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Happy Belated 10th Anniversary, wondermyway.com

~ lmachayes ~ 2 Comments

I can’t believe I missed the date by two days. I’d been planning this for months. Well, in the back of my mind, that is. No actual thoughts were jotted down on paper. I just knew what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it . . . until I forgot. Or rather, it slipped my mind. Momentarily.

No harm done.

As the saying goes, “There’s no time like the present,” and so my gift to you dear readers will be to give you the present of time by taking you back to the beginning of wondermyway and then making our way to the present. And all of it is because I was given the gift of being present in the moment on so many occasions. Egads. That’s a lot of presents. And presence.

Wonder My Way

My first blog post was published on February 21, 2015, and entitled Wonder My Way. It began with these paragraphs: Wonder my way as I wander through the Maine woods. So often I see things that make me stop and wonder. Sometimes I figure it out, but other times, I’m just as happy that I don’t. It’s The Sense of Wonder that Rachel Carson wrote about which keeps me going. Do we need to have all the answers? I think not.

So join me for a tramp from our woodlot to the world beyond. I know not where this trail will take us, but I can guarantee that we’ll have fun along the way. Read more . . .

Spring in Slo-Mo

Spring is so fleeting in Maine. Oh, I know, it lasts the usual three months and the beginning and ending overlap with its seasonal partners, but really . . . one must take time to pause and watch or you’ll miss the most amazing action that occurs in slow motion right outside the window–and beyond.

For those who are new to my blog, Jinny Mae, who is featured in this and many blog posts, was a dear friend whose name I turned in to an alias as she faced cancer courageously and rather privately. In the end, the cancer consumed her, but the things we enjoyed along the way were bountiful, including this spring adventure to an incredible space in our little neck of the woods. Read more . . .

Universal Love

Written on Valentine’s Day, this post was dedicated to My Guy and all who wander and wonder with me.

When I wander, hearts frequently speak to me . . . Read more . . .

Nothing To Grouse About

I shared a unique experience with five other naturalists, the majority of them in the six to eleven age range. For twenty minutes the six of us watched a Ruffed Grouse at it moved about, overturning leaves and foraging on buds. When we last saw it, the bird headed off in the opposite direction that we intended to journey, and so we moved on with wonder in our eyes and minds.

And then the next day I returned on a mission to study some twigs at the same property. No sooner had I stepped onto the trail when I heard the sound of leaves cracking a wee bit and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the same bird.

The curious thing: the bird followed me, staying about ten feet away as I tramped on. I stopped. Frequently. So did the bird.

And we began to chat. I talked quietly to him (I’m making a gender assumption) and he murmured back sweet nothings. Read more . . .

Amazing Race–Our Style

Okay, so My Guy and I have enjoyed The Amazing Race show over the years and felt like there were some challenges either or both of us could face, but others that neither of us would dare attempt. And so . . . I created our own version.

The thing is that until I take the time to change the order of this post on my website, you’d be best to start at the bottom and read each entry, going up one step at a time. As in, this: Scroll down to February 18 on this link and then after reading that entry, make your way up one episode at a time, until you reach the last recorded on February 2, 2019. Oh heck, read it in any order that pleases you. Just get into the spirit of the race I created cuze I certainly had fun with it. And fooled a few people along the way.

The Amazing Race–Our Style

I’m sure when we said our wedding vows back in 1990, there was something in there about only riding a snowmobile once. And I did that once two years or so ago–mostly because I knew it would please my guy. Certain memories remain from that experience: I felt like a bobblehead inside the helmet; I lacked control as I sat behind him and couldn’t see; when I did peek around, I was sure my head was going to strike a tree so narrow was the trail; and I didn’t like the speed. Oh yeah, and at a road crossing, I do believe I jumped off and walked to the other side. With all of that in mind, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I created a Valentine’s gift for him–our very own Amazing Race. Read more . . .

wondermyway turns five

Five years ago today (ten now!) I turned from taking a hundred million photos on each tramp to taking a hundred million photos and writing about them.

Typically, on the anniversary I scan the past year’s posts and choose one from each month, providing a photo to represent it, with a brief (or not so brief) comment and link to the full read.

But . . . because this is a milestone I never imagined reaching (posts: 733; views: 76,793; visitors: 44371; followers: 578), I thought I’d take the time to thank you, the readers, for wandering through the wonders with me.

Thank you! Read more . . .

Dragonfly Whisperer Whispers

We had no intention of eating lunch in this spot today, but while looking for a mountain to climb, we kept encountering full parking lots and so our backroad meander put us beside a bog at lunch time and voilà, we managed to walk all of less than two tenths of a mile. Total.

But in that short distance, our eyes feasted. First it was all the Painted Turtles basking in the sun. Read more . . .

Surveying the Wildlife of Charles Pond

For the past two weeks at Greater Lovell Land Trust we’ve had the good fortune to conduct a wildlife survey in the waters that surround the newly acquired Charles Pond Reserve in Stow, Maine. Our hats are off to Alanna Doughty of Lakes Environmental Association (LEA) for her willingness to be the lead on this project and work in collaboration with us. Alanna, you see, has conducted previous surveys for Maine Inland Wildlife & Fisheries (MDIFW) at LEA properties, and was trained by wildlife biologist Derek Yorks to set these up.

