Our 15 Foot Beauty

Oak Hill Lodge Christmas was highlighted with this magnificent tree. We had intended to go in search of a "woods tree"... but by a happy accident we happened to stop by Clark Farm Stand and they were about to cut this perfect specimen down to "normal" size. All trees were $28.00, so it made it just perfect for our tree. How I love to see all the ornaments each year and this year we added a very special one from Mount Vernon which was purchased with the Frack Fam when we attended Will and Ramona's wedding. Great memories!

Christmas in Connecticut

We had a lovely "real Christmas" with Kat, Pat and Peighton in the sad little community of Newtown,CT. Despite the solemness of the situation, we were "full of great cheer" within the four walls of their beautiful home. They treated us like the "three Kings"... and it was wonderful to see Peighton enjoy Christmas on a whole new level this year. Kat and Pat prepared a wonderful collection of recipes, both traditional and newly inspired. Here Kat does her usual "ta-da" pose as we prepare to sit down for Christmas dinner.

In the spirit of the mural I did for the kitchen at Oak Hill Lodge, I created this painting for the Garden Club Federation of Maine. Their annual summer conference will be next June, and they asked me, based on the theme Mid Summer Night's Dream, to create a painting which they could use to entice garden club members all around the State of Maine to attend. I plan to donate the painting so it can be auctionned off along with several prints which could also be sold to sure up the coffers! It was a really fun project for me and hopefully it will be a good "tease" for the convention.

First frost lands on the roof of Oak Hill Lodge. Such beauty, yet a harbinger of what is to come.

O.K., ...... not to brag, but, my Elephant Ear is tremendous! This is the fourth year I have had the bulb and every year it gets bigger and bigger... so exciting!  I guess various people have contests to see who has the biggest leaves on their plants and I really wish I could enter that contest! Funny, I used to remove the bulb from its pot and store it "dry" all winter, but found I undoubtedly planted the bulb upside down, so the poor plant had to wind itself around this massive bulb to make it to sunlight. I have left it in the pot and simply cut it off the past two years, left it dry until about mid-February then began watering it and by the time it goes out in late May, it has already begun forming its new leaves. It gives it a really great jump start!

We awakened a white roof and a slippery deck on Tuesday, October 16th. The white ice crystals sparkled atop the bright orange pumpkins and gave a winterish look to all surfaces on which it lies.
Thank goodness for the brilliant colors of the mums and the late summer grasses which withstand the frosts, at least for a while.

I love this time of year, the cooler temps, no bugs, the beautiful colors the autumn brings to Maine... but there is also a side of me who mourns for the plants as they encounter that first killing frost and all the growth I have watched with such wonder all summer long, withers while I lay sleeping. We had just such a frost October 16th, this year. I went to bed with my gardens still looking like they had in late September and awakened to blackened pole bean vines, wilted cannas and marigolds which I grew from seed in my living room at Raymond Court, laying sadly on the ground, only a slight glimmer of orange left in their blossoms, their foliage blackend and slimey. Alas, Jack Frost striketh with his mighty wand.