.

07/03/2024

Important reminder! Please stay away from our precious loons, no matter what type of boat.

The baby loons are here! The baby loons are here!

But this is a very dangerous week for them! Please recreate responsibly and avoid loons. For the majority of the year they just dive out of our way. But baby loons cannot dive and their parents will stay with them to keep them safe. With so many boats out, the water gets choppy and it's hard to see them. Please keep your eyes ahead and work around the loons. Thank you very much and have a wonderful 4th of July week!

06/29/2024

The Rosy Maple moths are the welcoming committee this year, apparently.

06/28/2024

A sure sign that the summer rental season begins tomorrow. 😅

06/28/2024

Good morning from Sunset Haven. 57 degrees and breezy. It was mornings like these, fifty or so years ago, I would awake to the smell of the wood stove and, sometimes, fresh fried doughnuts at my grandparents' camp on Policeman's Cove.

06/26/2024

The Good Ship was just here!

06/26/2024

Also, this is real vintage shiplap siding, in spite of what those folks in Texas with the media empire try to pass off as shiplap. 😉

06/26/2024

Hey, Sunset Havenites - Have any of you dreamed of moving to Maine or having a pretty summer home near lakes and mountains to call your own? The Parris House is for sale! We're headed for the Midcoast (the ocean calls) but our region of Western Maine offers four season recreation and the house is every bit as historic and special as Sunset Haven. Please share far and wide! If interested call Monica LaVerdiere at Bearfoot Realty in Oxford, Maine.

546 Paris Hill Rd, Paris, ME 04281 is for sale. View 109 photos of this 5 bed, 4 bath, 4500 sqft. single family home with a list price of $675000.

06/26/2024

I'll be working some more on painting the exterior here today. It's a lot of work and we're not at all sure we'll finish it prior to our summer guest season starting on Saturday, partially because we had a rainy stretch, partially because I was teaching at a fiber art venue last weekend, and we both still work full time. However, anything that has not been painted will be done when we get the cottage back in September. As I said, it's a lot of work all the time, but it's also a labor of love, not only for Sunset Haven, but for a whole way of life.

This old cabin is over a hundred years old, as best as we can tell. It's pretty well fitted out for a lake cottage in terms of creature comforts, but it's not posh. These cottages are being razed at an alarming rate all over Maine as some people, armed with deep pockets, find these structures too crude for their fragile sensibilities. The lakefront versions of McMansions go up in place of the hand built cottages, pushing, sometimes breaking, the boundaries of shoreland zoning laws. Because the penalty for that is a fine, if the perpetrator has enough money, they just pay the fine. This endangers our lake ecosystems, which the laws are designed to protect.

Sunset Haven will not be razed and replaced with a McMansion. No shoreland zoning regulations will be broken. Not on our watch. We briefly thought about selling it because the proceeds would seriously help us in our move (currently in process) from Western Maine to the Midcoast. But after fifty plus years of my life drawing creative inspiration and serenity from this lake, I find I just can't let it go.

When we share Sunset Haven with guests, it's not a soulless rental transaction. It's the sharing of a Maine tradition that is in danger of disappearing entirely from our lakes. We know that many of you treasure this experience and return year after year. We wish you lake magic this summer.

06/19/2024

Just an example of what NOT to do. We are very fortunate to have loons on our lake and throughout Maine. The last time I spoke to a wildlife organization in New Hampshire they told me the loons are seriously endangered there. We can't take these spectacular creatures for granted.

Notice that this is a young loon family with babies on board.

I have no problem with the public shaming of the people on this boat and I will tell you, that if I find out that anyone at Sunset Haven has behaved in this way, gone too fast in the wake zones that protect the nesting areas (and people, for that matter), or has in any other way acted like an idiot on this lake, they will never be staying at our cottage again. I could not be more serious about this.

Thanks for coming to my mini-lecture.

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06/16/2024

It has begun. This is going to be an every-night-after-work kind of job for at least a week and we're about to be accosted by a major heat wave. Better than constant rain, though, at least for this task!

06/15/2024

It's happening.

06/15/2024

And today's offering...wind!

06/12/2024

Aforementioned storm, incoming.