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.
Tag Archives: Nature
Resisting Change
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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
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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.
Black Rock
Looking across Jaquish Gut from Bailey Island. The rock and sea are in shadow with the sky filling in the the surface of the water. Click on the image for a larger view.
Land of Little Rain
This year has been very dry. Except for a few invasive species like bitter sweet, most of our plants has been struggling. The maddening thing is there have been many days forecast with thunderstorms, yet, while the thunder clouds have passed overhead, very few have let go of their reserves of water. Click on the image for a larger view.
Blackberries, 2016
It is blackberry season again. This is our largest fruit crop of the year—we are just finishing up the blackberries we picked last year. We will spend August gathering these berries. Click on the image for a larger view.
Catching Lightning
Last night, a terrific thunderstorm passed over us. A torrential rain was driven by a fierce wind—something we could not see in the darkness, but could hear. The lightning made the event sublime. We just took this all in from our bedroom window. Click on the image for a larger view.
