what happened to June: Part 3

mr. crafty at work again,

this time to make a hanging fairy house

And then a brief, stressful day of laundry and repacking and reorganizing (some yelling, frustration, irritation, and exhaustion too) before we were off to Monhegan Island. You'll remember it from last year.

Once there: utter bliss. Total relaxation. No meal planning to worry about. No dishes. Big questions like: Is it time for ice cream again? Hmm, which book should I read now?

Lots of hiking, reading, fishing, knitting, fairy houses, and beauty everywhere.

You know. The usual. So much gratitude for this special time outside of time.

Monhegan Island: Part Two

One of the other wonderful things about Monhegan is the fairy house tradition. A woodland path dedicated to making homes for fairies (a nice book is here). Little mica walkways, pinecone dance floors, lean-to's made of fallen sticks and bark. The idea is that no living item is uprooted or torn off to create the fairy home.

Sylvan used the sea glass he collected for a pathway.

If we visit again in future years, will my oldest boy still participate? Did you see that photo, the first one of this post? I love it that at 11.5 he's still interested in careful placement of twigs and pinecones. I remember so well when he was not even two, these little cones were a favorite thing for him to collect. We'd be on our little walk and he'd be pointing out every little pinecone he saw, insisting that we collect them all. When we got to the end of our walk we'd find a little spot for him to leave most of the cones, but I would always let him hang onto two (one for each chubby little hand).

The good people of the island used the perfect Maine summer weather, dry and breezy, to dry their clothes outside. Island clotheslines! Swooning!

Monhegan Island: Part One

We had three lovely days in a quite lovely place. Perhaps one of my most favorite and best places, to date, Monhegan Island. It's an hour or so to get out there, by ferry. And once you are there, there's not much to do other than admire the gorgeous coastline and hike along the cliffs and woodland trails. And sit and knit or read your book. (Alternatively, you can listen to an obnoxious cell-phone talker who is doing a conference call about internationally shipping rates. But instead, I alternated between sending relaxing waves of love his way, and wishing I had a cell phone scrambler like the Secret Service.)

manana island, to the west of Monhegan,

former home of a hermit shepherd

Or you could listen to your boys squeal as they fly their kites.

There are just a few island trucks, but no cars otherwise. The perimeter of the island is about 4 miles, and most of that is undeveloped but crisscrossed with hiking trails.

What the boys both really love is the privilege of independence: waking up and taking a sketch pad to draw on the beach. Strolling alone through town. Or being secret agents and spying on your mother, without her knowledge. Truly! I had no idea that there was someone with binoculars hiding in the bushes that may or may not have been on private property.

There were plenty of opportunities to feel like mountain goats. That's me, above, hiking through a little cave that we had visited before and found again!

Wait! Don't jump!

Really, I mean it!

Mom! It's just this small of a jump!