Souper Saturday Benefits SKIP

This beautiful bowl of clam chowder is served at Mac's, and with any luck
we may find it among the choices today at Souper Saturday, at Tin Pan Alley.

One of the great annual events of Holly Folly is Souper Saturday, offering up a huge variety of splendid soups from some of PTown's favorite restaurants.
For a mere five bucks you'll get a terrific bowl of soup, your choice from a number of kettles, with a different variety wheeled out each time one of the choices sells out. So from 11 AM till 4 PM, today only, a bountiful array of bisques, chowders and soups of all kinds will be ladled out for us at Tin Pan Alley, our host for this year's event. They're at 269 Commercial Street, right across from Town Hall, in the heart of Provincetown.
"SKIP" stands for Soup Kitchen In Provincetown, serving delicious, hot, nutritious meals every weekday from November through April, at Provincetown United Methodist Church, 20 Shank Painter Road, from 12:30 to 1:30 PM. People from all walks of life gather to socialize and share a hearty meal, feeling a sense of community in a town where it's easy to feel a bit isolated in the off season. With the vast majority of PTown residents having no opportunity for employment during the winter, many depend on these substantial, tasty meals, and a bit of camaraderie, at the Soup Kitchen. Many folks come just to get out of the house, spend a little time among friends, or meet new people. Everyone is welcome. Volunteers cook and serve around 80 meals on any given day, with the kitchen open regardless of the weather.
Donations of food come from local businesses and individuals, and cash donations are also certainly welcome. The other day a truck from the Lobster Pot rolled up to the church, bringing a load of fresh seafood as they were getting ready to close down the restaurant for the season. So lunch that day was a wonderful soup made with succulent mussels, while shrimp, a few scallops, and a mountain of lobster were all blended with orzo pasta to make a great seafood casserole, served along with veggies and a green salad. Fresh cantaloupe, and a killer blueberry bread pudding, made great desserts.
You can help to support the mission of the Soup Kitchen with a tax-deductible contribution by visiting the SKIP website, and you'll certainly want to make Souper Saturday your destination for lunch today, at Tin Pan Alley. See you there!

Seals Abound in Herring Cove

Dress for a chilly breeze along Herring Cove Beach, where a nice hike might show you seals in the bay.
Race Point Light, and the old lighthouse keeper's cottage, make a great scenic backdrop for your stroll.

I've spent a good bit of time at Herring Cove Beach of late, watching the seals that have been swimming down the shoreline every time I've been there recently. They're tough to get on camera, since they often pop up for just a brief moment to get a breath of air, then dive again, swimming underwater in pursuit of a fat fish or other provender they may find beneath the surface. They may swim just a short distance, or a hundred yards before they bob up for another breath, so it's hard to guess where they'll pop up, and then get the camera zoomed in and focused before they dive again.
That tiny black oval in the center of this photo is the head of a huge seal traversing the length of the beach between Race Point and Wood End lighthouses with a couple of his buddies, who are under water just at this moment. The two companions strolling on the beach haven't seen the seals, but they are likely to spot them when these burly sea mammals surface again and again, looking rather well fed, as they swim toward Wood End on a quest for their supper. Every time I've seen the seals over the last several weeks, they've been swimming in that direction, popping up here and there along the way, sometimes less than 30 feet from shore.
So dress warmly for a walk on the beach, or watch from your car at Herring Cove if the wind chill proves to be too much for comfort. Take your binoculars along with you, and your camera if you're feeling lucky, and behold the seals that seem to be in appreciable abundance as the Provincetown winter draws near.

PTown Decks the Halls, 2014

Holly Folly, Provincetown's gay and lesbian holiday celebration, is a fun festival for the whole town, with decorations, food, shopping, costumes and a full slate of special events and fundraisers taking place throughout our little village this Friday through Saturday, December 5th through the 7th. Last minute accommodations may be available.
I'll only mention a sampling of these great Holly Folly events in this column, but you'll find the complete Holly Folly schedule listed on the Provincetown Business Guild's website. For example, there will be a number of dance parties at various locations each night, and the annual Snow Ball, Friday night at 10 PM at the A House, will benefit the PBG.
•There'll be a gingerbread house decorating competition, with a $150 gift basket for the winning team.
•There'll be a food fair at Sage Inn, put on by producers of some surprising local specialty foods and treats.
•The Provincetown Art Association and Museum will host an open house with special exhibitions, and will offer small works, along with unusual and creative gifts for the art-lovers in your life.
•The Holly Folly Inn Stroll promises light refreshments and fabulous decorations at more than a dozen inns. One of several free events. Check the schedule for others.

