Oh, that purple flower and those gossamer wings. Every once in a while a photographer gets lucky, where the light, the focus, and the subject all come together. A very happy Sunday for me.
Category Archives: Flowers
Hydrangeas, Rose Petals, and Little Red Apples: Late Summer in Maine
Summer is winding down, and as always, I have mixed feelings about this. The days are getting shorter, and already I miss the extra light. In the summer at day’s end, Clif and I like to sit on the patio, have drinks, and chat. Only a month or so left where we’ll be able to do that. Our time for barbecues and grilled bread is also winding down. The gardens are looking ragged.
On the other hand, this summer has been very hot and humid, and I am ready for cooler weather. By late afternoon, both Clif and I are zapped. It’s been this way in Maine for several years—quite unlike summers when I was young—and it’s my guess that this is the new norm for Maine. The bonus: September has become utterly delightful, almost like “old” August, and this means we can squeeze in a few more patio gatherings than we could in year’s past.
Whatever the season, there is always something interesting to see by the lake where we park the car when we go on our bike ride.
Looking out onto the lake.
Oh, hydrangeas!
A closer look.
Closer still.
Hanging rose petals.
Little red apples. (In the spring, I took a picture of this tree when it was a froth of white.)
A Curve of White Through Yellow, a Leg Full of Pollen
Summer is winding down, and so are the gardens at the little house in the big woods, which are at their best in June and July. Still, despite their raggedness, there are still things to admire and find in the garden.
This curve of white through yellow.
This leg full of pollen.
The crickets sing, the grasshoppers buzz, and the yellow jackets, out in force this year, pester us when we eat on the patio. (Not everything is sublime at the little house in the big woods.)
Such a sweet, sad time of year, when the dark comes earlier and earlier. I love fall and the crisp energy it brings, but I am always sorry to say farewell, for another year, to the flowers and the hummingbirds and the loons.
Raindrops on Flowers but No Whiskers on Kittens
Flip the Calender and Raise a Glass
Flip the calendar to August. Say goodbye to July and to the evening primroses, whose bright yellow made the gardens positively glow. But hello to the black-eyed Susans and daylilies. For the gardens at the little house in the big woods, this will be the last burst before fall. After that, the plants have a tattered, tired look. They have given their all, and by the end of the month they are exhausted, bloomed out and chewed by slugs, snails, and beetles.
But oh, the first of August, when my favorite daylily blooms. Such a red beauty.
However, the other daylilies are lovely, too.
Less showy but much appreciated are the black-eyed Susans, and sometimes I even catch a little inhabitant of the garden.
Another little inhabitant.
The crickets have begun their song of late summer and fall. Such a lovely but sad chorus, a harbinger of dark, cold days when the flowers are gone and there are no more patio days.
But enough of that! We have at least one more month of summer, where we can spend much of the time on the patio. Last weekend, our friends Dawna and Jim cane over. She brought her delectable margaritas, and we raised our glasses high as we said farewell to July and toasted August, one of the most beautiful months in Maine.
Too bad we couldn’t trade the tiresome, irksome month of March for another month of August. How would that work? It wouldn’t, of course.
Only in my dreams.
Little Winged Visitor
Oh, I wish I could hold one of these ethereal beauties in my hand and feel the wings tickle my palms. I never will, of course, as it certainly wouldn’t be good for the bird. Still, I like to imagine it as I watch the birds come to my garden.
Of Blooms and Maya and the Book of Everything
At the little house in the big woods, in mid-July, the gardens went into a slump after the glorious burst at the beginning of the month. But now they’ve gathered themselves again with the bosoming of the daylilies. (Eliza, so sorry you missed them! But flowers will be flowers, and they bloom in their own time.)
I am also happy to report that we—Clif and me—are making great progress with my YA fantasy book Maya and the Book of Everything. All the material for the first part—synopsis, blurbs, and other necessary information—is done and ready to go. Clif is designing an oh-so-lovely author’s website for me. I know. I am lucky to live with a computer geek who also has terrific graphic sensibilities. However, I did have to ask him to remove the flying saucer he put in over the castle. (There are no flying saucers in Maya, but there is indeed a castle.)
I have ideas brewing for a presentation, if I am fortunate enough to be asked.
Busy, busy, busy! But in such a great way.
Soon, I will be sharing the cover.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens—A Longer View
Yesterday’s post featured close-ups of the many delights at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Today I’ll give a longer view of this lovely place. Eliza and I arrived at about 11:00 a.m. and didn’t leave until about 4:30 p.m. As I have mentioned previously, we were the perfect companions for this outing. I had my wee wonder of a camera, and Eliza had her larger Canon.
Here’s how it went. We’d take a few steps, stop, snap some pictures, and repeat. For someone not as enthused about taking pictures as we were, it would have been excruciatingly slow. But the pace was just right for the two of us.
As I was going through my pictures this morning, I realized that a third post was in order to highlight the wonderful sculptures in this garden. The sculptures are so fine and so integral to the look and feel of the place that they deserve their own space on this blog.
But for today, here is a broader sweep of flowers, sky, water, and stone.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens—Petite Photos
On Tuesday, my blog friend Eliza Waters came to visit for a couple of days, and on Wednesday, we made a pilgrimage to Boothbay Harbor to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Oh, what a time we had! Tomorrow, I’ll write more about the gardens and also about how cool it was to meet Eliza in person. However, if there was one word I could use to describe her visit and our trip to Boothbay, it would be “perfect”—perfect weather, perfect sunlight, perfect company, and perfect pictures. Now, how often do we get such perfect days?
I took a lot of pictures, and as I don’t want to be too overwhelming with the photos, I’m going to divide them between two posts. Today’s will feature what I refer to as petite pictures, where the subjects are up close and often cropped. For some reason, the petite photos are my favorite kind to take. (I do, of course, admire landscape shots, too.)
Tomorrow, I’ll write more about the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and feature broader shots of this beautiful place.
But for now, here are my petite photos.
And Red and Yellow Aren’t Bad, Either
Notes From the Hinterland 