Maine Nature

I am such an avid outdoors person.  I just love being out in nature and seeing animals, birds, all creatures, flowers, edible and otherwise.  My mind just doesn't stop!  I want to learn about all the edible flowers and plants in my home state as well as document by photograph all the local wildlife.

I started saving seeds from all of my perennials, just learned that you can eat rose petals and use them for tea, in skin care recipes and put them on toast!  Haha!  Yes my mind works like that all the time.  I am currently drying rose petals from the bouquet my husband gave me for Valentine's Day this year and I have little jars with seeds for lilies, heliopsis, sunflowers, black eyed susans, cosmos and poppies.

My husband just shakes his head and says "you have a problem"...and I totally agree with him!  I believe I have ADD and I don't see that it's a problem except that I don't stay focused on one thing for too long.

There is a spot on our road where the crows, eagles and osprey are feeding right now so I take my camera with me whenever I go out because I can't go by without taking a few pictures.  I am always in search of the perfect photo of a majestic bald eagle

or a duck bathing in a small pond of water at the golf course.

We have had "pet" raccoons which really aren't pets but one I could actually call and she would come to me whether I was on the deck or down on the dock.  Once she, Nelly, was on the deck getting into the bird feeder and I was down on the boat.  I saw her and yelled at her to get off the bird feeder and come to me.  Kept calling her name and telling her to come on.  She obliged and came right down the steps to the dock where she and I shared wheat thins and hummus.  Well, she didn't like the hummus, she wiped it on the dock and then ate the cracker.  Haha!  She brought her babies to the deck several times and didn't mind when we sat out with them.  She would eat the dog food we put out for her and the babies would get up on our lap to eat birdseed from our hands.  Too cute!

I love love love going out on the deck in the hot tub at night and listening to the coyotes howl up on the hill across from our driveway.  It is so cool to hear them and wonder how many there are and how close they might be.  In fact we have a game camera I have set up a few times down by the shore and in the winter the coyotes like to walk close to the shore on the ice looking for their dinner in the middle of the night.

One day while out for a run, on our road which is 2 miles long in the woods, and I came around a corner to see a moose standing in the road eating the baby leaves from birch trees up ahead.  I about crapped!  I wasn't scared but was thinking quickly of where I might go if the moose decided to charge.  It didn't and I got to stand there for a few minutes in awe.  Of course, I always expect to see a moose there in the same spot now.

Another day I was driving home from work and was less then a half mile from camp and up ahead was a bobcat and her 3 cubs!  I didn't get my phone out in time to get pictures but was amazed at how kitten-like the cubs were, playing on the side of the road, not paying attention to the mama who was trying to get them to follow her into the woods.  So cool!  I have not seen a wild cat since but there have been tracks, LARGE tracks in the snow in the last year or two.

Be safe and stay healthy!

Carin