It’s a sad irony that the following post was scheduled for today. A mere 41 hours after a gunman murdered 18 of my fellow Mainers.
Our beloved state is still reeling from the shock and my area is still sheltering in place. Crazy times.
My neighbor posted this on FB today.
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Another child has lost another parent. It’s heartbreaking… and no state, no city, no town can ever be immune.
We thought we were.
We were wrong.
And now… my post.
Even with all the bad luck we’ve been having trying to renovate our house, there’s no place I’d rather make my home than Maine. It’s laid back, scenically beautiful, has abundant seafood and the most craft breweries per capita in the nation.
Here are a few other reasons I love it.
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That’s my kind of library.
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Thanks mom.
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Someday I’m going to have to drive by this woman’s house and take a peek at her gardens. Judging from the amount of flowers she gives away, it must be amazing.
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Halloween is right around the corner and these are some pretty impressive arachnids.
I was.. and can now scratch it off the things I never thought I’d do bucket list.
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The lemon in question belongs to this little lemon tree owned and lovingly pampered by my neighbor who went out of town for a week. Though indoors, it’s a thirsty devil and requires a full pitcher of water every two days.
Living in the often frozen north, you don’t see many tropical fruit trees thriving in my state, even if they live inside… but this beauty is doing wonderfully well.
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If you look closely, you’ll see there are actually two lemons. And while I’m not sure what her plans are for these two precious pieces of citrus she’s been obsessing over for the nearly six years it’s taken for them to arrive…. but I hope it’s something special.
Never having grown a lemon tree, I was floored by the power of their blossom’s scent. It was positively divine.
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Ooh la la! I wish I could have bottled it and brought it home… but I dared not. With my luck plucking a flower would have disturbed some delicate balance and I’d be blamed for ruining the harvest.
This is our little kitchen porch, which is really just a covered landing.
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In the corner there’s a stand on which I place potted plants every year. It’s usually well balanced with one begonia on the top and one begonia on the bottom. Until the woodchucks discovered the bottom flower and started nibbling…
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Bottom flower was then moved to the middle shelf and middle shelf decorations were moved to the bottom.
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Which was fine…
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Until a chipmunk found the bird’s nest and decided he needed to deconstruct it.
And if that’s not bad enough?
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Something has started using our man cave/Barn Mahal porch as a toilet.
Daisies. They’re such happy little flowers, I always smile when I see them bloom. Which is why… after seeing how well this one performed… I went back to the nursery for more. See the monster plant to the left threatening to swallow the bloomer whole? That’s a daisy as well, but clearly not the same variety.
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Bee balm, in bright pink instead of the traditional red. I think the bees are confused.
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Day lilies.
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I planted this flowering bush when we first moved in over 20 years ago and damned if I can remember what it’s called.
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The blooms are positively fuzzy.
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More day lilies.
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They’re such low maintenance things it’s hard not to plant them everywhere.
I have no desire to cuddle fake bread, but if that was real? Pass the butter baby!
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Fox and chucks are still munching happily together. Guess this is what happens when you lay out an ample backyard buffet.
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I’ve been getting hundreds of junk emails lately. Somehow, someone got my address and has been flooding me with spam. ‘Stuck poop’ is an interesting enough subject line but the fact that the word ‘solder’ is in the sender’s address?
Priceless.
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This is what’s left of the pretty yellow deer proof flower I planted out back. The deer may not like it, but clearly the woodchucks did .
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Ditto that for coneflower leaves.
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I had to dig up the phlox, lupine and mallow due to voracious woodchuck appetites….
So now they’re all crowding my deck table in pots.
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The neighbor I was cat sitting for returned from vacation and brought me a thank you gift from the Wisconsin Dells.
A bag of local beer! She knows I like sours and brought me a variety to try. Some of them are wonderfully bizarre. The lime green can? A pastry sour with peach, basil, graham cracker and vanilla.
If there’s anyone who puts on a better show in a garden than a peony, I haven’t yet met them.
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For a pure burst of color they’re hard to beat.
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I have a few small plants in the front of the house, but it’s this old backyard beauty that was here when we moved in 20 years ago that makes the biggest statement.
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Peonies can be fussy and hard to establish.
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But if you manage it, they’re carefree beauty that will be enjoyed for decades.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 