The Lay of the Land: Facing East

In my first post of this series of landscape photos around my house and land, which you can see here, we came up the road––and that is literally up, since my house is on a small hill––in a westerly direction. Here I now am, on the small rise where the house sits, facing its front, symmetrical with two windows flanking the door on each side. A mass of daylilies, the old fashioned kind, line the foundation, and a honeysuckle climbs alongside the door.




I am looking back toward the east, from where we came when we walked up the road. The row of maple trees is the northern boundary of my land, which is a narrow piece of 9 acres. The shrub alongside the house is a Bridal Wreath spirea, which is in glorious bloom this year. And Poppy the cat is posing on the bench.



Continuing my sweep across the east, Blue Mountain comes into view, a hill that is 2400 feet high and has a granite quarry that I can see and hear from my house. My vehicle is a Subaru, considered the Vermont state car.




Moving my camera a little further to the south, I see the barn with its studio windows facing west. In the far distance are the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The large shrub next to the barn is a Burning Bush, which turns an intense red in fall.




At the edge of the barn is a Nannyberry shrub, a native which I planted years ago and now is enormous, with pretty flowers in spring and later berries for the birds. The ground slopes down to the barn and even more to the small pond...



which you see in its entirety here. It is very shallow, only about six feet at its deepest, because the bottom is rock ledge, of which there is a great deal up here on this hill. But it is perfect for taking a little dip on a hot day, to splash around with the fishes.




To end, I thought I'd give you a better view of the mountains, whose outline has become familiar to me over the years, coming and going in different kinds of weather. It is very satisfying to look across a distance at a range of mountains; it opens the heart.


Previous blog post in the series:
"The Approach"