MDIFW maintains a comprehensive database on the distribution of Maine’s amphibians and reptiles, as well as terrestrial and freshwater invertebrates and the data we’ve collected will add to the bigger picture. What we discovered was just as important as what we didn’t find. Read more . . .

Hightailing It Home

Friends,
At the risk
of sounding redundant,
I bring forth
a prickly topic.

A quick glance
while surveying treetops
and suddenly
my heart sang
as I spotted
a well-armored back.

Read more . . .

Happy 9th Birthday, wondermyway!

Thank you to all who read and comment and share wondermyway.com. Some of you have followed my blog posts since the beginning, February 21, 2015. A few have joined the journey as recently as yesterday. I’m grateful for the presence of all of you in my life.

To mark this occasion, I thought I’d reflect upon those moments when my wonder gave me a glimpse of the “Thin Places” that I’ve experienced either by myself or in the company of others.

To quote my friend, Ev Lennon, “A Thin Place is a spot of beauty, loveliness, space–an example of the wideness and grandeur of Creation.”

I think of them as places that you don’t plan a trip to visit, but rather . . . stumble upon.

Read more . . .

And that brings me to this year and this anniversary, belated as it may be. I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I started this endeavor, which has served as my diary and memory, and been a place for me to share so many incredible extraordinary ordinary experiences with all of you. Thank you for being faithful readers.

As I compare the numbers to year five, I haven’t written as often in the last five years, but your support has been incredible.

wondermyway.com by the numbers:

Posts: 1,076

Visitors: 135,888

Views: 205,389 and increasing constantly.

The most popular post of this new year was Giving Thanks for the Pileated Woodpecker. So far, anyway.

The Giant’s Shower

And since I retired as Education Director for a local land trust just over a year ago, I’ve added some other fun to the mix.

I did a thing. Years ago I wrote a children’s story. Well, a bunch of them actually. And I tried to sell this particular one to publishing houses. No takers. Then, a couple of years ago I purchased a Fairy Coloring Book created by the one and only Solana, teenage daughter of the Fly Away Farm Wards in Lovell and Stow, Maine, and approached her about illustrating my fairy tale. She took on the task and did an amazing job. Then I asked copyeditor Pam Marshall to wave her magic wand over it. And I asked local graphic designer Dianne Lewis to use some fairy dust and turn it into an actual book. I always said I’d never self-publish a book. And tada: I did just that. And now it’s even better because it’s published by http://www.indieauthorbooks.com.

Read more . . .

My Art Gallery

At the end of April I began taking an art class offered by one of my peeps, a young woman who walked into the lives of many of us one day about twenty months ago; a young woman with a million talents to offer. Among those talents, she is a self-taught artist and we’ve been begging her to teach us.

At our first class, we had to draw a small box in the upper left-hand corner of the paper and place the person who has been our biggest art critic into it. That done, the critic was forever boxed–well, until she sneaks out, which she seems to do way too much.

And then we looked at some photographs in magazines and had to sketch them and determine the direction the eye would travel in the picture.

Next we looked at lines and perspective. I’d brought along my favorite colored pencils, but immediately felt my inner critic jump on me because all of my classmates were working with watercolor pencils, watercolor paint or acrylics. And the artist herself, gouache. Until I met her, I’d never even heard of gouache. Or at least never paid attention, if I had.

Read more . . .

Lake Living on Lake Region Television!

And we said goodbye to Lake Living magazine, a glossy publication I’ve worked on since 2006.

We are movie stars! Well, maybe not quite. But, many, many thanks to Evan Miller of Lake Region Television for filming and editing Laurie LaMountain, owner and publisher of Lake Living magazine, and me recently as we said, “Fare Thee Well,” to working on this publication.

Read more . . .

And in the midst of it all, I still have the good fortune to share the trail with so many others . . .

and especially with My Guy, who is forever patient as I pause to consider the wonder of the moment.

My heart-felt thanks to him and to all of you for joining me so often as I wondermyway.

Wowza–ten years! I never imagined. No time like the present to wish wondermyway.com a belated 10th anniversary.

The Power of Print Indeed

~ lmachayes ~ 6 Comments

In the spring of 2006, I did one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. Picking up the phone, I dialed the number for Laurie LaMountain, owner, editor, and publisher of Lake Living: Southern Maine’s Leisure Lifestyle Magazine, and told her, um, that I thought, um, she needed an, um, assistant editor.

You see, a few years prior, Laurie had interviewed My Guy about his running career, and in particular about training for marathons (think: 2 Maine in Portland; 2 Marine Corp in D.C.; and 2 Boston, with qualifying time for a third that he never did run due to time conflicts). While I enjoyed the article, I was annoyed because she had spelled my name “Lee” and not “Leigh.” Plus, there were other grammatical errors that I had noticed.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. I wrote (and edited) what I wanted to say, knowing I had to be positive about the magazine at the start and make it personal. I also knew my voice would crack and quiver as I spoke, and it didn’t let me down.

