Sophie’s tea party

I was invited to a tea party for Sophie’s fifth birthday.

The festivities included a very cute teapot cake, and a beautifully set table with a hat, pair of gloves, and a string of pearls at each place setting.  Six little girls were invited, all wearing their summer party dresses.

Refreshments consisted of iced tea (I overheard one little girl say to another, “It’s really just fruit juice!”), sandwiches cut with a teapot-shaped cookie cutter, sliced fruit, and potato chips.  For the adults there were brownies with raspberries, and wine (it’s just fruit juice!).

Peanut butter and jelly never looked so good!

At first the girls were very shy, standing around holding hands.  Seven pretty little girls in pink and sandals and bows, sugar and spice and all things nice.

That changed in a hurry.  Before we knew it, they were tearing around the house like wild things … screaming and squealing and climbing rocks and running barefoot across the lawn and through the garden.  Hats and braids were flying, ladylike behavior was abandoned.  Five minutes were devoted to feeling each other’s forehead (“it’s sweaty!”) as proof of their athletic prowess.  Only cake got them back to the table.

If there are more photos of some of the girls than the others, that is just because those one or two managed to sit still a little longer.

At the end of the day there was laughter, jealousy, name-calling, hand-holding, drama, silliness, and yes, even tears.  After all, this is seven young women we’re talking about.  In between the hair ribbons and polka dots and finger sandwiches, girls just gotta let their hair down.  Happy birthday Sophie, thanks for helping me remember what it’s like to be a kid again!

The Great Smith River Canoe Race

Waiting for the race on Crescent Lake

The 39th Annual Great Smith River Canoe & Kayak Race is a tradition in Wolfeboro and marks the beginning of the summer season.  The race is approximately 4 miles long and includes a mild whitewater stretch and two short portages.  You start at Albee Beach, paddle to the Smith River, paddle through Crescent Lake to the dam, portage the dam, paddle the relatively easy whitewater of the Smith River and under the Route 28 bridge, portage around the dam to Back Bay and then finish at the Town Docks.

The first of the canoeists appear

The first portage at the Crescent Lake dam

Spectators came in all sizes, shapes and colors

A bit of whitewater skill is useful, but a desire to have fun is just as critical.  There are some people who are very serious about this race but most just want to have a good time.  The dam opens enough to allow water to run the river, but not enough that would cause trouble in running the rapids.

There were people stationed at various points on the river in case anyone needed help

Participants ranged in age from about seven to seventy

An unlucky pair flipped their canoe, but managed to right it and continue. A couple of young girls managed to slam their kayak right into a tree, but giggled and kept going. Another woman, going alone, glided past us and asked, “Is it over yet??”

Our Coldwell Banker entry featured the slogan, “We keep your dreams afloat”. The thought was that if they dumped the boat in the rapids, the sign would flip over to read, “We can help you if you’re under water, too!”

Laureen and Sarah making it safely through the rapids

Navigating the Smith River

Heading for the bridge

… and into Back Bay!

Congratulations to Sarah and Laureen, who managed to finish the race with all their balloons intact … and look really good doing it!

Sunday best

It would have been enough to get a photo of the beautiful Canada goose in a stream this sunny morning, but then I happily realized that he had taken his whole family out for a Sunday ride.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Flowers as art

When we were kids, my brother and I would set up a stand on the front lawn and sell the dahlias that my parents grew.  The flowers were gorgeous:  huge dinnerplate dahlias, the yellow ones as big as the sun, the red ones as bright as a fire engine.  The plants, well-established in the rich Northwest soil, produced more flowers than you can imagine.  Only the neighbors paid us any money for them (on a dead-end road the neighbors were the only ones who saw them) but we were happy enough with that.  The leftover blooms came in the house and were not wasted.

Years later, when I grew my own dahlias, I began to look at them more closely and realized just how intricate they are.  The flowers are naturally photogenic and are usually shot straight-on, but the sensuous curves of the petals are what struck me – especially on the back side of the flower.  There I found complex curls and whorls and corkscrew petals, and after awhile the flower evolved into shapes and patterns and colors that eventually lost the “flower” label and became something else.

I am still experimenting, but I think this is where photography crosses the line into art.  I could photograph dahlias as often as Monet painted his water lilies.

Fine focus: the color pink

May brings us trees bursting into bloom, ferns curling up from the earth, and peepers in the ponds.  This is the third in a series of photo collections, organized by theme.  Call it girly, but pink goes right along with the month of May … inspired by my neighbor’s gorgeous tree. Enjoy the color pink here in nature – flowers, sky and water – and as the end result of a bucket of paint.  Pretty in pink!

Perkins Cove, Maine

Wolfeboro, NH

Ogunquit, Maine

Dahlia, my garden

Ennistymon, Ireland

Wells, Maine

The lakes region of New Hampshire

Winter Harbor, Lake Winnipesaukee

This central part of New Hampshire is known for its many lakes and pretty lakeside towns that surround them.  There are 273 lakes and ponds in the Lakes Region, with one lake dominating them all:  Lake Winnipesaukee, which stretches 72 miles across.  Other larger lakes in the area include Squam (remembered as the setting for the movie “On Golden Pond”, Waukewan, Winnisquam, Wentworth, Newfound, and more than 250 other various bodies of water.

Squam Lake

There is so much water around here, in some places there is a different lake on either side of the road.  It was years before I knew the names of all the bodies of water I passed by, just in the general Wolfeboro area.

Mirror Lake

While summer may be the season that comes to mind here because of the skyrocketing tourist population, the other seasons are just as beautiful – if not more so:  the hillsides wrapped in spring green, the blazing colors of fall, and the thick blanket of snow in winter.  Here are a few photos of the beautiful lakes of the Lakes Region.  Enjoy!

Melvin Bay, Lake Winnipesaukee

Lake Kanasatka

Wolfeboro Bay, Lake Winnipesaukee

A sparkling mountain pond ... name unknown

 

 

Spring isn’t on the calendar

This week, spring came to Wolfeboro.

I’m not talking about temperatures (which have been all over the place), or a number on the calendar, or even a frame of mind. I’m talking about leaves.

As of yesterday, Wolfeboro has leaves.

Moving here from the Evergreen State, dealing with six months of leafless trees was not easy to adapt to.  It still isn’t.  I hate to see the leaves fall in October and I anxiously await them in May.  This year, with our unusual warm weather and lack of snow cover, the leaves are a good two weeks early.  No one is complaining.

Also absent this year is rain: in the past seven weeks we have had less than a half inch of rain.  April showers are not bringing May flowers.  The flowers are having to fend for themselves, but even in drought conditions seem to be pulling through.  My garden looks good despite the conditions. Nature has a way of adapting, even if I don’t.

So spring is here, as evidenced in other ways too – like the town workers doing their annual painting of the crosswalks, and the fruit trees bursting into blossom, and snow shovels disappearing from front porches.  New Hampshire wakes up from its restless winter sleep.  Welcome back, leaves … I’ve missed you.