Maine in April

 It's that time of year we cannot get enough of the beaches.  It's a marvelous time when the temps warm, but the tourists aren't yet here. The coastal pics will just keep coming...

Stanley loves the extra adventures, too.

Good days

There's a buoy that has dislodged and is on shore now in our town.  A bunch of friends were going, but our car was in the shop. Thankful for kind friends who picked us up and brought us along. 

Audra was there too, but too busy with friends. I love how Anna-Kate pulled a live clam apart to go and try to feed the seagulls. 

Also thankful for friends who love Stanley the camp crock just as much as me, tolerate my duck identification fun and don't mind that I brought my watercolors to paint a scene as we enjoy the day.

Tide Pooling

 The kids are taking a 5 week Tide Pooling class and we went to the Portland area for a field day with a couple Marine Biologists.  I loved it, they did too. We also did seine netting, which I have never done before. It yielded a few things I hadn't seen before. 

At my dad's

 Truth be told, the transition back from our eclipse trip hasn't been easy peasy lemon sqeezy.  But, it was worth it.  Here are a few shots of our whirlwind of a trip.

Total Eclipse!

 We drove 7 hours for the totality, despite my dad and my son thinking it was crazy. 

The verdict?  It was good.  Really good. Better than I expected.   It was very easy to see and fascinating to see the changes.  The rapid temperature change was neat to experience, as was how quickly everything got really dark. The sun looked amazing peeking out behind the moon in a perfect circle. The part that surprised me the most was the response of the wild to the change.  As the moon was moving, we notice the birds completely stopped their chatter.   The mosquitoes moved right in along with moths.  The peepers started their chorus. Then I just couldn't believe it, a coyote howled like it was midnight.  Then just as it rapidly started, it all quickly shifted the opposite.  The night noises faded and the birds started their songs again.  A flock of geese went by.  I wish all mosquitoes went away, but a few lingered. 

Bonus entertainment was my dad's commentary ("We're just supposed to sit here to wait for the sun to go away?" YES. "You do know the sun goes down every night." UGH.), my dad's neighbors visited and when all was said and done, Anna-Kate asked if we were going to have breakfast since we just wrapped up night and were back to day.  You know, donuts would have been a great grand finale if I had thought of it.  

Long and short, it was memorable and I'm glad we made the trip.

Eclipse Trip

 When 100% totality is over your childhood home, you go.  We aimed to make time and make it from Maine to the NY nature center by 2 to do Eclipse activities. We made it. And as a bonus, we caught a ship going through the locks. 

April Snowday

 Somehow we never lost power in this last storm. The other side of our road lost power and the road our road intersects with at the other end lost power.  But we didn't.  We made the best out of Winter in April.

Plus I grafted some more apple trees AND labeled them (which is usually where I leave a lot to be remembered, unsuccessfully).  We don't really need a bigger orchard.  After this I'm done. Maybe.