Rain

 We usually avoid the Rotary Trail, which runs alongside the Kennebec River on an old railroad bed. It's lovely. . . wide and flat. . .but often so peopled that I need to keep Jasper on his leash. He doesn't complain about that, but we both do our best work Off Leash. Smile. 

Dogs are so accommodating. I don't ever want to take that for granted. Anyway, the rain staved off the people (the parking lot was empty at 9am), and we had a lovely drizzly walk. We paused to photograph the extreme damage done by last winters storms. We're trying to figure out how to pay to fix the damage. Ack.

The Kennebec River is fairly wide here. In typical mid-Maine style, there are areas that seem completely isolated, and others where you can see a factory across the river. . .or houses. I used to feel like these man-made things like old mills, (some abandoned, some functioning) were eyesores, but I've come to see this mix of the natural and the man-made as a testament to what has gone before. And perhaps potential for the future. Too Pollyanna? Maybe.

I didn't walk out to the garden a single time today. That's the surest sign that fall is here. I remember wishing that water would fall from the sky in Boise. At 12"/year, it was not a common occurrence, and no one tried to grow anything without irrigation. Maine is different, of course, at 45"/year, though I had cause to appreciate the trickle irrigation we installed 2 years ago. We had had 2 summers of drought, and a lot of hand-watering. While most of the summer had ample precipitation this year, we ran into a 2-3 week period with no rain just prior to today. 

Perennial plants don't look like they're doing much this time of year, but they are. They need resources, (water, light, some warmth) to prepare for the winter, shuttling carbohydrates down to their roots as their leaves senesce and fall. It's actually a pretty important time of year if you want them to come back in the spring.

A couple of last shots of Jasper on the trail. Clearing predicted tomorrow, and the last of the apples will be harvested.