It will be six years this week that we moved to the great state of Maine and we haven’t looked back once. We left Florida with everything we owned and our three cats, one of which was diabetic with pancreatitis. It took almost four days to get here. It was an extremely difficult and long sixteen hundred mile drive. Talk about stress! After finally pulling into the driveway, we made sure the cats were safely settled inside our new home. Even more exciting than viewing the inside of our new home was the time we spent exploring the outside. While in Florida, we hardly went outside at all. The humidity was so oppressive and the sun was too powerful for my taste. I waited patiently for the cooler weather and it never quite came. I wouldn’t mind visiting Florida, but I will never live there again. We were there only for a short time and the area we lived in was entirely human-made. I found this to be odd and I much prefer the unstructured freedom of where we live now. I spend a lot of time outdoors and our property has provided me with my much-needed fill of nature and space.
Since our arrival in Maine, I have been absolutely beguiled by the beauty of our diverse piece of property. With every season, the diverse landscape presents itself with unique and hidden opportunities for exploration and photography. The fall season especially offers days filled with beautiful lighting and shadows that play off of the contrasting backdrop of changing foliage. There are also signs of wildlife that was here over the summer and have since moved on. The season will bring new arrivals for the winter. Our new bird and animal visitors will be here soon and I can’t wait.
A couple of weeks ago, I spent an afternoon taking photographs around the property. I’m glad I took this time to capture these images, because soon after, we had a couple of rainstorms with a significant amount of wind and much of the beautiful foliage was gone for the season. I hope you enjoy the view.
An autumn stream filled with colorful leaves.
A fallen rain covered hornbeam leaf (Betulaceae).
A fallen wasp nest (Hymenoptera) on the ground.
An empty song sparrow nest (Melospiza melodia) in a spiraea shrub (Rosaceae).
A fallen sugar maple leaf in the grass (Acer saccharum).
The entrance to the woods.
The trail covered with brightly colored autumn leaves.
The colorful tree canopy.
Autumn leaves against the blue sky.
A trail covered with fallen leaves.
A trail lined with eastern white pines (Pinus strobus).
The colorful floor of the woods.
The afternoon sun shining through the trees.
Falls shadows in the woods.
The colorful canopy in the woods.
A trail through the woods.
Another view of the woods.
Yellow sugar maple trees against a blue sky.
Exiting the woods into the backyard.
The leaves of the apple trees changing for the season (Malus domestica).
I hope you enjoyed the photographs and with great patience, I suppose I will have to wait for the arrival of next year’s vibrant colors of fall.
So lovely, and a welcome reminder of what seemed like a spectacular but brief autumn. This snow was barely enough to warrant getting out the shovels, but they’ll be in use soon enough. It’s a long wait until next fall, but there are still some pleasures of the season to be had (cranberries!). What struck me particularly this year was the great number of old apple trees along the roadside heavily laden with beautiful apples just left to fall to the ground. That’s a lot of pie that came to naught. 🙂
Thank you, Suzanne. Yes, I suppose we can look forward to the second half of this beautiful season. Although the leaves are gone now, we will experience wonderful times spent with friends and family while enjoying delicious food and drink. I suppose we will have to remember it is Thanksgiving and not Christmas that is coming up this month. This beautiful blanket of snow on the ground is visually throwing things off a bit. Thank you again and enjoy!