But, I’d gone through a copy of the magazine — with the red pen of my teaching career and made all kinds of edits and suggestions. Toward the end of our phone conversation, Laurie politely said I should share the edited copy with her. Of course, I did.

And she couldn’t believe all the corrections I’d made. She said she’d send me article to edit and I should keep track of my time.

Eighteen years later, I’m still keeping track.

For the next issue, she asked if I had any ideas for articles and I suggested she should contact Steve Collins who had built an Annapolis Wherry® row boat from a kit. Much to my surprise . . . and delight . . . she suggested I interview Steve and write the article.

Sometimes my voice still cracks and quivers when I interview people.

It certainly did during that first interview with Steve, even though we were both serving on a local board, and I’d known him for years, and he and My Guy had trained for the 1st Boston Marathon together.

It’s just that it’s always a step out of my comfort zone to set up a meeting and then actually come face-to-face with the other person, knowing that in the end I had to tell their story they way they envisioned it.

That first article will always be my favorite–maybe because Steve let me borrow and read and quote from his diary of the building process, and watch him at work. Maybe because I really liked how I had organized it, describing his process, but including snippets from the diary. Maybe because it was my first published article in Lake Living.

It certainly wasn’t my last and I’ve had the good pleasure of writing two or three articles per issue. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet so many cool, creative people who call this place home.

In the past week, I’ve been reflecting on the magazine and though I won’t tell you my least favorite articles that I wrote, and I can think of at least two–both interviews with the same person, though about two slightly different topics, I will share a few that stand out.

One was entitled “Bringing Earth to Life,” about Kathleen (Kathy) McGreavy, a potter from Brownfield we featured in Spring 2010. There were two memorable things about researching and writing that article: 1) Kathy let me throw a pot on the wheel, which she later finished, glazed, and gave to me.

It now holds some gear on my desk; and 2) I developed the article around the different steps of creating art on a potter’s wheel, beginning with wedging and continuing on through centering, opening and pulling, etc., and thought I was incredibly clever.

For the Winter 2013 issue, I wrote about a soul-filled choir–an a cappella group of women and men who sing for the terminally ill or those on the threshold between life and death, and their families. What was so special about that interview was that they invited me to sit in the center of their group. “I closed my eyes and suddenly I was surrounded with a cadence of voices in three part harmony singing ‘River of Jordan.’ I felt as if I was softly embraced by a warm blanket.” The memory still warms my heart.

There have been so many others, but the list is too long.

It was also a thrill to have a cover shot or two chosen from my many offerings, including this from Winter 2015-16.

And I do have to say I kinda like the article “What I Love About Winter” that appeared in that particular magazine. Things haven’t changed. “And the more time I spend outside, the more I love it [winter]. It’s not just the cool, crisp air that I find so exhilarating. During this season, the landscape reveals itself and all its complexities. Intense color gives way to details I may dismiss in other seasons . . . ”

All of this brings me ’round to the latest issue of Lake Living. If you’ve kept track since the start of wondermyway.com in 2015, you may have noticed that pre-COVID we published four issues a year. All that changed in 2020. This is a free magazine, which means advertisers are needed to pay for printing and distribution . . . and even me and my efforts!

With the onset of the pandemic it became difficult for Laurie to get advertisers (I’m proud to say My Guy has always advertised in the mag) and so we cut back to two issues: Summer and fall/winter.

This latest issue is probably the last.

Yes, let that sink in for a minute. You read it correctly.

Laurie is ready to retire. And it would be sweet if she could find a buyer.

I shall miss it.

I shall miss long conversations with Laurie where we first catch up with each other and our families and other interests, and then get down to the business of brainstorming as we bounce ideas around and laugh and talk and ask questions and toss presumed answers into the mix. It’s often out of these sessions that we notice a theme begin to emerge.

I shall miss seeking out all the people who do such interesting work in our communities and help make them thrive, despite my nerves when talking to them.

I shall miss the excitement of opening the final product–that smell of hot-of-the-press paper on crisp pages with fantastic layout created by Laurie and graphic designer Dianne Lewis.

What I won’t miss is opening the pages and realizing I’d missed a spelling or punctuation error or something else. But then again, I remind myself that only God is perfect and probably (I hope) only a handful of grammar police are on duty at any given time.

All of this said, dear readers, and now I present to you Fall 2024, vol 27. no 2.

Be sure to read my article about the Mountain Division Trail expansion coming our way soon. While writing this, I got to meet Andrew and Terry and Andrew’s young sons and learn about two incredibly involved people who care passionately about their respective communities and are volunteers extraordinaire.

Read also “Finding Rhythm in Weaving,” an article in which I not only learned a whole new technique, but also had the opportunity to get to know a fellow Episcopalian parishioner better.

You’ll find it here: Lake Living Fall 2024.

Be sure to read Laurie’s article, “In Praise of Print.” It’s her good-bye note after 27 years of creating this magazine that so many have come to love.

We know we’ve grown through this experience and hope the same has been true for you.

In praise of print indeed.