Maine
This has been "the winter that wasn't". Our heating bill has been down but in every other respect the lack of snow and cold has been a disappointment. We only had one real back country sledding adventure and as for local hills I only took the kids once. Pathetic.
But spring is around the corner. It's actually popping up in my flower beds. This is Maine though so I can't expect it will be clear sailing from here till mid April when spring really arrives. I'm worried that those daffodil and tulip shoots and exposed perennials, without their usual snow blanket, will be damaged by late winter frosts.
Oh well. What can you do? Head the mountains, of course! Because that's where the snow is and where winter can still be enjoyed (forgetting all together about those garden plants).
While the lower altitude of home base, aka: our backyard, is decidedly spring-like in temperature if you go up a few hundred (or thousand) feet you'll find snow, lots of it.
Which is what we did this past Sunday and it was absolutely wonderful. So, so beautiful. The silence of snow draped evergreens was breath taking and awe inspiring. Like being in the presence of God.
Which is one of the reasons I love the outdoors, the mountains and the woods.
Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park is the place we go to when we want to be outdoors, to enjoy the woods and ocean, but don't have the time for a whole day excursion. This sweet little state park is a 1/2 hour from our home and although it only offers a few miles of trails we don't seem to tire of re-visiting it each season.
The last time we were here was in June when Damien's mother was staying with us - perfect place to take visiting family. Before that it was last December for a winter woods hike. This Sunday we went because I wasn't totally recovered yet and I wasn't up for a 7 miler in the mountains. Two miles along the wooded Casco Bay trails was just right.
I love this gem in "our neighborhood" and I'm sure you can see why from these photos.
The other night we finished reading "Charlotte's Web". Sigh... Of course the whole book is a masterpiece but I felt I could linger forever on this second last paragraph:
Mr. Zuckerman took fine care of Wilbur all the rest of his days, and the pig was often visited by friends and admirers, for nobody ever forgot the year of his triumph and the miracle of the web. Life in the barn was very good - night and day, winter and summer, spring and fall, dull days and bright days. It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure and the glory of everything (emphasis mine).
Doesn't that passage just fill you up? I read that and I feel content. And I feel blessed to have a place so like Wilbur's barn, a Maine farm no less, to escape to with my children and experience "the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats (I've never seen any!), the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure and glory of everything."
Earlier this week I went one morning all by myself to the farm to watch the sun rise. Leaving the house when the sky was the still the color of ink and dawn just a sliver of pale blue beyond the trees. I want to take more sunrise and sunset shots but my house in the middle of the city is not the place to do that! I need to get out, up high where I can see. So I did my best to stay warm on the second floor of the barn, listened to the rooster crow and watched the sheep and turkeys meander from their slumber.
And I wondered and reveled in the glory of everything.
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