Salt and Roses

May Davidson (1929-2022) was born in Damariscotta, a village along the Maine coast. In 1947, she graduated from nearby Lincoln Academy and a year later married her teenage sweetheart, Jim Davidson. She first met Jim when he spent a week at her family’s inn on Greenland Cove. The couple, despite struggles, were determined to live in Maine and did whatever necessary to make that happen, whether running a chicken farm, raising sheep, building lobster traps, or driving a truck across America. They ultimately found great success when they invented the now-iconic Maine Buoy Bell. Her memoir, Whatever it Takes, was published in 2019. She also wrote a column that appeared for many years in The Lincoln County News, where many of the essays in this book first appeared.

“The stories or essays within the covers are cozy, comfortable stories of earlier (and simpler) times of farm life, as well as the summer guest inn that her parents ran. … Salt and Roses is the perfect accompaniment to Whatever It Takes, for that book left the reader wanting to read more about a life lived wholly in Maine, and a well-observed and well-written one at that.”—James Fisher, The Miramichi Reader

"Davidson is a talented, experienced writer and these essays clearly show her skills with words — creating visual images and emotions — the reader can almost see, smell, hear and feel her vivid descriptions. She writes about growing up on a farm near Bremen, traveling with her husband, raising show sheep on their own farm, people, animals, nature, weather and boating.  Some stories are poignant, others hilarious."—Bill Bushnell, Kennebec Journal