How I Fell in Love
When I headed north for my first year of college, I had no idea what lay in store for me. Coming from Miami, I had a very "tropical" understanding of plants. What in the north grew indoors as houseplants, I had known to grow outdoors in my yard. I had never known deciduous trees or perennial plants. I had never experienced spring bulbs. It was a wholly new way to see plants! On my first trip to mid-coast Maine, back in the late 80's, I happened to be driving the backroads during the lupine bloom. I was surprised to the extreme. I had never seen wildflowers bloom in such profusion. And before anyone asks, no... I had never read about Miss Rumphius either. That would come that summer, courtesy of my farm boss. (That's another story altogether.) Driving around and stopping to gawk at these fields of wild lupines filled me with a new love. Fields filled with blue and purple, from treeline all the way to the road. I was smitten! Imagine my surprise when I returned a ...