This will be my last, albeit belated, post about Lubec. I’ve gathered together a collection of various photos I took around the Main Street area of the town, where most of the “action” takes place (if you can call it that — it’s a really small town).
Here are some highlights from the big day:
A new sandbox! My parents (especially my dad) put a lot of work into this, and Zane loves it. In fact he lives in it. They also gave him a little balance bike which he is sure to grow into very soon. Lillia gives him “rides” (pushes) on it for the time being.
A new “computer” from Aunt Rachel. He was pretty darn pleased with himself when he discovered that he had his own laptop.
Some new trains from Mama & Dada.
And, of course, the birthday ring — one of our favorite family traditions. This year he chose his own peg people.
I should also add that my husband’s parents gave Zane lots of excellent gifts, as well, including a great DVD/CD set called “Twenty Trucks” that he loves. We discovered it on Youtube when we were looking for videos of trucks doing work. It’s a little campy, but surprisingly informative! Have you ever seen a feller buncher?!? I’m not a big fan of media for little kids but I am okay with him watching these videos occasionally. He probably knows more about construction vehicles than most adults! He also got some great books, a fun puzzle that makes sounds (he really like the cruise ship’s horn) and a little stuffed loon. Our rental house in Lubec has a clock that makes a loon call every hour, and he was quite taken with it so my mother-in-law thought she would get him his own little loon.
And, last but not least, a cute video (he’s eating an apple, in case you were wondering…)
Zane’s 2nd Birthday from Kelli Wilson on Vimeo.
The great thing about the fog in Lubec is that it is thick. I thought it would be interesting to shoot the park in the fog because it would remove all of the background information, leaving just the shapes of the coast behind. I enjoyed focusing on aspects of the coastal trail that I missed during our first hike — the vistas are very magnetizing on a clear day so it’s easy to miss the details on the shore. I’m still a beginner so these could certainly be better, but I really like how different they are from the previous set.
From “Moss” by Mary Oliver:
Maybe the idea of the world as flat isn’t a tribal memory or an archetypal memory, but something far older — a fox memory, a worm memory, a moss memory.
Memory of leaping or crawling or shrugging rootlet by rootlet forward, across the flatness of everything.
In this second installment from the Quoddy Head State Park I’m sharing with you the photos I took of the inland trails and the peat bog. This forest is magical. If fairies or gnomes live anywhere in the world, it is here. There is a silence and a stillness, but also the powerful presence of life — so small that the human eye cannot quite see it, but it’s there. It is one of my most favorite places in the world, and whenever I go there I am reminded of all the other forests in which I have wandered and how much I love them, too.
The West Quoddy Head Light, and the surrounding national park, is one of my favorite places to visit in Lubec. The lighthouse is the Easternmost point in the United States, which is pretty neat. But, by far, the best part of traveling so far into the East is the Quoddy Head State Park. There is a system of trails that takes the hiker through several different ecosystems (a photographer’s dream!). I’m separating my photos into three parts: the lighthouse and the coastal trail; the inland trail system and peat bog; and some black and white photos that I took on a foggy day (a very different experience of the park). Today’s pictures were taken on a bright and sunny day — you could even see Grand Manan in the distance. Lillia brought her dry-erase board with her so that she could sketch some of the things we saw.
