Another photo from Evergreen Ponds in honor of the summer solstice and strawberry moon. These little turtle buddies were hanging out on a dead branch. Most of the interesting stuff seems to happen at the dead branches.
Turtle buddies hanging out.
Another photo from Evergreen Ponds in honor of the summer solstice and strawberry moon. The tadpoles, which used to be just dark shapes under the water, are starting to poke their noses out.
Another photo from Evergreen Ponds in honor of the summer solstice and strawberry moon. I saw this snowy egret flying over and landing in one pond, and then it moved to a smaller pond to do some fishing. 
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?
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
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!
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
It is amazing how books on a book shelf can induce a feeling of home. After a pretty busy few weeks (or shall I say–months?), I had this weekend off, and filled it with resting and nesting. I was able to figure out an arrangement for bookcases in the living room, and then unpack some boxes of books–I brought my best old favorites for this spot. We also have bookcases in the basement, in the area that eventually will be a guest nook, and I arranged those bookcases and put some of my other books there. That space is still filled with boxes though–but my fantasy is that it will be ready for summer guests.
I also helped Margy get started in her office, which doubles as the music room–unpacking and shelving all the CDs and LPs. She has quite a few recordings from all stages of music history, including a Victrola from her grandmother (in our living room), vinyl albums, cassette tapes, and CDs. I’ve moved on to digital mp3s, but she preserves our music history!
In between my frenzies of unpacking, I fell into long naps, or binged on Parenthood on Netflix. I cooked curried chicken one night, and mowed the front lawn with our push mower one morning. It has felt so restorative to be focused on domesticity for these few days.
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?
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!
Finding Our Way Home 