Last year's participants in the first annual Santa Speedo Run. There's still time to register and gather pledges.

•The Santa Speedo Run, a mile along Commercial Street from Fanizzi's to the Crown and Anchor, benefits Cape Cod Firefighters - EMS Cancer Relief Fund. The runners will be treated to a champagne brunch by Barefoot Wines when they reach the Crown. There's still time to Register here and collect your pledges.
•A holiday concert by the Boston Gay Men's Chorus is always a highlight of Holly Folly. Get tickets now, or at the door at Town Hall, 8:30 Saturday night. It's a benefit for the Provincetown AIDS Memorial. A welcome party for the chorus on Friday night at the Shipwreck Lounge offers complimentary snacks.
•Holiday Drag Bingo will be Saturday at 3:30 PM at the Crown and Anchor, and that's bound to be a giggle. Benefits the Cape and Islands division of PFLAG and the PBG.

It's always hard to choose from all those
great soups, so I usually have two.

•The Souper Saturday benefit for Provincetown's excellent soup kitchen will be held at Tin Pan Alley this year, where $5 will buy you a bowl of soup of your choice, provided by a number of great Provincetown restaurants. Last winter, SKIP (Soup Kitchen In Provincetown) provided more than 10,000 meals for PTown and Outer Cape residents, so join us for a bowl (or two) of delicious soup, and get that warm feeling inside as you help out this wonderful nonprofit, and many others, during Holly Folly.

Last Call at the Coffee Pot

The coffee Pot's lobster rolls, hot or cold, are a great value at $13.95!

Tomorrow will be your last chance to gobble up favorite meals at the Coffee Pot, the last hold-out of the great seasonal eateries at Lopes Square, as usual. They'll close their doors for the 2014 season on Monday, December 1st.
I may have to dash over for another 6 ounce hot lobster roll drizzled in butter on a toasted roll for just $13.95, one of the best deals in town. Or maybe one more gyro before they close, or one of their famous paninis, or their fabulous fresh fruit smoothy, which stands among the best in town.

This will likely be my breakfast tomorrow, one last time for the season.

In the summertime I can seldom get away from work for lunch, so the meal I have most often at the Coffee Pot is my breakfast. I'll call ahead so my order is ready when I swoop in and grab up my breakfast sandwich to go, like my favorite eggs and cheese with grilled ham on a toasted roll, or if I'm seriously hungry, I'll order the Rescue Squad, made with three eggs, bacon, double sausage and double cheese on a toasted sub roll. Wow! Fresh baked goods and pastries and a great cup of coffee are found here, too, beginning at 5 AM daily all season long.
I'll likely be there for breakfast tomorrow, for one last visit before they close up until very early spring, when they are always the first to open for the new season, to the delight of hungry Townies and those hardy souls who visit us in that chilly early season.

Champion Clam Digger?

"Carl" the Champion Clam Digger is a mystery man.

I've had the digital image of this vintage Provincetown postcard in my collection for years, and this morning I decided to find out what I could about "Carl" in the image above. I've googled every possible combination of key words I can think up, and I can't find a thing. I also tried the Althea Boxell scrapbooks on the Provincetown History Preservation website, also to no avail.
Clam digging by individuals rather than by seafood companies was common in earlier days, when quahogs, steamers, sea clams and even razor clams were easily dug on nearly any beach in Provincetown. Clams were found in many traditional Portuguese recipes, as well as in the ubiquitous clam chowder, and were often used as fishing bait. They weren't expensive, and many families simply dug their own.
You can still dig your own clams today, at the proper time of year, which is now. Stop by Town Hall and get a recreational shellfishing permit, allowing you to gather clams and oysters, seasonally, once a week, either on Fridays or Sundays. Residents and non-resident property owners are charged $15 for this annual license, while non-residents will pay $50, and seniors age 65 and older pay nothing at all.
You'll need a 10-quart pail, a clam rake (found at the local hardware stores) and a shellfish gauge, which you can pick up at Town Hall when you get your license. They'll also give you a copy of the rules, such as sizes of steamers, quahogs and oysters you can harvest, hence the need for the gauge, which is required for you to set out on the tidal flats. Rubber boots will help keep your feet dry as you slosh through wet sand on your quest for delectable seafood, yours for the digging.
Visit the town's Shellfish Regulations page on their website for more information. Be sure you know the rules, gather your mollusks only in designated areas, and be sure to report your catch to the shellfish constable, who keeps statistics on the town's annual harvest, as you leave the beach. Mussels, by the way, can be taken any time of year and require no permit, along with sea worms and periwinkles.
Meanwhile, who has information on "Carl" in the photo above? Call, text or phone TheYearRounder with any insights. My contact info is near the right corner above.
Happy digging!

