June normally is such a beautiful month that brings pretty sunrises and sunsets, the mating of animals and display of their young that follow, blooming Lupines, and calm warm days. This was not the case for 21 of the 30 days of June; those 21 days consisted of rain, cold cloudy days and thunderstorms. The 9 days that we experienced Summer were great though; and those are the days I will focus on.

On the 2nd; after work Robin and I headed down to the nearby stream to take part in its calming beauty. On our way, Robin noticed a rabbit eating grass in the ditch, I promptly said, “Pull over!” We parked on the opposite side of the road and watched the Snowshoe Rabbit eat the grass and clover all the while it twitched its nose and flapped its ears in the warm breeze as the sun shown through its skin ignoring our shutters, clicking frame after frame. After a few minutes, another rabbit hopped out into the road and ran past us only to stop in another area that instead of eating grass it ate Dandelions. A few minutes later we put in and leisurely kayaked down the bends of the stream taking in the warm sun and the sounds of life that the setting sun always awakens. I can’t help but look at even the most simple life and photograph its beauty. I noticed that the sun licked Dune grass resembled a field of Wheat. Later on we came across people fishing in their kayaks, one lady had two fish strung up on the side of her Old Town Otter when suddenly a Loon popped up in front of me and beside her, and tempted to grab one of the fish. I believe this is the same Lone Loon that Robin and I saw last month. One of the fisherman said that a Beaver had slapped its tail against the water nearby so we set out to find it, however the hunt was unsuccessful, but we did get to explore a portion of the stream we normally don’t traverse. On our way back to the car, I looked back at Robin photographing something- I couldn’t help but take a photo of her as she looked cute.

We decided to head up to Dad’s camp on Roach Pond in Kokadjo after Church on the 7th. The weather was nice off and on; when we first arrived the skies were blue and the sun was out as you can see here at 1st branch. We decided to put in at 2nd branch; the weather started out fairly decent, however as we started to progress across the pond the wind picked up with a strong steady gust on our backs. We explored a small stream and ate our snack in hopes that during that time the wind would die down, but to our dissatisfaction it did not. We fought hard to paddle against the wind and splashing waves for about 25 minutes until we reached the shoreline- at that point the wind died down. We did spot our Siggs in the wild. On our drive back through the campground Robin spotted a Partridge. We sat in the car watching the bird kick up dirt; I believe it may have been building a nest.

(more…)

I woke to slight snow fall with the sun peering through the veil of gray clouds and a thin blanket of fresh snow covering. I read that Maine was to receive a snow storm this weekend, ranging from 1′ – 2′ of snow. After going through my morning readiness I headed to the gym and then to Hampden to work on a client’s computer. The development that my client currently resides is new and hosts very large 3 story houses with plenty of surrounding land. As I’m waiting for their computer to restart I look out the window to a near white-out of snow, the flakes very large and falling fast. After finishing my work I make my way home, not being familiar with development’s roads as well as not being able to see that well I quickly and embarrassingly find myself in a ditch. I called my insurance company stating that I need a tow truck to pull me out of the ditch and roughly 15 minutes of waiting they arrived and successfully pulled me out, my car did not suffer any damage from going off the road.

When I arrived home Robin was there waiting, thankfully she did not have any problems getting to my apartment. We decided to go outside and make snowmen during the storm since it is something we both have not done in a long time. I unpacked my snowsuit for Robin and found a pair of old insulated wind pants for me. We were able to create a James snowman and a Robin snowwoman in under an hour. We had a good time outside in the snow, it’s peaceful and reminds me of my childhood when my brother and I would be in our field making forts and large snowmen. Bangor received a little over 15” throughout Saturday.

This is not an April Fool’s joke, as it’s the 5th of April, but last night central Maine received a foot and half of wet snow. I woke up this morning to the coniferous pine trees outside my window covered with snow. To my surprise as I was exiting my apartment I stepped into 15″ of snow that had not been cleared yet by the land lord, nor was the parking lot plowed. The main roads were not plowed or salted which led me to believe that the city did not expect this much snow to fall over night.

The Oak trees on Howard ST were layered with white puffy snow that caused the old branches to hang over the road as if they were reaching in to grab you out of your car and through the crevices the sun peered in as if it were trying to guide me out.

The Penobscot River had ice sheets cascading on top of each other while Ducks and what appeared to be Loons were taking advantage of open water. The snow shrouded tree line that runs along the jagged ledge shore overlooking the melting river were alive with Maine’s and Canada’s migratory birds cheering for the sun to melt away the very element they fly south from. Unfortunately my digital camera batteries are no longer taking a charge so I was not able to capture this beautiful sight.

This week has been very excruciatingly hot, the humidity is almost unbearable. This week at work I’m on outside service and every time I get into my car I instantly start to sweat! On my way back from one of our external sites the skies turned brown/black and rain started to pour down so bad that I could barely see while driving. The rain resembled what you would see while under water with no goggles; I could make out the smeared headlights and taillights mixed in with bright flashes in the sky. I stopped at a red light and hail started to fall, it was about the size of large BB gun pellets- there must have been two for every square inch. After what seemed to be 4 minutes the red light went out, traffic stopped and I decided to drive through, I slightly hydroplaned across the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge that crosses the Penobscot River. Once I reached the hospital the storm started to calm and I could see the lightning much clearer; I wish I had my new camera, I’ve always wanted to capture lightening. On my walk to the hospital I was hit by a piece of hail, it surprisingly stung, it felt like I was shot by a BB gun.

I’ve always enjoyed storms, it’s one of the many ways God shows the power of His creation- not only are the visual aspects of storms appealing to me it’s the science behind it, all of the molecular and chemical reaction(s) that takes place is amazing. Anyone who thinks that life just happened out of a big bang and evolution is truly blinded by the fact that they cannot cope with the fact that someone infinitely smarter then themselves exists.