NOTE: The goof ball above is NOT ME… it’s the very talented Art Director Greg (last name withheld to protect the innocent).

I recently worked with LL Bean during their photo shoot for the Summer 2008 catalog in Bar Harbor and Brooklin, Maine.

It was with GREAT delight that I learned that one of our locations for the week, was at EB White’s saltwater farm.

For those that don’t remember, EB White wrote Charlotte’s Web… you know, the one about Wilbur the pig and the SOME PIG spider’s web? Anyway, I love EB’s work and I was lucky enough to get to know the current owners of the farm.

They were kind enough to take me through the barn, show me some of the contraptions that EB built (he liked to build complex ways of holding open doors, discouraging chicken escapes and otherwise existing on the farm). Anyway, I remembered reading one of EB White’s essays about his dog Fred. He said that Fred was restless.

In a later essay, after Fred had passed on to doggie heaven, he wrote that Fred’s grave was just like his life: restless. As I wandered through the farm exploring the overgrown paths and imaging the life of EB and Fred… I stopped just past the giant “Farm Sized” compost heap and found Fred’s original grave marker still refusing to stand straight.

A few excerpts from EB White to enjoy:

Some day when I’m out of sight, Travel far but travel light!

Stalk the turtle on the log,

Watch the heron spear the frog,

Find the things you only find, When you leave you bag behind; Raise the sail your old man furled, Hang your hat on the world!… Thank God you’ve always doubted, The gifts you’ve never flouted; … Happy in the perambulation, Work no harder then you have to, Do you get me?

lines extracted from The Fox of Peapack 1938 “Apostrophe to a Pram Rider,” e.b. white

Also… And with tiller in hand,I’ll feel again the wind imparting life to a boat, will smell again the old menace, the one that imparts life to me: the cruel beauty of the salt world, the barnacle’s tint knives, the sharp spine of the urchin, the stinger of the sun jelly fish, the claw of the crab.