Thanksgiving Eve is Provincetown's Annual Pilgrim Monument Lighting

The night before Thanksgiving more than 3,000 lights, strung from the top of the Pilgrim Monument to the ground 250 feet below, will light up this famous Cape Cod landmark for the holiday season, giving the appearance of a sort of gigantic Christmas tree shape that can be spotted all the way across the water from Boston on a good, clear night. Below is a blurb from the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum website inviting us all to join with hundreds of Townies and visitors alike who will enjoy free admission, music and refreshments as we usher in the 2014 holiday season with this annual community event.

Provincetown's Radient Fall Foliage Just Won't Quit

Trees on this tiny dune slowly turn from red to rusty colors.

Autumn colors are still blazing in the bits of forest surrounding Provincetown. The pond at the edge of Provincelands Road catches the reflection of the trees when the wind is low and the water is high, making for a glassy mirror image of the trees now turning brilliant gold and orange colors, with just a few real reds remaining in this gorgeous foliage season. Even though many trees have lost their glorious leaves to the wind, there are still plenty of fronds clinging to their branches as the colors turn predominantly to shades of bronze and russet.
I don't remember a foliage season that has lasted this long, with so many trees keeping their leaves through several subtle changes in their colors. Stroll, bike or drive down to the Far West End and Province Lands Road. Just where the trail leads off to the southern end of Herring Cove Beach, this resplendent sight lies right across the road. I took this photo late yesterday afternoon, as the sun was getting low, and the water was fairly high and calm. Take your camera with you.

Sun Dog Appears Over Race Point

A sun dog appears in these stacks of thin, wispy, cirrus clouds as the sun descends over Race Point.

A sun dog, sometimes called a mock sun or phantom sun, is an atmospheric event called a parhelion in scientific language. It can give the appearance of a pair of bright spots on either side of the sun, sometimes seen at the left and right edges of a luminous circle, or halo, visible around the sun, with the area inside the halo appearing slightly darker. These halos can appear when flat, hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus clouds are drifting in random orientations, refracting the light and bending the rays that pass through them.
As the crystals sink through the air they become vertically aligned, refracting the light horizontally, which can produce sun dogs, with a reddish color nearest to the sun, and always appearing at the same height above the horizon as the sun, whether or not the complete halo is visible.
This sun dog was seen from the Provincelands Visitor Center, looking out over Race Point as the late-afternoon sun dipped toward the horizon. This phenomenon is easiest to spot when the sun is low in the sky, and it can occur at any time of the year, so if you look out toward Beach Point in the mornings, and Race Point in the afternoons, and if these wisps of thin cirrus clouds are present, you may get lucky and spot a sun dog.

Provincetown's Splendid Foliage Season

Colors are blazing along Provincelands Road.

Provincetown's fall foliage has been slowly turning colors for the past three weeks or so, with oak leaves gradually turning from green to a deep bronze color, while beech leaves turn to gold. Maples turn myriad shades of red, and vines of Virginia creeper wrapped around the trunks of various trees of any variety turn a deep scarlet.
This photo was taken a few days ago along Provincelands Road, near the branch of the bike trail that begins at the far west end of Herring Cove. Foliage colors are spectacular this year because we haven't had too much rain over the last few weeks, nor for most of the summer. That makes for brighter hues as the leaves take on their autumn colors.

PTown's Cranberry Harvest

It takes a while to pick this many wild cranberries, but it's worth the effort.

I've talked to a lot of hikers and foragers this week, and from all accounts, wild cranberries seem to be abundant this year, and are ready to gather from the low-lying spots in the forests, and even in the very low spots in the dunes, where the water tends to pool up after the rainfall. These are the spots where cranberries seem grow the best, completely wild and natural, and they are ours for the taking. An afternoon spent strolling through the forests can lead you to a cache of cranberries to put in your muffins, jellies, chutneys and any number of recipes that can be enhanced with this tart, toothsome and delightful little berry.
In a commercial cranberry bog, things are a bit different from a wild bog. The amount of water in the bogs can be controlled, and at harvest time the bogs are flooded, with the berries floating to the surface. Machinery is used to agitate the water, and more berries break away from the vines and float to the top, where they are scooped up by more machines. Commercial cranberry bogs cover about 13,000 acres of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, producing over 2 million barrels of cranberries in the average autumn season. The more rain we get in the summertime, the bigger the cranberries, which tend to plump up in years with generous rainfall.
The Provincetown Council on Aging is planning a trip to Harwich on Tuesday, October 21st, at 9 AM, to tour a working cranberry bog. This 1 1/2 hour tour will teach us about the cranberry industry and the harvesting process, and includes a ride around the bog with a guide. A special price of $12.50 for the tour has been arranged for COA members, and the group will stop for lunch at the Jail House Tavern in Orleans, where meals start at around $10, before returning to Provincetown. Call the Council on Aging at 508 487-7080 to reserve your trip.
In the meantime, get out for a stroll in the Provincelands, take a bucket with you, and bring home some of these remarkable, tasty little fruits that are native to this beautiful land we live on.

