MINOT — In a field behind a barn in Minot, a sea of color rolls down a hill until it blends with the woods. The lupines are in full bloom.

Neal and Diane, who asked that their last names and address not be used, walked down a path looking for new color combinations that seem to sprout up every year. Pausing to look at a spot that is matted down after a deer had spent the night, the couple reminiscsed about how it was once a giant vegetable garden where her parents raised crops for their farm stand.

Neal and his wife, Diane, check out where a deer bedded down for the night in their field of lupines in Minot last weekend. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Moving from Auburn in the early 1970s, Diane’s parents transplanted a few lupines they had brought with them. After her father died and the vegetable garden went fallow, Diane and Neal, who moved to the property, began seeding the giant backyard garden with lupines.

“We would collect and dry the seeds and keep them in the freezer over the winter,” Diane says. “In the wild, they fall off the flowers and freeze on top of the soil over the winter, so we just do the same in our freezer. We get them going in the spring, find a spot where they are thin and add a few more every year. We just love to see what nature brings every year with all the different color combinations and groupings.”

Lupines are in full bloom in this field behind a barn in Minot. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Neal and Diane say they have debated whether to allow the public to visit their property. They have decided against it, given the possibility of people tripping on the uneven ground or being stung by bees or bitten by ticks. They also are concerned about damage being done to their land and lupines.

They want to share the beauty, however, and invited the Sun Journal to photograph the splendor and share it with readers.

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