Highlights of 2020

Another year is drawing to a close! It's always hard to believe! 2020 was a difficult year for everyone in many ways, but there were still many blessings to be thankful for. There will always be something of beauty in God's creation for us to rejoice in! I like to think of some lines from one of my favorite poems...

A naked house, a naked moor,

A shivering pool before the door,

A garden bare of flowers and fruit

And poplars at the garden foot;

Such is the place that I live in,

Bleak without and bare within.

Yet shall your ragged moor receive

The incomparable pomp of eve,

And the cold glories of the dawn

Behind your shivering trees be drawn...

As usual, I found it impossible to limit myself to just a few pictures, so here goes my longest post of the year! 😂

We had some very cold temperatures last February...

This pictures was taken around the end of April!

Flooding due to an ice jam on the river. I wouldn't want to live near it in the spring!!

Spring came at last! The species crocuses never fail to amaze me. This year they seemed even hardier than usual, pushing right up through icy snow that was sharp enough to cut my finger!

The Dutch crocuses are about a week later...

Another early flower in my garden is Glory-of-the-Snow (Chionodoxa forbesii)...

Sometimes it seemed that winter didn't want to give up, but thankfully neither did the flowers! 😊

And all of a sudden we went from cold and snow to 90s and everything started growing at an amazing rate! Late May/early June is probably my favorite time in the garden...everything is so green and lush!

The "herb garden" in late June. You can see from the brown grass that the drought was already getting pretty bad...

I was delighted that the 'Apricot Beauty' Foxgloves survived the winter despite the low temperatures. Since the snow was deep the ground barely froze at all and they were well protected. 

The first flowers on my new columbines, grown from seeds sent by my blogging friend Eliza Waters. Thank you very much, they were lovely!! 😊 

Since the Swedish Midsommar festival was cancelled this year, my sister and I celebrated with our very own Maypole! 

I grew several varieties of Japanese Morning Glories (Ipomoea nil) in pots over the summer (the Bengals still love greens so I can't grow them in the house). Some of them didn't make it before the nights turned too cold, but I did get some lovelies including this 'Chocolate Blizzard'...

This one appears to be 'Fuji Musume' but I don't have any seeds of that variety or anything even similar! Growing MGs is full of surprises! 😁

'Black Queen'...

And my favorite of all! 'Seiryu'...

As always I spent many happy hours exploring the woods...

One evening last May, I had just stepped out of the house when I saw something black out of the corner of my eye! It was a bear! I ran out with the camera, and while I was snapping pictures, 2 cubs came bounding out of the woods! Mama bear only looked at me once then went on about her business. I saw her again a few days later...

I frequently found bear tracks in the woods over the entire summer. They seemed to prefer the same spots that I did! 

Freshly dug roots...

Another very interesting discovery! Canada lynx molt in April and May, and apparently that's what happened here! 

The first flower to appear in the woods in spring isn't even native, but still it's sooo pretty! Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)...

Red Trillium, Wake Robin, or Stinking Benjamin (Trillium erectum)...

Northern White Violet (Viola renifolia) grows at the edge of a swampy area in the woods...one of the most pleasant surprises!! 

Threeleaf Goldthread (Coptis trifolia)...

Painted Trillium (Trillium undulatum)...

Rose Twisted-Stalk, or Rose Mandarin (Streptopus lanceolatus)...

I always find Bluebead Lily (Clintonia borealis) to be hard to photograph, but I found the loveliest patch of them last spring and the light was hitting them just right! 

Yellow Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium parviflorum)...

Pink Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium acaule)...

According to the USDA the white variation is rare, but I think they are actually more numerous than the pink ones in our woods!

Naked Miterwort, or Bishop's Cap (Mitella nuda) has very interesting flowers...

And of course Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) is always my favorite! My little "flower of the north"! 💗

I'm pretty sure this is North Wind Bog Orchid (Platanthera aquilonis). I first came across it a couple years ago, but it's really hard to see and I couldn't find it again until one day I found myself sitting right next to it!

