Setback

At the 3-month mark post shoulder replacement surgery, the pain was still interfering with my range of motion. Then I had my follow up appointment with the surgeon. He asked where the pain was located, touched the different areas I mentioned and found a sensitive spot at the back of the shoulder. That is when I heard the words no surgery patient wants to hear, “let’s take some x-rays and then we will talk.”

Although the x-rays did not show any problems, the doctor started talking about stress fractures, indicating that this can happen with the reverse shoulder replacement, especially in older women with osteopenia. He then put a stop to all the assisted range of motion exercises I was doing (pulleys, cane exercises, etc.). I was restricted to completely passive range of motion exercises, like table slides and wall slides and instructed to use the sling if necessary. I always found the wall slides a bit painful, so the jury was out on that one. I was back in four weeks, so my thought right now was just s**t, my recovery was set back at least 4 weeks.

So, what was I doing to cope? I had to put the cross-stitch project on hold, since that seemed to bother my shoulder. The weather had improved a bit, so I did get out for a few walks, but not as much as I would like. I did notice we had a few new visitors to the bird feeder. We did not usually see purple finches, but several pairs were hanging around. I had my husband set up my camera with the long lens by the window. Since I could not get my arm high enough to take pictures, I was using a camera utility that let my camera talk to my laptop. The package included a remote shutter release.

I was also still reading a ton of books. This month I enjoyed a nonfiction book about the pianist, Van Cliburn, called Moscow Nights by Cliff Nigel. My book club book was an historical novel called Skylark by Paula McLain. It switched back and forth between two timelines. One followed a woman in the 1600s who wanted to create clothing dyes and was put in an asylum for daring to take on a man’s role. The other follows a doctor who works in an asylum in 1939 and helped Jews escape through the tunnels of Paris. Finally, a light read to lift my spirits, a book called Twilight Garden, by Sarah Nash Adams, a story about two neighbors who do not get along but share a garden space. When they receive photos and fliers about what the garden looked like before, they join forces to restore the garden to its former glory.

Beech Hill 2025

On Thursdays I typically walked with somewhere between 1 and 4 of my closest friends. Unfortunately, over the past few months, Thursdays seemed to be the day that it would rain or snow, canceling our weekly attempts to walk. And now we were in mud season, which would limit where we walked.

On March 20^th, rain was predicated for the afternoon. However, the morning was quite foggy. We spent a fair amount of time texting each other, trying to decide what to do. Finally, we determined that the fog would not stop us. From past experience we figured that Beech Hill would be the least muddy option and agreed to meet there. We did have one mishap, when a member of our group went to the wrong parking lot, but that was rectified in a short amount of time.

The walk up Beech Hill would not be a long one, but, it was uphill and we would get the benefit of some exercise. As happens when we got together, we caught up on the news and events in each others lives. I guess you could say that these walks were not only for exercise, but served as our social network as well.

When I mentioned that it was foggy, I forgot to say that it was a dense fog. By the time we were halfway up the hill, some of us had to wipe the water off our glasses so that we could see where we were going. These quick stops gave us the opportunity to study our surroundings. Since one of my friends had an Instagram page and I had my blog, we were also on the lookout for some decent fog pictures. Our first opportunity was when we noticed the water droplets on all the nearby plants, followed by the ghostly trees up the road.

There were no ocean views from the top of the hill on this particular day, but there was the hut trying to hide in the shadows. I have always viewed these misty days as offering great photography opportunities, so I took a quick shot with my phone (I never bring my camera on these group walks). From there, we walked around the hut and made our way back down the hill.

Winter Beauty

We are between winter storms at the moment and I want to share some of the beauty that can be found in a winter landscape.

