The Best 2008 Photos You Never Saw ...(Part the Second)

So it turns out that I take a phenomenal number of pictures during the summer months. It's taken me quite awhile just to sift through those three months. Here are the ones I felt you needed to see in order for your lives to be complete:

June
This is typical of the photos I find when I upload from the old camera's memory card. The kids are allowed to use it, and I have no idea what they've been shooting until I open the photo files on my computer. This particular day there were about twelve shots of different Barbie "families." (Be sure to note the poor kid with apparent hydroencephalitis, second row left). I peg Bug as the most likely photographer. A warm June afternoon, a shady porch, and a book.A little seabird I found on Pemaquid Beach. I like this because it almost looks like a black and white photo. But not quite. And for some reason this pleases meBug flashes me an "I love you" in sign language as she swims by.Probably the weirdest-looking flower in my garden - Monarda, or more commonly bee balm.

July
Some day I predict Bug will be furious with me for posting this picture. For now, though, enjoy the vision that is The Pig Girl of Central Maine. The takeaway lesson here is that swim masks may be convenient, but they're sure as hell not going to win you any beauty contests.

This is a classic example of a photo just looked "eh" to me when I first took it, but now strikes me as almost heartbreakingly beautiful. I'd like to be on a sunwarmed sand path that winds through blooming beach roses down to the ocean RIGHT NOW PLEASE.

I spend a lot of time staring at pictures of the past summer's garden (shown here an Italian White Sunflower) during the bleak winter months, just to remind myself that my yard will be green again someday. It's my own version of Seasonal Affective Disorder Therapy, since I can't afford to jet down to the Bahamas for some therapeutic sunshine.

We noticed this license plate hanging on the wall in a Bar Harbor restaurant. Wrong county, but still...

August

A peaceful moment during a family hike in August, taken after I almost lost my balance taking pictures and toppled off a footbridge into a creek and before Bug freaked out because there was a dead spider on the trail that she didn't want to step over... Bug points out a tree we discovered during the same hike that's thisclose to being felled by a beaver. I once read that a beaver can chew through a six-inch diameter tree trunk in 15 minutes. That makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it. Role reversal. Bug gives Grandma a craft lesson: how to make a wreath from a paper bag and silk flowers. Grandma was a very good pupil.

I know that summer is ending when I begin to hear the crickets chirping at night and when the gladiolas bloom. So while I love their tall stalks full of ruffly blooms, the sight of them is always a little bittersweet.This little treasure surfaced on a memory card amongst a series of self-portraits of Bear, followed by numerous pictures of stuffed animals, then suddenly this staged shot of Maisy looking like La Grande Odalisque sprawled on an artfully flower-strewn bed. You're all getting poster-sized prints next Christmas.