Blue Dasher, Apple Valley Pond, Winthrop, Maine

Also called the Blue Pirate!

Sunset in the Sunrise County

Sunset over the blueberry barrens, Washington County.

Pickers Cabins, Columbia Falls, Maine

It's nearly picking season in Downeast Maine. The pickers will come and live at the barrens in rustic little camps until the work is done.

 The barrens are a spare but beautiful landscape, upon which little will grow except blueberries, because below a very thin scrim of soil lies solid bedrock, scraped clean by glaciers. The blueberry foliage turns deep red in early August, and stays brilliant until the snow covers it. The town of Cherryfield - right next to Columbia Falls - got its name, oddly enough, from the red foliage of its blueberry barrens. My mother is from Cherryfield, and she worked in Wyman's food processing plant as a teenager, plucking sticks and rocks from a conveyor belt of blueberries. She hates when I tell people this, but she was crowned Maine Blueberry Queen of 1950! You probably love wild Maine blueberries - everybody does. They are a superfood, you know! These barrens are, in fact, wild; the blueberries were here before there were companies to cultivate them. They may have been here before there were any people to enjoy them! The pickers cabins in the photo above are the accommodations provided by the Passamaquoddy Wild Blue Berry Company. 

Ready for picking! July 2017

Portland Sky, May 2

If the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were a cityscape, it might look something like this. With bonus rainbow!

March 26 in Central Maine

Photo by Monica Castellanos

Last year at this time I was biking the rail trail. 😑

Crazy Moon and the Witch Tree

Tried to capture the amazing moon tonight, but I have neither the skill nor the equipment to do it justice. This one was the best I got.

Belfast, Maine after the Storm

Photo by Ben Holbrook of The Republican Journal.

Ice Shacks on the Pleasant River

See more about Maine rivers, fishing, and habitat preservation at the Downeast Salmon Federations' Facebook page.

Check out my Pinterest Board: My Town, Augusta, Maine

I collect images from in and around Augusta, so others can see it as I do. Check them out here.

Monarda for Hummingbirds

I've never had any luck with hummingbird feeders. I've tried the fancy-schmancy kind, glass and copper, and the $5 cheapies - recommended by my mother-in-law, the hummingbird queen. What does draw them, however is Monarda. They love the stuff, and who can blame them? Big, intensely red blooms, no maintenance, long bloom season.
There's only one species of hummingbird in Maine, the Ruby-throated, which makes this one a little lady, since she is greenish-gray all over.

Pleasant River, Columbia Falls

Rainbow smelt net drying shack, low tide, Pleasant River, Columbia Falls, Maine, April 18, 2015.

Photo by Douglas Watts