KateInMaine

@kateinmaine

Living with cats and owls in an old farmhouse in Northern New England, seeking every joy in our interdependent web of being. Grateful to all those on BlueSky who widen and deepen my world.

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KateInMaine@kateinmaine· 1d

Pretty in pink: a Primrose Moth. It hides on the yellowed leaves and inside the closed flowers of the Evening Primrose during the day and flies at night when the flowers open.

A small bubblegum pink moth perched on my granddaughter’s fingertips. The moth has a fuzzy pale yellow body and yellow mottling and edges on its pink wings. The yellow is the same color as the blossoms of the evening primrose on which it feeds and lays its eggs.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· 22d

Moonrise on the finest kind of day.

The almost full moon is rising over the quiet harbor of a fishing village. The tourists are mostly gone for the day and an egret has come out to fish in the rockweed and tide pools.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· 23d

Granddaughters.

Two girls stand at the edge of a small harbor edged by rocky islands with ragged dark green firs reaching up into the sky. Between the islands there is a glimpse of the next peninsula, a dark blue line dividing the ocean and sky.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jul 13

Back in Feb. I got a letter from Susan Collins saying “I can report that Secretary Noem has informed me that ICE has ended its enhanced activities in the State of Maine.” Despite being “appalled” by “tragic shootings” clearly the Senator did not follow through on that with MarkWayne Mullins.

First 5 paragraphs of a letter from an “appalled” Senator Collins on 2/2026 saying “enhanced” ICE operations have ended in Maine. Lots of boilerplate about her positions on immigration but no assurance that she will take actions.

Last 2 paragraphs of 2/5/2026 letter from Sen. Collins re immigration enforcement. She reports that she voted for a Sen. Bernie Sanders amendment to rescind $75 million of “One Beautiful Bill” funding for ICE but alas, of course, it failed with on a vote of 49-51.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jul 11

Orange daylilies, emigrants from China hundreds of years ago, are blooming in my backyard and all over Maine. They mark old gardens long after the gardeners and even the gardens and houses they ornamented have vanished. In China they are called xuan cao: “forgetting sadness”.

Orange daylilies, with red stripes radiating from yellow hearts and stamens, tumble down a shady bank amid a profusion of their arching, strap-like, green foliage.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 11

Peonies are beginning to bloom! Lots of birdsong in the garden, too, from warblers, wrens, song sparrows, vireos and catbirds.

Deep rose peonies are blooming in a garden, surrounded by lush green foliage of other plants with bushes and trees on the background.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· May 14

I literally bought this house because the day I first saw it there were Scarlet Tanagers flying around in the yard. They've come back almost every spring since, almost 20 years.

Two male Scarlet Tanagers with brilliant red bodies and black wings sitting on an array of bird feeders. One of the Tanagers is sitting on half an orange with a male Rose Breasted Grosbeak glaring at him. Agray Catbird is feeding unperturbed on a suet feeder below

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· May 9

Spring sunset from the edge of the frog pond.

Yellow and peach colored sunset on a cold May day in Maine reflected in the blue water of a small pond at the edge of the woods, The sunset is more vivid on the water than it is in the sky.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 24

Every year I try to visit new sugar houses on Maine Maple Syrup weekend Despite the weird weather and poor sap run this year, everyone I met was celebrating and in a good mood. This year's favorite sugar shack was Keegan's up in the hills in Readfield. Beautiful country, really nice people.

A gray maple sugar house on a snowy day in late March in the Maine woods. Steam from the boiling maple sap inside is rising from the big evaporator chimney on the roof. There's a deck in front of the sugar house and you can tell it's new from the raw, unweathered wood. There are a lot of foot prints in the snow leading up to it from all the people who have come on Maple Syrup Sunday to sample maple syrup and maple candy.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 22

Barred Owl on a snowy day, seen just now from my kitchen window. It's peering intently at the bird feeder below.

Barred owl on a gray snowy day, perched on the branch of a maple tree. It is looking intently at a bird feeder outside the frame of the photo.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 17

Happy St. Patrick's Day! ☘️ I'm not much given to celebrating male saints or drinking green beer, but it just wouldn't seem right to let the day pass without making some soda bread.

A round of raisin studded soda bread cooling on a wire rack. In the background are the recipe, a bottle of Kate's buttermilk and a bag of Maine Grains flour.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 2

There's a lot of snow outside my old greenhouse, but inside the overwintered Swiss chard has decided that it's time to grow. It was the last green leaf in the garden and now it the first spring sprout. I'll have clippings for a few months until it bolts.

Drifting snow, red barn with white trim, blue skies, and leafless trees seen from the windows of an old lean-to greenhouse. Also, some pots containing chilled bulbs that aren't agreeing to break dormancy yet

Overwintered rainbow chard growing in pots in an improvised tent. It's starting to sprout rosettes of mostly green leaves, a few red ones, on red or yellow stems.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Feb 25

Most days I love living in an old house at the edge of the woods. It does, however, present some interesting problems. For instance, today finding a short tailed weasel (aka ermine) feasting at the cat food bowl. You have to look very closely to see the black tip of its tail.

A white short tailed weasel (aka ermine) eating dry food out of a cat food bowl on a gray slate pad under an old black cast iron cook stove. There's a bit of yellow pine floor showing in the corner.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Feb 12

It's always a tricky negotiation to make sure the tree crews cut enough but not too much when they clear the power lines. It helps so much that there are women on the crews now. This year they were able to leave the tappable maple trees alone and gave me the pussywillow trimmings to boot 💚

Person surveying a thicket of gray leafless trees in the snow from an aerial lift on a red and yellow forestry bucket truck. The damp edges of the dusty road are a reminder that mud season will soon be upon us.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Nov 14

Same! I was surprised when my camera identified it as an imposter "False Christmas Cactus", Schlumbergera truncata. Evidently, actual Christmas cacti, Schlumbergera x buckleyi, have more rounded edges.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Sep 4

Sending a rainbow of vegetables from my garden. It's amazing what the land can provide to nourish body & soul.

