Follow my blog with Bloglovin I know this is not my strongest opening sentence, but I’m working on a little admin with this post.
Summer is in full swing and it’s a beauty. We had a cold, rainy spring which makes these gorgeous sunny days all the more wonderful. With July 4th behind us, we’re hitting our summer stride. Below is a list of eight summer activities you don’t want to miss.
Even though it was a short week with the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, it doesn’t make this weekend’s arrival any less sweet. While I am a planner and often have my weekends scheduled out well ahead of time, sometimes it’s fun to just be spontaneous.
For the kickoff of my Friday Favorites series, I’ve listed five free activities happening in and around the Portland area this weekend.
Arriving at a new hiking destination for the first time is always a bit confusing. So when we stopped at the admission booth at Reid State Park to show them our park pass, we asked for a map and she handed us a photocopied, one page simply drawn diagram. It was a nice, high level overview but didn’t help us figure out where we actually wanted to go. After passing through the entrance, we encountered a fork in the road, and went left.
We quickly came upon a decent size parking area also on our left. I caught brief views of the ocean horizon through openings in the trees so it seemed like a good place to start. We pulled into the lot, and my husband opted to hang in the car so he could cajole his cell phone into bringing up more helpful hiking maps for the area. It’s always a challenge on our hikes to make technology work for us. I’m fine without it, but my husband likes to have a plan mapped out. So, while he worked on pulling the route together, I made a beeline for the beach.
When we bought our home it came with three raised garden beds which of course meant I immediately envisioned summers with endless supplies of fresh herbs, vegetables and wild flowers without truly understanding the time and energy needed to achieve these results. Somehow, even with my lack of gardening skills, we did manage a couple of seasons with a good supply of herbs and wild flowers. We never managed the vegetables beyond a few tomatoes and one or two anemic bean poles.
Even with our limited success, as each new spring approaches I’m ready to dive in again but I’ve accepted that we probably won’t be feeding ourselves anytime soon. So one of my bucket list items for the year was to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and we’re about to check this one off our list. We bought a half-share of the organic vegetable CSA from Frith Farm in Scarborough.
I still remember hiking to the top of Douglas Mountain last spring. We were out numbered by mosquitoes 1,000 to 1. It was challenging and required that we stay in constant motion to minimize the swarms. Our stay at the top was brief as the bugs were relentless so we headed back down after only a few quick pictures. The memory hasn’t faded over the past year. I think Hitchcock should have done a movie on mosquitoes instead of birds. They’re far more terrifying.
Fighting off black flies and mosquitoes is as much a part of spring and summer in Maine as is swimming in the lake or eating lobster. When the weather gets nice, the bugs come out. And, if the flying insects weren’t enough, tick season kicks in and you don’t want those little guys anywhere near you. Since we have animals, we have to be especially vigilant. We had so many one year, I made a “tick jar” full of rubbing alcohol to kill any ticks that got carried into the house on the pup.
Weekends in Maine 