Tag: New England

the glow of a sunny fall morning

After a stretch of rainy days earlier in the week, Friday’s sun was a welcome change. While waiting for the school bus, my eyes were drawn to the glow of leaves every which way.


Most of the maple leaves had been knocked off the trees by the previous days’ wind and rain, and the few remaining hangers on appeared to float in the bright sunlight.


A few hovering maple leaves.


Can you spot the lone red maple leaf that caught my eye, appearing to float among the pine needles?


The kids, standing among the many freshly fallen leaves on our driveway, and enjoying the bright morning rays.


Even the pure evil that is poison ivy glowed enticingly in the sunlight.


I love the confusing patterns formed by the mingled orange and green oak leaves and their shadows.


The view up our street.

I do really love the fall, especially living here in New England.

more multi-colored leaves

I’m thinking of changing the name of this blog to “collecting leaves.” Not really. But I do seem to be sharing quite a few leaves. What can I say? It’s fall, and I live in New England. The leaves put on a show, and I am a captive audience member. Who likes to take pictures.

There are fewer colorful leaves on the trees these days, as the chilly winds of November have blown in and cleared most of the trees. Most of these photos were taken over the last few weeks.


Looking up at the layers of red and green oak leaves in my yard.


This plant is pretty as much for the berries as for the leaves. This is the same type of plant whose leaves looks so purple in my other leaf post.


This plant couldn’t make up its mind about what color to wear, so it decided to try out a different look on each leaf.


I like the way these leaves fell in line on the brick sidewalk in Cambridge, MA.


I was drawn to the flame-like colors of this lone leaf at the playground. (I think it’s some kind of maple leaf, but I’m not entirely sure.)


These leaves are in the shrub at a friend’s house. I was quite taken by what looks a bit like a tan line on one of the leaves. (The yellow triangle on an otherwise red leaf looks like it was a result of the leave below it having previously been on top of it.)

beach day (friday foto finder: coast)

While we live on the East Coast of the United States, our partiuclar town is quite far from the coastline. It’s sadly rare that we take the kids to see the ocean. Last August, following an overnight stay in New Hampshire to have Theo’s birthday at Canobie Lake Park, we made a detour the coast before heading home. Here are some photos from our largely unplanned day at Salisbury Beach.


The boardwalk.


Looking over the colorful beach crowds.


Buried treasure.

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to share photos on the theme of “coast.” Coast on over to the friday foto finder blog to see what other coasts have been cast.

Picking strawberries (friday foto finder: red)

Now that June is around the corner, that means that we are approaching strawberry season here in New England. The days of strawberry picking come and go quickly here, with the picking season typically lasting only a couple of weeks.

I love to take the kids to nearby farms to pick fruit. I love that it lets them see where their food comes from.

There’s also nothing quite like eating a freshly picked ripe red strawberry, warm from the hot sun.

The local berries don’t last as long once picked as the store-bought ones–they can spoil in only a day or two after being picked. Happily, we have no problem using them all. They always disappear far too quickly, seemingly no matter how many we pick!

This week’s friday foto finder challenge is to present something red. Red things abound in my photo library, yet I had a hard time choosing. I find I have too much to say about too many of my photos. I want to have time to tell the stories that go with the images. So I picked these red berries to share with you.

If you feel like seeing (more) red, check out the other entries on the friday foto finder blog.

leaves of three (friday foto finder: leaf)

Here is a photo of a rather pretty native plant that is very common in my heavily wooded neighborhood. These shiny leaves show up late spring, often starting out red, and then developing into a lush bright green.

This plant is entirely evil.

In case you don’t recognize it, it is poison ivy: Leaves of three, let it be.

You know what’s even more evil than these leaves of three? The plant when it has no leaves. The vines stretch out over the ground, climb trees and rocks, and grow into bushes. And in the winter and very early spring, the woody stems and vines look pretty much like all the other leafless stems and vines that grow in the woods. But the leafless vines apparently have plenty of urushiol.

