Our forest is under a three- to four-foot snowpack. The snow has consolidated making snowshoeing over our land fairly easy. In the summer, the foliage and understory make the forest dark and confining. In the winter, the space is open and free. Click on the image for a larger view.
Tag Archives: Nature
Where Gods Dwell
If anyone has seen the work of the director Hayeo Miyazaki, a common motif may strike you: trees. In the movies Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, and Princes Mononoke, powerful, towering arboreal characters appear. The early Japanese believed trees, particularly evergreen trees, were dwellings for deities from heaven. With roots firmly in the earth and branches reaching into the sky, living off the wind and sun, and lifespans greater than any human, how could these beings be anything but divine. The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore said, “trees are the Earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.” Click on the image for a larger view.
Dreaming of Summer, Part 2
Our forest last July in summer wind. Click on the image for a larger view.
A Year in Color Revisited
Winter gives you a long time to think about the seasons in Maine. Previously, I had posted the year in color for our forest for 2014. As an experiment, I revisited that year to try another way to visualize that change. January is the section between 12 o’clock and 1 o’clock with the following months continuing clockwise between each hour. Click on the image for a larger view.
Blizzard of 2015
New England was hit with a massive blizzard yesterday. This was my safe view from the window of our front door—you can see our bird feeder and the apple tree we call Midori in the foreground. Fortunately, so far, we have not lost power, unlike the ice storm we had last winter. Click on the image for a larger view.
A Message from Hakusan Creation
Naomi and I want to thank all our visitors to our site for coming so regularly. This year seems to be shaping up to be an exciting one for us. We hope to announce a few publishing projects in the coming months as well as a few projects we would like to publish through our site.
For a little over a year, we have been posting five times a week. It has been fun, if not challenging. But because of our publishing projects and a desire to keep our posts as fresh and interesting as possible, we will be cutting back a bit to three posts a week.
As always, if you would like to see this photograph taken in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire a little larger, click on the image.
Winter Sunset
Click on the image for a larger view.
Winter Seas, Part 1
The Gulf of Maine in winter has a hardness not evident in the other seasons. Click on the image for a larger view.
Winter Forest Panorama
Our forest after a storm. Our oldest apple tree is on the left of the image in the foreground. We are unsure of the variety, but it seems to bare fruit biennially. We are hoping to get apples from it this year. Click on the image for a larger view.
Snags
It was a gray winter day yesterday. I came across this snag, a dead standing tree. Snags have very little use to the human residents of a forest as they are usually too rotten to have any value for lumber or even firewood, but they do have great value to the other residents and the forest itself. As you can see, the snag is a great feeding post for our woodpeckers and flickers. When the tree finally falls, it will act as water storage for the forest. Click on the image for a larger view.