I came upon yet another moose skull! There's actually a pretty funny story behind this, but I don't think I'm going to tell it... 😂

A walk in the woods at a local state park early last June...

This gigantic old White Pine reminded me of some lines from The Growth of the Legend by James Russell Lowell...

And it grew itself like a true Northern pine,

First a little slender line,

Like a mermaid's green eyelash, and then anon

A stem that a tower might rest upon,

Standing spear-straight in the waist-deep moss,

Its bony roots clutching around and across,

As if they would tear up earth's heart in their grasp

Ere the storm should uproot them or make them unclasp...

Since my father drives for our Amish friends, I had a few opportunities to travel again this summer. We went with friends in Punxsutawney and they wanted to see all the groundhog sights! It was interesting but I have a hard time thinking of them as anything but my garden's worst enemy! 😂

We were also in OH on the same trip and got to stop to see the William McKinley memorial in Niles...

Much closer to home, a drive in the Allagash...

At the beach in Wells, ME...

Bar Harbor...

Cadillac Mountain was quite the experience with 40-50 mph winds that nearly blew us over! I lost the batteries to the camera here, so unfortunately the only pictures we got were with a cell phone...

The highlight of the year for me though, was our stay on Moosehead Lake and climbing Mt. Kineo!

The drought continued until early October. Many wells went dry, but thankfully ours made it. The river was so low in places you could almost walk across it without getting your feet wet!

We still had beautiful fall colors, but most of it was gone in the first rain... 

Our winter has been extremely mild so far. We only had one major snowstorm (3 or 4 inches are just considered "showers" here 😂). On Christmas we were as warm as Miami and all of the snow melted except a few piles and drifts. We did get a couple of inches the next day so the ground is at least white again!

I hope you all had a merry and blessed Christmas, and wish you a Happy New Year!! 😊

Songs of the Winter Days

The sky has turned its heart away,

The earth its sorrow found;

The daisies turn from childhood's play,

And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard;

Thin films of dry white ice,

Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,

The children's feet entice.

Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned

The winter in the land;

With idle icicles adorned,

That mill-wheel soon will stand.

But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part,

Is to let in the cold;

We'll make a summer of the heart,

And laugh at winter old.

With vague dead gleam the morning white

Comes through the window-panes;

The clouds have fallen all the night,

Without the noise of rains.

As of departing, unseen ghost,

Footprints go from the door;

The man himself must long be lost

Who left those footprints hoar!

Yet follow thou; tread down the snow;

Leave all the road behind;

Heed not the winds that steely blow,

Heed not the sky unkind;

For though the glittering air grow dark,

The snow will shine till morn;

And long ere then one dear home-spark

Will winter laugh to scorn.

Oh wildly wild the roaring blast

Torments the fallen snow!

The wintry storms are up at last,

And care not how they go!

A spectral ocean lies outside,

Torn by a tempest dark;

Its ghostly billows, dim descried,

Leap on my stranded bark.

A morning clear, with frosty light

From sunbeams late and low;

They shine upon the snow so white,

And shine back from the snow.

And when the bright sad sun is low

Behind the mountain-dome,

A twilight wind will come and blow

Around the children's home,

And puff and waft the powdery snow,

As feet unseen did pass;

While, waiting in its bed below,

Green lies the summer grass. 

                                                          ~George Macdonald

Talk Not of Sad November

Talk not of sad November, when a day

Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,

And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,

Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.

On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines

Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,

Singing a pleasant song of summer still,

A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.

Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,

In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;

But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,

And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.

Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high

Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,

Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow

And jay and nut-hatch winter’s threat defy.

O gracious beauty, ever new and old!

O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dear

When the low sunshine warns the closing year

Of snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold!

Close to my heart I fold each lovely thing

The sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate,

With the calm patience of the woods I wait

For leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring!

                                                                ~John Greenleaf Whittier