Continuing from page 2:
We went to a new location this year: Christina's World, AKA The Olson House. This is from the famous Christina's World painting by Andrew Wyeth. The site has changed a little since this painting was done in 1948. Regardless, Wyeth definitely took artistic liberty in his depiction of the scene! This is the view that is closest to the painting. The large tree was not there in 1948, and the distances are different than shown in the painting.
We had lunch on a stone by the house.
The house actually has wooden downspouts.
Wyeth died in 2009, and is buried in a small cemetery near the house (in Cushing, Maine).
Looking out the point:
The alewife (fish) weren't running yet, so we didn't have the big gathering of feeding osprey . We did get to see some pigeons, though.
We did, of course, see more birds than pigeons. There was this cute Mallard.
One of the area preserves, The LaVerna Preserve, has a trail that goes down a hill to the shoreline. On a tree that grows fairly close to the rocky shore is an osprey nest. The view back to the trail from the rocky shore:
From the trail you can get a pretty good view of the nest!
The branches kept getting in the way of any good pictures, which meant down further actually gave a better view despite being lower.
Soaring
Someone is always trying to steal your lunch, if you are an osprey.
A new-to-us preserve this year was the Rachel Carson Salt Pond & Preserve. Rachel Carson was a famous conservationist, biologist, and writer. Her book 'Silent Spring' exposed the impact of pesticides on the environment. This preserve is fairly small, but we had a nice little walk there.
Rockport seaport was another new stop for us. They had a large limestone processing industry in Rockport back in the 1800s. Limestone came in by rail, and large granite kilns were used to convert it to lime, used in mortar & plaster. A large fire occurred in 1907, which basically put an end to this industry.
Cute statue by the kilns
Also in Rockland is the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse.
Updated July 2020