Aroostook County photos, Alaska & New York tugs : Aroostook Beauty

Aroostook county is the crown of Maine. The North Woods wilderness, vast farmlands, one-room schoolhouses, old barns, lupine fields and French culture inspire the eye and mind. I hope you enjoy the beauty of Aroostook that my photography attempts to capture.

Bachelor's farm Mars Hill is beyond the field where the solitary house sits. Crop rotation brings green potatoes, gold oats, yellow canola or purple broccoli- fine contrast to greying shingles and a bright red door	Bridgewater barn mud season April in Aroostook County. Mud reigns. Getting to the old barn is a slog. Inside, the creatures and equipment are safe from the mire. As the ground dries the barn will empty for the growing season.	Aroostook bumper sticker Bumper stickers & coffee mugs show pride of place- Aroostook County.
River fog in first light First sun excites river vapors. Morning burnoff begins. The night fog illuminates, it's opaque veil consumed in a brilliant crown.	Farmenglow The last glow of sun illuminates a farm along the Aroostook Valley in Caribou. The barn, sheds and potato house are snug and ready for night and perhaps, aurora borealis.	Green Ridge fields Green Ridge is a prominence along the Presque Isle/Fort Fairfield border. Wade through the lupine fields to the summit. One can see deep into New Brunswick to the east and to the southwest, Katahdin.
Skating pond In a shallow bowl, out of the wind, water collects in autumn. The first hard freezes are enough to bring out the skaters. Those on double runners soon tire. They ride in the sled.	Big world End of summer. The wildflowers have been picked and the bobolinks are gone. Time to feel the warmth. Evening cool will creep in with the lengthening shadows. Fireflies will be out tonight.	Ste. Agathe grange It's plank siding slowly opens, splits and warps. Nails work loose through years of deep cold and sun scorch. Gaps widen and sagging begins. An old barn still keeps the machines safe.
Aroostook's foggy bottom Like dry ice in a bowl, the cloud of saturated air generated by the river below swells toward the barn door. The fog, sloshing in slow motion waves, then recedes. It disappears into thin air.	Presque Isle river fog 0500- late June. The sun's been up over an hour but the Aroostook runs cold still, holding the fog bank marking it's course through The County	Aroostook living Clean living and no pretense. Life flows smoothly in The County. Childhood takes it's sweet time here. There is no rush.
Rainy day at Woodland school On the road to Perham sits the old schoolhouse. Bleak light and heavy rain bring a shine to the holed roof and roughed planks. Someone still keeps the lawn mown. An alumnus, perhaps.	Reach road lupines Lupinescense excites a field shed above the Reach road. Aroostook County's unused fields and meadows soon become illupinated...	Aroostook valley rainbows A sunset squall recedes east into New Brunswick. The Aroostook river valley at the Presque Isle/Caribou line is newly washed and twice blessed at the end of the day.
New Sweden church Aroostook county's Swedish colony rises from the hilltops of New Sweden and Stockholm. A Scandinavian outpost in Maine's boreal forest.	Border farm gone to lupine Just 100 yards this side of the New Brunswick border rests an abandoned farm. The lupines have come now. The fields are theirs.	Farm road through Canola fields A truck's dust plume marks it's passage along a farm road in Ste Agathe. Corduroy rows of green potatoes and yellow canola conform to and highlight the lay of the land.
Aroostook bumper stickers A small collection of Aroostook scenery. A photographic tableau of The County.	Hilltop trail picnic My daughter and I dine out here regularly. We face southwest to Mt. Katahdin and the sunset. The trail takes us back down the hill and over the ridge to the valley and our home.	Ghosts of Mars Hill What caused them to leave? Did they just give up or was it some other misfortune which emptied the home and fields below this knoll? If only their view had paid the rent. They could have stayed then.
Aroostook snowbow A mirage of early spring divides the still frozen elevations from the advancing thaw below, in the valley. Winter's departure progresses this way. The hilltops are the last to be let go.	Holding back the snow Ground blizzards continue for days after snowfalls. Northwest storms scour the powder from vast fields, relentlessly covering County roads. If the plows tire, the snow will win. They can never stop.	Mars Hill fixer-upper The wires are down, the pole gone askew. The glass is out of the panes and the wind has the rooms. But what a spot. There are buyers if a seller could just be found.
Parfait sunset Bare maples rise at the edge of a potato field. Beyond the foreground snow pack the red stage of sunset is fleeting. It's cold and light grows short. I shoot.	St. John Valley farms Farmland is open. You can see your destination from a great way. Tractors move slowly along these roads but they never have doubts about where it is they are going.	Oats & Quoggy Jo Mt. An Aroostook home under a big sky. An oat field for a back yard. The Aroostook river valley and Quoggy Jo out front. Beyond that, Canada.
Easton's cows of autumn Happy cows of Aroostook county. Sweet grass in early autumn, bursts of foliage, the Canadian border just past that distant white barn. Some cows have all the luck.	Green Ridge yellow canola Looking north toward Caribou. The green wedge is potatoes. The hillside beyond is splashed with the purple of lupines. The Artists' flourish of grand excess.	Late september ground fog The ground cools the air near to it before a stilled dawn. This dense saturated layer glides down slope to pool in the river valley beyond the tree line. The sun will consume it all in an hour.
Aroostook dawn shadows Shadows reveal themselves only upon the objects on which they are cast. Except in early light and fog. Then is when the shadows have their own substance. The shadow itself becomes an object.