Maine

This is the last Friday's Flowers for the month of June. We will resume the first friday in July. At which time I will also be drawing a winner for my soap giveaway from the May and June participants of Friday's Flowers.

I'll be totally honest with you, the photo of my picked lupine, the one in the bouquet is just a lame excuse to share the photos of the lupines growing wild and in our yard. I know Friday's Flowers is all about bringing the beauty indoors but sometimes the natural beauty that is only found uncut and untamed is so much more stunning.

So that's how I feel about these photos. Lupines in a bouquet - blah. Lupines out of doors - spectacular.

I put this little bouquet together to brighten our guest/sewing room. This week a childhood friend of mine and maid of honor at our wedding, whom I have kept in touch with over the years despite thousands of miles of distance between us, came to visit with her family. They were here for a couple nights on an east coast vacation. Catching up with her, getting to know her husband a bit, meeting her children - all of it so delightful.

There was a lupine for guest room (a little touch of Maine) but I personally think this view out the guest room window is much more beautiful. 

This is Brienne's lupine plant in her little garden. She is very proud of its beautiful flowers. I am so happy for her that this plant did not fall prey to the aphids that destroyed the lupines in front garden. It was disgusting.

This is what lupines look like growing wild in Maine. They have been blooming since early June and should last a couple more weeks along the roadsides if I remember correctly. 

While we're talking about lupines I'd like to recommend a good book, Miss Rumphius by author and illustrator Barbara Cooney.

The children and I loved the story's message to go to faraway places, live beside the sea and do something to make the world more beautiful. For Miss Rumphius that means planting lupines all over the country side in her later years.

Adventure, nature, finding home and creating beauty. What's not to love in a story like that? I've always said and I will repeat it again, one of the joys of raising children is the opportunity I get to read good children's books. 

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• Your post should have a photo of a bouquet in it. I'm not going to be a rule task-master about this but the idea of Friday's Flowers is to bring them into our homes, or share them with others; to enjoy the bounty of summer's blossom both indoors and out.
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Pick some flowers, arrange 'em pretty, take a photo, post it to your blog, visit Friday's Flowers to share it with us.

The kids and I spent a couple hours at the ocean yesterday afternoon.

The ocean. Friday afternoon. Blue sky.  

Life Is Good.

Today is my hiking day-off. I realized late last summer that if our family was going be hiking almost every weekend I needed a day off once every few months. Physically, emotionally and mentally. I need this time to recharge my creative batteries.

photo credit: Laurent Tougas

Time to putter around in my pjs, garden, fool around with photos, read, write or sew. No destination, no early morning drive, no summit to climb. Just time to be. 

Today is that day. It's also a very rainy day in Maine with thunderstorms in the mountains. Though we are learning to hike in rain we avoid thunderstorms for obvious safety reasons. So, we're all home together - recharging our creative batteries. 

This morning Damien is sewing, I'm making soap in between sharing the computer with Celine who is programming, the kids are all building legos and the younger two are making chewing gum (beeswax, peppermint extract and honey).

It's a creative, rainy day. It's perfect.

But this post is not really about today (though it seems to be shaping up that way). It's a photo post about our backpacking trip last weekend to Horns Pond in the Bigelow Preserve. 

It was such a great weekend, though not without its trials for me. I always seem to have some struggle, large or small, to work through when we backback.

Backpacking is huge character building for me. It's hard work but it has so many rewards (nature, photography, time with my family, physical training etc.) that make it worth it. Not to mention, my husband absolutely rocks in the woods. It's his domain to be sure and I put my faith in his knowledge and strong back to get us safely where we are going. And he does it fantastically well.

As a family we are learning how to balance a creative home, a full time job for daddy and an active outdoors life. There is not a lot of models to follow in this regard but we are finding our own way. 

And today I'm thankful that way involves a day off for time at home. 

Please see the accompanying post at AinP for more photos and trip specs from our weekend in the Bigelow Mountains.