Looking out the bedroom window, as the sun cleared the mountains after one of the storms, the ice-covered branches reflected the morning light. I thought it was magnificent and tried to capture the moment. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite catch the sparkling appearance of the trees. I was using my phone to take the picture, and I was shooting through the window and the screen, so I wasn’t too surprised. Still, the sun shining through the forest was brilliant. It is mornings like these that makes my heart sing when I view the beautiful gifts of nature.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter. John Burroughs

Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Fort Knox

Our friend from New York got some really nice days to test out his new camera setup. October 13^th was another glorious day for an outing. Our destination for this photo-shoot was the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Fort Knox.

Just before the historical grounds, we stopped at the pullout on Route 1 so that our friend could take some photos of the full length of the bridge. From there, we joined a line of cars to enter the site. It was a holiday weekend and a beautiful day, so people were out enjoying the weekend.

Once we parked, our first stop was to head towards the bridge and the observation deck. On the floors above the elevator, we scanned the views below us in every direction. At one point, we spotted an eagle in flight flying across the river. I’m not sure what he photographed from the deck, but I took a few shots of the opposite tower and the bridge cables below me. I also got a nice picture looking down at the fort.

After descending from the observation deck, we headed towards Fort Knox. We had parked closer to the fort, not knowing that it was a bit of a walk to the bridge. Unfortunately, the return trip towards the fort was all uphill. It did give us an opportunity to take in the river, the fall foliage, the picnic area and finally the fort. Of course we took the long way to the entrance, crossing across the back end of the fort, past the shop and information center and on towards the front of the structure.

Inside the fort we headed separate ways, our friend exploring the passages and upper area of the building, while we walked around the interior grounds. As I mentioned in the last two posts, being with a serious photographer made me slow down a bit and think about things like framing and eliminating objects from the shot. This meant I had to acquire patience or at least control my impatience. I waited several minutes for people to get out of the way, during my ground level photo.

Once I successfully acquired my picture, we joined our friend on the upper level of the fort. I attempted a few shots of the battlements but wasn’t overly impressed with them. My final shot of the bridge captured a few of the canon areas in the foreground. It was one of those “good enough” moments.

Done with our photo-op we went looking for lunch in Belfast. The last day of our friend’s visit it rained all day. It was a good day to process all the photos we took over the last three days.

Popham Fort and Popham Beach

Saturday, October 12^th was another bright, beautiful day, so we decided to take our friend to Fort Popham and Popham beach for another photoshoot. When we arrived at the fort, we discovered that chairs were being set up for an afternoon wedding. No matter, there would be other photographic opportunities within the remains of the building.

Before entering the fort, we scouted around the outside of the building for a bit. Our friend, an avid birdwatcher, as well as photographer, headed towards the rocky beach just below the fort. He had spotted some offshore birds and went closer for a better look. I found a perfect sitting rock and took a picture of a ground view looking towards the fort and another looking straight out from where I was sitting. Once we were done, we headed back towards the entrance.

Inside the darkened remains, our friend continued finding artistic opportunities. On one of my first visits here, I had taken those artistic shots but somehow lost the original photographs. My goal was to at least retake two of those artistic pictures. (See Fort Popham 2021 ). Unfortunately, different times and different lighting situations did not produce the same results.

After exploring the fort, we headed to Popham Beach for additional photo opportunities. As we walked down the path to the beach, we found warning signs about supersaturated sand, also known as quicksand, and how to get out of that situation. Apparently, the sand could be very soft near the mouth of the Morse River. Forewarned, we stepped onto the beach.

The beach was very interesting to me. As I looked out towards the water, I noticed that the sand was broken up by water. There was the majority of the beach, followed by a line of still water, another line of sand then water, and finally the sea beyond. I watched people walk on the sandy patches between the water and even to the island nearby. I was amazed but did not venture out to join them. Instead I found an interesting sculpture of driftwood and took several photos to get just the right composition.

When our friend was done with his photoshoot, we headed back to Bath to find lunch. We had the idea that we would stop at Best Thai II but apparently they were not opened for lunch that day. We wandered around Bath for a bit until we found an Irish Pub for lunch. After lunch, we bought some goodies at the bakery across the street before heading home.