ME II: 12 days left

· Maine Event

Another glorious sunny, blue day with crisp and clean air. Today we had a low of 37° and a high of 59°. I saw this article about the lack of big fires this year in California is largely due to not having the Diablo winds. I'm so happy and I wonder if the fog can do that every year. It seems most of the US right now is having air quality issues and the lowest areas in most of the US are where I start having trouble breathing.

It is the time of year I start thinking about Thanksgiving! We had a nice conversation this morning about the fact that many of the traditional dishes for Thanksgiving are made with foods from the Americas. Just think about it, turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes, pecans, green beans, corn, and pumpkins. Here is a great article about growing sweet potatoes in Ontario and a bit about the history of the potato and the sweet potato. I love farmers!

And since I've subjected you to many pictures of Deering Park where the Farmers' Market is. I want to share this article about the trees in Deering park. Some of those beauties are from before it was ever a park and some are older than 200 years old. So much grace and beauty in the trees here. It's also hard to get a good picture of them as they are so much bigger than our cameras are designed for. One element that is changing though is that they are all starting to lose their leaves. The effect of this is quite a transformation because there is so much more light and visibility of things you couldn't see before. Bird watching in leafless trees almost feels like cheating. So far there are still enough leaves the birds have hiding places.

Harbor View it changes day by day.
Red Dahlia still shining bright.
White Swamp Oak at Harbor View isn't exactly changing colors but it's leaves are drying and starting to come off.
Nice doorways.
It's cold tonight so this is the closest thing we saw to the Cats of Portland.
My beautiful friend the Red Oak on Spring St. is just starting to change colors.
Walkway to the Western Prom
Nice doors and windows.
Have a seat, my pretty.
Jupiter is surprisingly bright every night. So I looked it up and "The juxtaposition of Jupiter's opposition in late 2022, and perihelion in early 2023, brought the planet closer to Earth at this opposition than it has been for 70 years. And Jupiter was extra-bright in our sky on the day of opposition. Still, Jupiter is always very bright! It's always brighter than all the stars." From earthsky.org

I don't know about you but we are pretty tired around here. TGIF

Sending love, Tawnia

Another simple but good bird list today:

  1. Blue Jay 
  2. House Sparrow 
  3. American Goldfinch 
  4. American Crow 
  5. Herring Gull 
  6. Double-crested Cormorant 
  7. Sharp-shinned Hawk – ok it could have been a Cooper's
  8. Rock Pigeon 
  9. House Finch
  10. Northern Cardinal - it's amazing how hard a bright red bird can be difficult to see even when the tree is loosing its leaves.