Freeport, Maine—home of L.L. Bean—is either a retail paradise or a shopping hellhole, depending on your point of view. In the summer there are so many tourists that parking places are hard to find, and most Mainers quite sensibly stay away until the season is over.

However, just ten minutes away from Freeport’s busy downtown is Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park, 245 acres of woods and trails tucked between Casco Bay and the Harraseeket River. Wolfe’s Neck is one of Clif’s favorite places, and, as most of you know, this is his birthday week. Therefore, off to Wolfe’s Neck we went with a picnic lunch and a thermos of tea to go with cookies for dessert.

After lunch, Clif and Dee went on a four-mile hike. Because of my creaky knees, I stayed behind and had a delightful time pottering along the edge of a salt marsh.

To get to the marsh, I went down a trail and over a bridge,

past fungi of various kinds and colors.

I came to a steep rocky trail leading to a series of wooden steps and carefully went down to the water. As I reached the shore, a heron flew by, disappearing before I could get a picture.

I was the only one on the little beach by the marsh, which suited me just fine.

On a large rock in the water, birds—cormorants?— rested and watched.

By the shore’s edge, hermit crabs patrolled the waters.

Everywhere, there were fragments of shells, remnants of life that once was. This one reminded me of a shard of ancient pottery. Nature’s art.

All around me was the smell of mud flats and salt water, and I was completely absorbed by the marsh. A place to look.  A place to listen. A place to be.

After a while, I carefully made my way back up the stairs and the rocky trail, and walked to a grassy area where I set up a lawn chair.

Clif and Dee came back from their walk, and we had tea and cookies.

Here are a couple pictures from their hike:

Is it any wonder that Wolfe’s Neck is one of Clif’s favorite places? No matter the time of year, there is always something to see and notice.

Because of a busy schedule, I haven’t been posting on Fridays for quite a while, and therefore haven’t been sharing Friday Favorites.  However, this week, I received the sweetest little packet from my blogging friend Ju-Lyn of Touring My Backyard, and I had to bring Friday Favorites back for at least this week.

Here is what Ju-Lyn sent:

Ju-Lyn wrote that her eldest daughter tatted the bookmarks. Also that the kitties remind her of our own Little Miss and the stone cat (Minerva) in our front garden.

Many, many thanks, Ju-Lyn. What a wonderful surprise!

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Next week, I truly am on vacation. No painting trim, no standing on the toilet to reach difficult spots. Dee has taken the week off, and weather permitting, we are hoping to go to the coast a few times, have snacks by the river in a nearby town, and generally do a little more celebrating in honor of Clif’s 70th turn around the sun.

So far, the weather forecast looks very encouraging. I hope to get some good pictures and if I do, I’ll share them in short posts throughout the week.

The following week—the first week of October—I plan to be back to a more or less regular schedule.

Until then…

In the northern hemisphere, today is the autumnal equinox, when day and night are more or less of equal length. But from now until December, the days will get shorter as we head toward winter.  From the Old Farmer’s Almanac here is a lovely quotation, an Irish proverb: Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor.

They certainly do.

In the United States, we also refer to autumn as fall. I asked my husband Clif which word he thought we used most.

“It depends on whether you want to be hoity-toity,” he answered.

This confirmed my suspicions. In Maine, anyway, fall is more commonly used than autumn.

Whatever you call it—fall or autumn—this is one of the most beautiful times in northern New England. The days are warm, the nights are cool, and soup is back again on the menu. And in October comes a blaze of glory as the leaves change from green to red and yellow and orange.

This September has been spectacularly nice in Maine, with sunny days punctuated by  enough rain to keep things green and growing. Especially during this time of the pandemic, we feel very fortunate to be able to spend so much time on the patio.

The gardens at our home by the edge of the woods continue their gentle decline toward winter. Still, there are things to notice and enjoy in the yard.

Little stars of fall,

the tangly garden in our front yard,

hens and chicks on a rock beside the garden,

the waning of the black-eyed Susans,

and a wee red mushroom in the front yard.

Not being knowledgable about mushrooms, I’ll leave this one to the wood fairies and sprites that no doubt come out at night.