Pilgrim Memorial Raises Questions

This stone memorializes Mayflower Pilgrims Dorothy Bradford,
James Chilton, Jasper Moore (should be More) and Edward Thompson.

Provincetown has several cemeteries, the oldest one lying between Winthrop and Court streets, where these two roads meet. Near the center of this old burial ground is a small white picket fence and a memorial to the four Mayflower Pilgrims who died while that famous ship was anchored in Provincetown Harbor during the late autumn of 1620.
The Pilgrims had arrived in the "New World" in November of 1620, anchoring for five weeks in what we now call Provincetown Harbor, after a miserable, stormy 66-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Many of them were quite ill from exposure to the elements and the lack of adequate nutrition during their arduous journey in search of a new land that they could truly call their own. Religious persecution had driven them from their homes in England and Holland, and they were eager to establish a new colony in the Virginia Territory, as the entire east coast of the United States was called at that time.
James Chilton, Jasper More (spelled correctly here) and Edward Thompson had survived the taxing journey among the 102 passengers crowded into the tiny ship, only to succumb to illness once they arrived, while Dorothy Bradford mysteriously drowned in Provincetown Harbor, under circumstances that were more than suspicious. Many over the years have wondered how she could survive the tempestuous journey across the ocean only to slip overboard and drown in calm waters.
One version of the story says that her body was never recovered, and rumors that she was murdered have persisted. She was, according to more rumors, not well liked by her fellow shipmates, having a rather abrasive personality. When I spoke to descendants of hers, they were unable to say exactly what had happened to their ancestor, though they had tried to find out themselves. They told me they had no proof, but thought that she had likely been the victim of foul play. In the family bible, it is recorded that her husband, William Bradford, the leader of the Pilgrims, married Dorothy's younger sister within a couple of weeks of his wife's death. No historic source I've found confirms this, but I'm still looking. And other scandalous stories are connected with this memorial. Stay tuned...

Tour the Race Point Lighthouse

In this long-distance view from the Provincelands Visitor Center, Hatch's Harbor
lies between the viewer and the Race Point Lighthouse, with the old lighthouse
keeper's cottage to the left, and the old whistle house to the right.

The volunteers that look after the Race Point Lighthouse and the buildings on these grounds will give the public one last tour for the 2014 season tomorrow, Saturday, October 4th, from 10 AM till 2 PM. If you have a four-wheel drive vehicle with the proper over-sand permit you can drive out to this spot, or you can walk out either from Herring Cove Beach or from the tiny parking area at the bike trail underpass near the sharp bend on the hill that lies halfway down Provincelands Road.
This free tour will be given by one of some 60 volunteers who look after these grounds in various ways, from planting beach grass to running the tiny gift shop in the old kitchen pantry of the keeper's house. The Race Point Light Station is operated by the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Sales of souvenirs and T-shirts make up a major part of the funding for the upkeep of this little gem in Provincetown's maritime history, and, of course, contributions of any amount are always welcome as well.
You'll tour the grounds and visit the various buildings, such as the old whistle house, where the steam-generated fog signal sounded constantly in bad weather, saving countless mariners from running aground on the shifting sands just off the shoreline.
The highlight of the tour is climbing up into the lamp room of the Race Point Light, with a panoramic view out over Hatch's Harbor, Cape Cod Bay, the Atlantic Ocean and the little dunes and forests that surround Race Point, so be sure to bring your camera.
For more information click on this link to Tours of Race Point Lighthouse, or call Clay Beless at 508 362-9304. For about 12 years he and his wife Nancy have been among the dozens of volunteers who keep up the grounds and look after the upkeep of the Race Point Light along with giving occasional tours and hosting folks who make a reservation to stay in the keepers house or the old whistle house in the summer. Click to find out about Accommodations at Race Point Lighthouse. Reservations for a stay  during the 2015 season can be made online beginning November 1st, with some people reserving just a minute past midnight to be sure to get the room and the dates they want.
In the meantime, get out to Race Point on Saturday for your last chance of the season to tour this remarkable bit of Provincetown's history.