Summer Solstice

During last year's trip to Maine, I decided it would be great fun to take a picture every hour, on the hour for a day-in-the-life look at life in Sawyer's Cove.  I think I took about four pictures before being offered a sailing trip.  I couldn't be bothered to take pictures while sailing, so the project went out the window.

This year, our first full day in Maine happened to also be the Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year seemed like a great opportunity to try the project again.  I was both right and wrong about this.  I was right in that there was tons of sunlight for lots of pretty pictures.  I was wrong in that the night leading up to the Solstice, our first night in Maine, was a disaster with lots of crying from Chandler and being "afraid from the dark" from Frances. And, for a bonus, the beautiful new window blinds don't keep out a lick of light, so Frances was up at 4:30 a.m., thinking it was time to start the day.  I put the kibosh on that misunderstanding tout de suite, but it meant my bed was filled with a lot of humanity when 7 o'clock rolled around.  The day did improve from there, so without further ado, I bring you a day-in-the-life of Sawyer's Cove.


7 o'clock - Mama's bed, minus the mama

8 o'clock - Chandler cuddles up to the drunken leprechaun

9 o'clock - Still asleep; poor kid must have been up most of the night being "afraid from the dark"

10 o'clock - Cousin Grant, me, and Frances, after being pried out of bed

11 o'clock - "Smile everyone!  This is Fun!"

Noon - The almost daily trip to the grocery store.  The next time I do one of these day-in-the-life projects, I'm going to do it on a day we don't go to the grocery store.  It may take some planning.

1 o'clock - Cheerios, the lunch of champions.  In my defense, I was working on very little sleep.

2 o'clock - Getting ready for a nap.  Auntie Lindsay had done us the favor of bringing home a considerable haul from the Southwest library.  Such a nice library, I wish I could visit more than once a year.

3 o'clock - Auntie Lindsay doing the cooking, because I was busy doing the photographing.

4 o'clock -Yep, Frances is still asleep.  She really must have been up half the night.

5 o'clock - Finally, some outdoors time.  The shore right below the house is perfect for investigating seaweed, shells and crabs.  Cousin Zoe and Frances spent quite a long time getting to know a crab.  They never quite grasped that the crab was dead.

6 o'clock - Frances helping with clean-up.  Frances is great about putting things away.  She's a little less than discerning about what goes where, but as long as I don't get upset about finding Frances's toys in Chandler's drawers, for example, it all works out.

7 o'clock - The other kiddos, the ones who hadn't been asleep most of the day, were well on their way to bed.  Not so much with Frances.

8 o'clock - One last Cheerio snack before bed.

8:24 - And Sunset from the front porch.

Bonus 9:24 - The sky wasn't quite this bright - the camera exaggerated the light a bit - but this is the view from the porch an hour after sunset.  I am going to miss this light so much in a few months; maybe not so much at 4:30 a.m. with a bed full of humanity.

I'm enjoying this project, but it does make me realize we spend too much time at the grocery store.  We could remedy that by eating more scrambled eggs and less bouillabaisse with garlic aioli, but I don't see that change happening any time soon. I also think I need to photograph sunrise, but that wasn't in the cards this time around.  To next time!