In honor of the summer solstice and strawberry moon, during the day today I am sharing photos of the abundant creatures of Evergreen Ponds. This turtle was scratching around in the grass–making dirt holes–maybe to lay some eggs?
Category Archives: Awake to Earth
Summer Solstice at the Pond 1
This morning, I walked to Evergreen Ponds, where life abounds. In honor of the summer solstice and strawberry moon, I want to share photos throughout today.
Frogs in Love
Ducklings
Every time I walk to the ponds at Evergreen Cemetery there is some new life unfolding. Today it was these four ducklings swimming with their mother near the edges of the pond, almost out of sight. But I also saw turtles sunning themselves on a log or a rock, frogs laying in wait for breakfast, and some goslings who are now adolescents still under the watchful eyes of their parents.
I don’t have enough time for this particular walk every day, but when I do take the time, my heart is enlightened by such beauty and vitality. Thank you!
Ferns
Fern One
Today in my walk along Capisic Brook, I took photos of ferns, hoping to identify the different species I noticed. When I got home, and tried to compare these with fern guides online, I realized it was much more complicated than I realized. I don’t know the names of any of these yet. If you do, let me know! But here are three, four, or five different varieties I found. The differences between one and two and five are very clear to me, related to the shapes of the leaves, and how they are divided. But the differences between two, three and four seem more subtle, and three and four may well be the same. So much to learn about the plants of the natural world! Can anyone help me out by identifying any of these?
Fern Two
Fern Three
Fern Four
Fern Five
What kind of tree?
The flowers finally opened on the trees on the side of our house. Our neighbor has two similar trees but her flowers are pink. She said hers were Japanese cherry, so we were assuming ours were too, but now that we see the flowers are different, we don’t know. Anyone know what these are?
The Lucky Day
I love Friday the 13th, and today was the lucky day we began to have solar panels generating our electricity. This morning the solar inverter was wired up, then electronically awakened, and it communicated with the 31 panels and optimizers on our roof, and voila! we are live!
Waiting
So all the panels were completely up on the roof by the end of Tuesday, and the electrician was supposed to come this morning with the installer to hook everything up and get it started. But he mistakenly went to another job, and our installer was only able to do the internet hookup. I was so frustrated after being so excited about this being “the day.” And it was such a lovely bright sunny day too. Now they are supposed to come tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I did the paperwork for Central Maine Power to authorize our power generation and net-metering.
And on a different note entirely, I took a walk Wednesday to Evergreen Cemetery and saw the baby owls again, and also this lovely great blue heron fishing in the pond. I intercepted the Maine Audubon warbler walk and met some birds I hadn’t known before, though my small camera was unable to get photos. But I did get better at shifting from naked-eye view to binocular view without losing sight of the birds. I saw a black and white warbler, a chestnut-sided warbler, a blue-headed vireo, and a northern parula. On Monday I saw and heard a wood thrush.
Maybe the blue heron can offer me something in the way of patience. It just kept walking around the pond, looking for fish I presume, and then being still and quiet as it watched and waited.
Solar Inside: Inverter
Meanwhile a conduit was built to bring the cables from the Solar Panels down the side of the house, into the basement to a junction box, and then to the Inverter, which converts Direct Current from the Solar Panels into Alternating Current for use.
Solar Day Three
Happening right now!
Solar Day Two
Today is day two of solar panel installation, and they’ve been working on setting up the optimizers. These will attach one to each panel, and enable it to function separately from the other panels, so that if one goes out or gets shaded they don’t all go out like a string of Christmas tree lights when one goes bad. We will be able to track the performance of each panel via a website. They are also creating the electrical wiring and its protective casing that will go from the roof to the basement inverter panel.
Finding Our Way Home 