In the last couple months, if I wasn’t talking about the summer classes I was teaching—in Harpswell and online—it was about the cicada collage I was getting back to for it’s second draft. Today, I’m (almost) taking a blog-break from fabric collage and reviewing stuff that has gone on in-between the teaching—such as planting container gardens to elevate the strawberries and tomatoes out of the reach of our resident groundhog, Murray. So far so good on that end, though the strawberries and tomatoes you see here were the best they got. Luckily, other parts of the summer have been more successful. 😉
Click on any smaller photo to view it larger and to scroll through the photo gallery.
July Fourth happened between teaching weeks and the day lilies were blooming by the 4th, as we’ve come to expect. There are day lilies up and down our road and I enjoyed noting their punctuality on our morning dog walks. The melon rind you see above left, is a fun photo after I made a melon salad for a Fourth of July family BBQ.
In the photo above right, Tom is getting a bit of cardio exercise as he pushes the dog stroller (with both of our pups in it) up the hill from the shore to home. Both Kali and Felix are getting old and pampering them in the summer heat seems like a good thing to do.
We try for daily dog walks to the ever changing shore of Casco Bay, a half of a mile down our road. I watch and smell the beach roses throughout the season. The rose hips are now large and must be tasty, according to the hollowed out rose hips on the rocks below the rose bushes.
Inside and Outside the Studio
Work on my cicada collage has slowed down due to summertime activities—though I did get a few more additions pinned to her wings—and I’m very happy with how they’re turning out. Before gluing photo is below left—glued is to the right—so satisfying to see the collage without pins in the way.
Next step will be to commit to cropping the background “for real,” not just on the computer, as in photo below. I’m liking the symmetry of the cropping for this piece.
I’ve had visitors in my studio this past month, so having tidied and organized it back in June was good timing. In the photo below left, are friends Marilyn and Joel Davidson. Marilyn was a student who has become a fabulous fabric collage artist. Here’s a past post where we featured her art. She showed me photos of her newest pieces and I was gob-smacked. We need to do a new post for her now. Joel is a photographer who has shared his photos with me as reference material for both my marabou stork and polar bear collages. It was fun to be able to get a photo of all “five” of us together.
Kathryn, in photos above right, is my high school BFF who now lives in North Carolina, but introduced me to Harpswell and Tom, 41 years ago this summer. Kathryn and I had a chance to model our matching and oh-so-comfy-and-fun pants, made by Kate LaMontaigne of Kamala Boutique, just down the road near Boothbay, Maine.
To balance out sitting at my pinning board or too much computer time with classes, coaching, or blog posts, I tell myself to take small breaks. Djinni Cat demonstrates daily that naps are a great way to take a break.
Kali and Felix claim that yogic spine twists are quite invigorating—especially when rolling on the lawn on a summer’s day.
Personally, I like to take short wanders through our field. This year is a good year for Queen Anne’s Lace, other years it’s been swaths of black-eyed Susans or wild asters. We used to have large areas of milkweed (below), but they haven’t been as abundant as years past, just like the Monarch butterflies that feed on them.
Foraging
Any area that I used to call a garden, has pretty much gone wild. Every spring I try to reclaim one area or another, but by this time of the summer, I’ve given up. Two perennial garden survivors are chives and garlic—surrounded by a multitude of other plants. So when I harvest the chives or garlic scapes below, for pestos or other uses, I consider it foraging.
A cool thing about our field is that it contains wild Maine blueberries—can you see them in photo below left?. We’re figuring out how best to “manage” these plants, which involves mowing in two-year rotations. Though we missed a year of mowing, we still had a noticeably better crop this summer, below right. These tasty mini berries are a precious commodity, taking an hour or longer to forage enough for a single recipe.
The berries above left, are not blueberries, but do grow with them, are bigger, and are safe to eat, though I don’t know what they are. Do any of you know? And above right, is the result of a blueberry scone recipe the Tom claims is the best ever!
On Another Note
Do you sometimes get lost as you move through your day with your phone/camera in hand? Something catches your attention as interesting or unusual and next thing you know you’ve taken 10-20 new photos of a reflection, shadow, moon, chipmunk, or another moth that caught your eye. Well, here’s an odd-ball summer gallery below, of things that got me to stop was I was doing and take out my camera.
Annual Family Kayak Outing with Our Son, Sam
As probably most of you know, my husband Tom, is an avid ocean kayaker. But at least once a year, he relaxes into a slow paddle on a calm day with me and our son Sam. Below are photos of last Sunday’s annual paddle—a hot day on land, but cool on the water. Sam chose the route that circumnavigates Birch Island, about a mile to paddle to from Lookout Point where we walk the dogs to in the mornings.
In the gallery below, we pass the first buoy from Lookout to Birch Island in the distance. Birch runs north/south in Casco Bay and we paddled along it to the right, north, to start. As we reach the north end, there’s a pretty little cove with a big abandoned bald eagle nest in a dead tree. On our way out of the cove, an eagle was keeping its eye on us.
We curve around the north of the island and start paddling south, skirting under docks for the fun of it, ducking into other little coves.
At the southeastern end of Birch, the side visible from Lookout Point, is a small site that Tom and I used to camp at, usually with a few friends, years before Sam was born. It’s a familiar spot we still like to stop at and walk around.
The far southern tip of the island and campsite, points to Shelter Island, another spot where we used to camp with Sam, and three generations of dogs. All good memories.
Time to leave the island and head home—another mile across the open water to get to the landing.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
A special treat about a week ago was a visit from a student, Terre Tuzzolino, who I met last October in my class in Italy, and again this year in Santa Fe. She’s so sweet and we became friends over espressos and Limoncello. She was vacationing in Maine with her stepdaughter Kim, and sister-in-law Betsy, and I was able to join them for a visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay.
It was another hot day, so we favored the tree-shaded areas of the Gardens, which worked out great since thats where the giant trolls live, and the goal was to visit all five of them. Which we did.
The trolls are designed and constructed by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. We are so lucky in Maine to have five of these wonders in our Botanical Gardens—connected in spirit to dozens of other trolls he’s built throughout the world—I always enjoy introducing them to visiting friends and family.
After the Gardens, we returned to Harpswell to meet up with my sister Heidi, for a light dinner at Morse’s Seafood Cart and a beautiful sunset over Casco Bay.
