In the 23 years we’ve been coming to Maine, this is the earliest we’ve arrived and what a difference. Snow is melted. Ice is gone from the harbor. Temperatures have risen to the 40’s. Spring, however, still seems weeks away.
In the yard trees are bare.
Gardens are brown with no hint of the color that is to come.
Their green leaves may have found their way through the cold ground, but tulip blooms are hidden inside.
That I can see, only one lone flower is bravely showing its color.
The dirt road where I walk is not yet open to traffic. Quite honestly, I wish that were the case all year as it is more peaceful to say nothing of being safer when there are no vehicles on a road heavily used by walkers and bikers.
Rocks where we have summer picnics and often crowded with painters capturing the beauty of the harbor are bare.
Here and there snow melt is rushing to the sea,
and for the first time I see the beginning of what will become bushy large leafed plants. I would never have guessed this lovely would be the source of their birth.
Returning from a walk I see our house through the woods, a sight that in a few weeks will disappear.
On the harbor, quiet occasionally is interrupted by a lobster boat returning from setting traps and for now paying no attention to the 5 MPH speed limit.
Docks float languidly waiting to be secured where property owners are lucky enough to have a pier.
In preparation for the more than 200 boats that will soon fill the harbor, the harbor master, a most capable female, locates the buoys that will secure the vessels.
As I sit looking out and thinking of and appreciating the differences I’m noting, look who stops by for a visit. Moments like this are just one of the many things that make life here so different than in Houston. Without the contrasts, I don’t know that my eyes would be so open in both places.
i so appreciate your visit and the comments you leave behind
Joining
Lulu's Musings 
Love that last picture!
Yes seems like your two places are truly a juxtaposition of wonderful places loving each one for their own beauty. Loved seeing these photographs. Yes I agree that it would be wonderful having that trail closed to traffic all the time!! Enjoy!!
Looks cool. Beautiful
really good photography and commentary. Hope to see the changes in a month or two. Thanks.
amazing post with beautiful captures
Absolutely beautiful captures of springs approach. It must be something truly wondrous to experience such dramatic changes! Thank you for sharing spring’s approach with such an artist and soulful eye!
We are just starting to see tulips bloom and some leaves like the weeping willows are starting to show their leaves! Beautiful pictures you shared! Tina
I’m told spring is a little late this year, not surprising considering winter.
Amazing the slowness of nature to wake up in Maine – your photographs Lulu are a delightful series to thoroughly enjoy. My husband just had a conversation with a company up in Thomaston (spelt wrong), the town along the shore (with the big jail by the road). We do miss the area.
This tracking of spring is wonderful. I feel like I am there.
I live going through spring twice!
Where in Maine is your home? We have friends who own a second home near Stockton Springs and Bucksport called Sandy Point. May get there this summer.
We are in Rockport about an hour from your friends.
Gorgeous scenery! Love the photo with the rocks — rounded sort of rocks, not like anything we have in Tennessee where I’ve been. And that last one? Ooooohhh. Great shot!
I agree Lulu, having 2 homes, really makes you appreciate the differences, and is so refreshing to the soul. Your contrast is about as dramatic as it gets between Houston and Maine, but I still can relate…my contrasts are more city vs vacation style life and it’s funny how if I arrive in my “city” clothes at the beach how uncomfortable I immediately feel! Love those harbor photos~
Jenna
Love your last photo of the hawk (???? Can’t find my book to I.D. the bird, think I loaned it to someone.). The twists and turns of the limb with the background of the water in the harbor looks like something you would see in National Geographic…absolutely awesome photography!!!!!
At first I thought it was an eagle, but the black stripe on the head makes it an osprey.
Welcome home……
I will be back in ME next week….can’t wait.