June 2016

Finally the amazing warm days and frost-free nights arrived. The garden is growing well and it's a great time to be out in the sun. The lupines came into full bloom and put on a great display this year. We also had a few perennial poppies (red flower close-up photo below). Flocks of geese are still coming through and an unusual monarch butterfly showed up - unusual because these are typically seen in late summer. I found a big chubby toad sunning himself on a rock and a big chubby cat sunning himself on a windowsill.

In the forest behind the house I found a pink moccasin flower aka pink lady slipper. The reason for the nearly identical photos below is I wanted to try two different cameras and lenses to test the sharpness and color rendering.

The warm weather and growing season means lots of work in the garden. I've been keeping up with cutting 9 acres of lawns and started a new vegetable garden this season. I had to fence the garden due to all the wildlife that comes through and within days of putting the first seedlings in I had a visitor. It's a good thing the fence was up or the garden would have been eaten!

There are a lot of deer around but fortunately they have enough other food to graze on so they haven't made any attempt to jump the fence. We often see them trotting down the road at the end of our driveway, grazing on the lawns and in the pond. It's a great sight seeing all this wildlife just outside our windows!

I was able to get a great photo of a Polyphemus moth on lupine flowers and a cedar waxwing in the rain. The moth was a lucky find as it's nocturnal and rarely seen like this during the day.

Nearby there is a shallow pond in which great blue herons have decided to nest this year. Every time we pass the pond we check on them and sometimes get some photos too. I've also finally got out on the water to do some fishing and swimming. It's crazy to live up here in an environment known worldwide for its water, scenic lakes, waterfalls, fishing and swimming and not be enjoying those things more often but somehow I've not really done too much of that until this summer.