Click on the image for a larger view.
Tag Archives: Nature
High Pressure
On Sunday, a high pressure front moved in. It drove out the humid air and filled the forest with wind. Click on the image for a larger view.
Golden Hour
The days are getting noticeably shorter. Where the daylight would last until after nine in the evening, it is now dark by eight. The warmth of summer still remains, but the season is waning. This is near the summit of Little Moose Island looking toward Schoodic peninsular in Acadia National Park. The Anvil, a small hill, can be seen in the distance. The island can accessed at low tide. Click on the image for a larger view.
Small Cranberry
Small cranberry, Vaccinium oxycoccos, can be found in peat or acidic soils, which gives it its other common name, bog cranberry. This is one of the first plants to colonize burnt bogland and native Americans would burn bogs to stimulate its growth. Like the cultivated cranberry, these are tart. Naturally, this fruit is sought after by wildlife. This plant is on Little Moose Island at the tip of Schoodic peninsular in Acadia National Park. Click on the image for a larger view.
Exploitation
At some point in time, either deposited by a glacier or eroded from the mountain, a boulder settled in this valley. Why this tree thought it might be a good place to grow is a mystery, but it did. And from the size of the trunk, it was fairly successful. Click on the image for a larger view.
Resisting Change
Click on the image for a larger view.
Harvest 2016
August always takes us by surprise. The glut of food is wonderful, but adds more time than we anticipate on top of our other tasks—we spend a couple of hours in the evening just keeping up with the ripening blackberries. It is not something we can exactly put off. Still, once outside, the act of gathering this fruit becomes its own meditation. That other hectic life at the office dissipates and is replaced by the cycles of the planet. This symbiosis, which is, at one level, indifferent and, at another, dependent, is a great performance we all part of. Click on the image for a larger view.
Summer Wind
Click on the image for a larger view.
Green
Naomi and I were collecting blackberries from our field last evening. This time of year there seems to be a richness to the variety in the greens in the landscape. The yellow greens of spring remain, but there is a shift to blue greens of the maturing foliage of the trees. The blackberry canes start their transition to the reds of fall. Click on the image for a larger view.
Dog Days of Summer
We have had a stretch of hot, humid weather. This is tough on Mainers as we don’t have air conditioning to escape the muggy days. Still, knowing what others south of us suffer, it is hard to complain (not that Mainers ever complain, least of all about the weather). Click on the image of Sea Wall Beach in Phippsburg, ME for a larger view.
