Busy Summer Days

This post is a catching up of what we have been doing during the past month. The weather is finally wonderful with long summer days. Late in June we went to visit Jon and Erin and spend a few days on the coast. We had a great time and brought home some new pictures.

Here we are at Wells beach, a little windblown! We have a cute shot of Emily at the beach too.

Bob came up to visit while we were there, and the cousins got a chance to spend a little time together.

Jon managed to get a photo of the three kids together.

Our next big adventure was the Maple Meadow Farm Fest where Gary displayed his artwork for sale. Here we have a picture of some people picking potatoes.

And the horses were there working the fields and giving rides.

We went to Houlton for the 4th of July. Jim and Jean were celebrating their 50th anniversary. Here Jean is cutting the cake.

And here we have the pair of them with one of Gary's paintings.

The family gathering was held at Brian's camp. Lots of Coles gathered and had a good time.

The rest of our time has been spent working in the yard and the house. Gary's flowers are beautiful right now.

This little shade garden is cool and pleasant. The larger perennial garden is a wash of color every day.

Summer has been a great season. Now we anxiously await a visit from Bob with Alex and Bridget!

Jessica Graduates!!

Our lovely Granddaughter, Jessica, has accomplished a milestone in her life. Last night she graduated from Presque Isle High School. You can see the excitement in her face. It makes us feel very old to realize that this little girl has grown up and is entering the adult world. Where have the years gone?

No one in the family will ever forget Jessica and her movies. Here she is as Molly Schumacker, detective. Jessica Saves Christmas will always be in our memories! What an amazing little girl!

How the years have flown by!

From a sweet little girl to an accomplished young lady, Jessica poses here with her father, Andrew.
She has been a special member of the family. Here she is at a younger age with her cousin, Meghan.

They were a cute pair! She also formed a special tie with her younger cousin, Bridget.

Jessica played softball and we have a photo here from several years ago.

She also rode on the Salmon Brook Historical Society float in the August Festival parade.

Skipping a few years, she is at her senior prom a couple of weeks ago, radiant and all grown up.

The glow on her face last night says it all as she marches in to graduation.

We are proud of her and her accomplishments, and love her dearly. We wish her the absolute best in life, and the achievement of her dreams. Way to go, Jess!!

Memorial Day Snow

Yes,  it is May 24, 2015, the start of Memorial Day Weekend. Yes, that is snow. We awoke this morning to steady, heavy snow.

This is the lettuce bed, after the snow had stopped, but here is a picture of it at the height of the "storm."

That is hard to believe!

There was enough snow to turn things white, leave footprints, and cover the flowers.

Meanwhile, the frost warning caused Gary to move the greenhouse plants inside last night.

It is now 10:00 AM, the plants are back in the greenhouse, and the snow has melted, except for clumps falling off the roof. But this is part of the tale of the never ending winter!

SPRING!!!!!

At long last we have a blog post that is not about winter! It has not rained since last Friday. The temperatures have been in the 60s and the sun has returned. It's amazing how great the sun makes the day. Before we bid all of winter farewell, we have a picture of the very last bit of snow in the yard. This is beside the garage where there isn't much sun.

We have enjoyed the sun with a new greenhouse. This is just a little plastic one, but it reaches 90 degrees in  short time. We have a picture here of Ryan and Gary working on it. Ryan and Matt assembled most of it.

In fact, this greenhouse works so well that we baked our plants the first day that we used it. Many of the tomato plants are a total loss as the leaves turned white and the plants collapsed. There are lessons to be learned in using this, and the first one was to buy a thermometer. After an initial burst of sun and heat we went into a solid week of cold, wet weather and had to keep the plants inside, where they did not thrive. We bought some lettuce plants at Lowe's that fit right into the weather we were having.

Today these plants went into the raised bed, so we actually have something green growing outside!

Isn't this a sight for sore eyes? There have sure been days when we couldn't imagine seeing plants growing again.

Today we took a ride up to the lake to check the camp.  As we drove to Portage we saw people all along the way doing work in their yards. It was warm enough to shed the jackets, and raking and cleaning was the task of the day. Gary and Andy did this work yesterday as you can see.

In one weekend Gary has cleaned up the flower beds and the back lawn, so we are ready for spring.

The lake still has ice in it down by our camp. The upper part of the lake is ice free. Here you can see that the water is high and an area of ice fills the middle of it.

Despite the ice, at least two ducks have returned and are enjoying the water where it is open.

Finally we are seeing signs of spring and a little color. Our new tulip bed is full of buds.

We have pansies in blossom outside the door.

And one lonely daffodil is in blossom.

The camp has made it through the winter, and enjoying the sun this afternoon at the lake was just the beginning of another season long awaited!

April Days

Do you suppose that this will be the last entry in the blog this spring with pictures of snow? As April is nearly at the half-way mark, perhaps it will be. However,  there is plenty of snow in today's photos. We got out of the house and took a ride to the camp. We were really disappointed that we couldn't get in because the snow was too deep. Here is what we saw:

Driving down the lake further, we could see that the ice was getting soft in this picture from the boat landing.

It does still look like winter out there! We had hoped to see some deer, but we only spotted a couple off in the distance on the way to Ashland.
The snow is finally melting, but the raised beds are still hidden. The snow is half-way down the fence now.

Our back yard has turned into a lake as the fields behind us melt.

And we found a waterfall today, as we could hear the water trickling down the garden steps.

The encouraging note is that the temperature was 52 this afternoon, one of the very few warm, sunny days we have seen. We still have a fire in the fireplace.
The tomatoes that we planted a few weeks ago have been transplanted into individual pots. Someday they will go in the garden!

And spring moves along, at a slow pace!