This is a photo I took last May on a walk in my neighborhood. This year, the poison ivy leaves are barely starting to bud. Three weeks ago, there probably weren’t any leaves on the stems that Phoebe must have touched while playing outside. She may well have washed her hands well with soap and water before she touched her face and rubbed her eyes, but urushiol doesn’t come off the skin with just soap and water.¹ Even if you use plenty of soap and scrub really hard. It was almost 3 years ago to the day that I learned this fact the hard way. And I really, really wish that we didn’t have to be reminded of this the hard way at this point in our lives.

This week’s friday foto finder is leaf. In general, I love leaves, and have posted plenty of photos of pretty fall leaves. (After all, I do live in New England.) Perhaps my choice of this less friendly leafy subject is somewhat a reflection of my toxic mood. Let’s face it, this has been a really bad month.² One good thing about the month is that it is almost over. With May coming up, I hope to be able to start fresh and turn over a new leaf.

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¹ You can use products specifically formulated to work on the oils, such as Tecnu, or liquid dish detergent.
² And by “really bad,” I have a large number of expletives in mind. You can fill in your favorites.

Searching for Signs of Spring

Today is the official start of Spring in my part of the world, but you might not realize it by looking out the window. We had a bit of a winter storm yesterday, an icy-slushy-snowy mix that brought messy roads and cancelled schools. Today is bright and sunny, but I hear that more snow is on the way.

A couple of days ago, I saw the first spikes of crocuses poking out of the ground. I was too rushed to get a photo. Here is the stretch of ground where they were a couple of days ago:

No signs of crocus here. But I was happy that my lens managed to capture the rainbow sparkle of the icy snow in the sunlight. (Rainbow Sparkle sounds like a My Little Pony name. Crocus, on the other hand, sounds like a name for a toad.)


It wasn’t was I was looking for, but I will admit that the snow is pretty.


Iced mushrooms on a stump. (Sounds like the name for an unsuccessful recipe.)


Pretty it may be in clumps on pine needles, but “pretty” is not what I was thinking as I was chiseling through the 1-inch crust of frozen slush on my windshield.


The sunlight hitting the drooping rhododendron leaves made for a splash of color.


The most color was to be found in the wintery clothing of my children. (Here’s one splash of color sweeping the snowy footprints with a branch of pine. On my driveway. Yes, that sheet of snow and ice is my driveway. Good times.)


Here, one of my splashes of color cradles a lump of ice. (Additional color provided by the recycling bins. Pick-up delayed one day by the storm.)

So, there we are. Spring? Not so much sprung. I may have to resort to looking at photos of last year’s spring.

3 photos of melting snow


These salt crystals on the road look like rough gemstones.


We had a night of mixed snow and rain. In the bright sun of the next morning, slushy snow fell from the trees with lots of little plops, some of which made patterns like barnacles.


The stones of our front walk must have been warmer than the surrounding ground. I like the way the spaces between the stones filled with snow.

tree-lined road on a foggy morning

There was a brief stretch last week when the temperatures were strangely balmy for a January in New England, and we awoke to a thick fog on Wednesday morning. This is a photo I took from the top of our driveway, looking down our street while waiting with Phoebe for her school bus.


Photo taken with my iPhone, with the Instagram filter Sutro applied.

late fall snowfall

We had a bit of a snowfall Tuesday night, and while there wasn’t much in the way of accumulation, the wet snow stuck to every leaf and twig such that almost everything was outlined in white. Occasional water drops had also frozen, adding some sparkle to the scene. I took a few photos around the yard before the school bus came, and then a few more later in the morning during a short walk with a neighbor.

Here are a handful of my favorites from the morning.


A tree in our front yard that hasn’t quite given up all its leaves.


Along our house’s front path.


A neighbor’s rail fence.


This stone wall is at the dairy farm that is a half mile from my house.


Snow and ice on the shrubbery.


White snow, red berries.


Ice drops on pine needles.

(Those last two were ones I posted on Instagram, with filters. I posted a version of the stone wall there, too, but without filters.)

Once again, my trusty iPhone did some nice work. I’m sure my camera would have done a good job, but I am less likely to throw it in my coat pocket. Especially given that it doesn’t fit in my coat pocket. Maybe I just need bigger coat pockets.