An old woven ash potato basket holding a rainbow of garden vegetables, among them cluster of big red tomatoes, a long red pepper, a box of yellow, orange and chocolate cherry tomatoes, a big purple cabbage.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Aug 17

A few years ago my Reliance peach tree got hit hard by a late spring frost. I thought it was a goner but it managed to limp along in a somewhat bedraggled state. Now in all this summer's heat it is back to bearing a regular crop. A reminder that life is resilient. It gives me hope.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jul 11

This is a fairy house my granddaughters built in the woods from an old stump, twigs and weeds when they visited last week. I hope that your wave of difficulty passes soon and that there will be something useful to you in the flotsam and jetsam it leaves behind.

An old stump in the woods abandoned even by the woodpeckers but transformed into a fairy house with weeds, twigs, pinecones and an old metal squirrel baffle.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 9

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are hatching, just in time for the last of the lilacs. Sometimes I'll find a jumble of them on the road just as they emerge from their cocoons and are blown by the wind out of the trees. It takes them a few minutes before they can spread their wings and fly away.

Four Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfies on a dirt road just after they have emerged from their cocoons and are waiting for their wings to dry and spread. They are light yellow with black yellow dotted edges and irregular black stripes on their wings. The bottoms of their wings have black veins like stained glass windows the bits or blue and orange against the yellow.

Three just hatched yellow and black Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies before they've taken their first flight. The one on the left holds its wings so close together that it is almost flat. The wings on the one on the right are spread a bit wider. The one in the middle is open to a V shape. In a few minutes their wings will flatten out so that they can fly away.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 8

Yesterday's rain brought yet another amphibian into the tiny greenhouse, this time an American toad. Since it persisted in getting underfoot I relocated it outside to avoid stepping on it. The other froggy inhabitants are not in evidence today. Perhaps they've hopped off on their own.

A bumpy little American toad well camouflaged against wet cement in shades of beige and brown.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 3

The red wood frog with its black bandit mask is the most stealthy of the greenhouse frogs, often disappearing into a crack in the foundation. A garter snake often lurked in the same place last summer. I hope it doesn't come back and eat the frog.A

A slightly mottled small red wood frog with a black bandit mask from its nose across its eyes. It's sitting on a background of white painted cement.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 3

The gray tree frog is the most phlegmatic of the greenhouse frogs. It stays quite still in one place for long stretches of time and appears to be unconcerned by human activity around it.

A bumpy little gray tree frog mottled with light green and a few lines of black. It is sitting on the dirty blue plastic top of a small stepladder. Clearly, the ladder needs to be washed.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Jun 3

During last week's rains several frogs hopped into my small ramshackle greenhouse so I've been frog watching. The various species appear to have quite various temperaments. The tiny peeper is the most excitable, taking kamikaze leaps through the air and occasionally landing on me with a splat.

Tiny gray spring peeper perched on the edge of a pot of spent bulbs. It has a characteristic black X on its back as well as some potting soil picked up in its travels around the greenhouse.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· May 29

Amazing how efficiently Trump has organized the usually fractious Harvard community into complete opposition and resistance. I'm delighted to sign the amicus brief by alumni/ae group Crimson Courage in Harvard's Title VI lawsuit against Trump. If you're a Harvard alum, you can sign it, too.

A stack of three books is topped by a graduate's mortarboard and tassel. The border, a bookmark in one of the books, and much of the text are in dark red Harvard Crimson. The text reads "Harvard Graduates: Our Alma Mater Needs Your Support! Join Our Amicus Brief Now. Sign at bit.ly/HarvardAmicusBrief Dealdine Saturday, June 7th, 12pm ET"

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Apr 25

It's a good year for bloodroot, sanguinaria canadensis, one of my favorite spring ephemerals. Their seeds are carried about by ants so I never know where they will pop up in my garden.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Apr 16

Peepers are peeping around the pond. Easier heard than seen, but patience is sometimes rewarded seeking them out.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Apr 1

Rabbit, Rabbit.

The mythical jackalope: a white jackrabbit with yellowish paws standing in some browned grass and green clover with antlers protruding between its long brown ears.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 26

I hope Shenna Bellows' campaign for Governor gets some traction! She has great progressive values, stands up for what she thinks is right and doesn't back down. She's smart, hardworking and gets stuff done. Most of all, she really cares about other people and is herself a wonderful human being.

Shenna Bellows in a blue jacket standing at a podium in the barn of Viles Arboretum in Augusta Maine announcing her run for Governor. There's a wooden wall and an American flag in the background. In front of her, this image is repeated on the screen of phone mounted on a tripod and another held by reporter to film and record what she is saying. You can see that it's a bit chilly glimpsing the gray, green and wine-red coats the reporters are wearing.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 20

It's a drizzly gray day this spring equinox. Even so, the snowdrops are blooming on the rocky slope next to the driveway. The squirrels were wise in replanting them from the garden where I'd put them. They bloom much earlier here. The squirrel-planted oaks, however, are in all the wrong places.

A patch of white spring flowers called snowdrops springing up from last fall's fallen brown maple leaves on a wet day in early spring.

KateInMaine@kateinmaine· Mar 17

Don't know where/if you can order one, but it's easy enough to make. The recipe is by Nigella Lawson and on her website. I made the slightly less decadent version from the New York Times Cooking site. Wish Bluesky friends were here to have some!