Still summer?

Autumn tried to sneak in this weekend....But summer fought back and won, treating us to yet another hot, very hot! and sunny weekend.

My prairie girl heart was longing for harvest and golden fields.

Apples and frost and crisp nights with starry skies. Summer laughed at my fantasy...and "the boys" went surfing....

I stopped by the wetlands bird sanctuary, looking for migratory songbirds...and was instead presented with an emerald green high summer marsh....

This is what lies behind the field, in first picture, above!

But there's a secret garden here!

Someone, for some wonderful but unfathomable reason, decided to plant a prairie-style high grass meadow  between the parking lot and the berm that allows us to see the marsh safely.

I'm pretty sure that a meadow is ecologically incorrect for a barrier beach island---which is truly just a sandbar with sparse vegetation at most.

Perhaps on the mainland, 100 years ago?

Before malls and highways and golf courses took over?

                    

Plenty of food for the migratory songbirds if and when they pass through...

Wild grapes....

below: Colorful! We called this joe-pye weed back in Illinois, no clue what it really is. I do remember that the berries made great ink for secret messages! [a/n This weed is actually called pokeweed. It is---unsurprisingly---related to another weed called INKWEED. Both used by colonists to make, well, ink!]

and scented grey bayberries, ingdigenous to the dunes here....

But---whyever this secret prairie meadow exists here and now---

...I treasure it!

love

    lizzy

gone to the beach.....

Flea Market

This week's market was the alternate "little" flea market...though it is nearly as big as the original market lately, just is held a few blocks west. The drive was so pretty through the seashore areas. I took a backroad shortcut through the dunes, now filled with goldenrod and grey bayberry branches and huge flocks of redwing blackbirds.

Again my eyes and imagination were bigger than my pocketbook!

 I found lots of good "stuff"...

More rhinestone pins and shoe buckles for vintage photo frames to hang on a Christmas tree...

A white ironstone low oval bowl, had to have it!

Really great find of chandelier crystals! Again for an all white Christmas tree?---or any tree...

Or for reverse collage....

I got these thinking "garland"...

but maybe wonderful as is?

Here are a few new all white/ all lavender buds hearts in the white bowl. So pretty! I used vintage buttons with a hint of amber and glitz for Autumn.

...[they should be available in my etsy shop / ebay by Monday. 7.oo each.]

And something for ME! Last week I said I adore turquoise...so how could I pass up a bracelet with a turquoise heart! Sterling silver, Mexican not Native American. I love it! The same dealer is holding a needlepoint turquoise Navaho snowflake/ star pin for me for next time. It looks just like a Feathered Star quilt block. Another treasure.

PS The type drawer and all the type were still there...the dealer wanted $100.oo.
There were maybe 75-100 large wooden type blocks, letters and very cool punctuation. She wanted $3.oo each for the individual letters....what do you all think?  (Buy it! Buy it!, right?). What else did I pass up? Lovely china-head and wooden peg Hitty dolls; many great old photos; sheet music for collages; more white linens. And still no mums, couldn't park close enough to the booth.

...next market in TWO weeks!

love

     lizzy

...gone to the beach




my beach, note the looong shadows, a sign of Fall
 and coming shorter days.



One Year Later...

 Today is the one-year anniversary of Gone to the Beach. In blog form, that is. My first brief post was put up  a year ago today: a year I've filled with almost one hundred posts, who knew I had so much to say!

I owe it all to my mother...I began writing my blog mostly to fill the void left in my heart when my mother passed away in January '09.

She and I had a long and cherished history of correspondence. We first started writing letters to each other when I went away to college, more years ago than I care to contemplate.

And no form of communication, not even a phone call--or visit! lol---meant as much as finding one of her letters in my mail box.

We wrote at least once a week---often 10 to 12 pages, and woe betide me  if I missed a week. Had to write...No Matter What. And she faithfully wrote back, no matter what. It meant that much to us both.

We wrote about where we went, what we saw, bought or did. What we wore, what we ate, what we cooked. What kind of car to get, where to find white jeans or black cashmere sweaters. Our letters never spoke of emotions, no angst, no happiness, no introspection. No politics, no religion. Maybe the weather, if it was unusually dire: a hurricane, say. Or a blizzard. Not too much about other people, no gossip, maybe just brief news: your uncle retired sort of thing.

And always about books and authors, always a page or more on What We Read. She'd have been heartbroken when Robert Parker died this spring, along with Spenser and Hawk and Jesse and Sunny Randall. [his famous charcaters, we felt like they were friends....].

My mother liked to enclose clippings from her glossy magazines; I begged for the Cape Cod animal and nature columns instead. She sometimes sent photos; I often made little sketches, easier to draw an idea than describe it.

Not only did we hand-write this huge body of letters, in recent years we began to write in a shared diary called a Circle Journal. I am so happy I have these tiny books, a dozen or more. The letters are too unwieldy, too heartbreaking for me to read. But the journals, I can treasure....

As for my blog, she never saw it. And she would not have understood the concept of writing into ether, hoping to find a kindred spirit. But, even though we never discussed religion or afterlife or whatevers, I sometimes hope she---her spirit?---is somewhere.... Reading this blog.

Maybe she is: Anonymous?

love

                     lizzy

   gone to the beach....

Summer's Glory

Today is the last day of summer 2010...the equinox will roll in around 5 PM, followed almost immediately by the rising full Harvest Moon and Jupiter!

Of course it is in the eighties, hot, hot and sunny here. And my morning glories finally decided to raise their beautiful blue faces to the  last sunrise of summer.

 I know morning glories can be invasive, though they are hard to grow here at the beach. I grow them only in containers and deadhead carefully to avoid scattering seeds.


Isn't this the most perfect sky blue! Burpee's Heavenly Blue, a vintage classic, on the right.

And I think the other one is Flying Saucer,on the left.
There are also a few Moonflowers, they bloom in the dark!

And a "volunteer"..an unusual purple, growing out of my deck.

                     

(Is he invading my house? oooh!) Great color!

And here on the dunes...the last hopeful sweet rose of summer...


                    

Welcome autumn!

love

                    lizzy

   .....gone to the beach

Flea Market Finds

The first fall flea market! Yippee! It was awesome, so fun to get out and hunt for treasure.

I don't even think about the flea market from May to mid-September....my Sunday market is right near a major seashore area...and to get there I have to cross numerous little drawbridges, fight my local beach traffic, then the tourists and city-folk...well, it's just not an option. As it was I sat for 15 fidgety minutes as fishing boats and sailboats glided calmly, slowly through an open bridge. The view is nice: white sand, white birds, emerald marshes, blue-blue water. But still.

Anyway, I was amazed at the crowds at the market. Then disappointed not to be finding much. Then, aha!---from two of my longtime friendly dealers I found just the things I needed.

Lots of white linens for white hearts and white Christmas stockings and white doves....

Aren't these beautiful!

I just love this simple guest towel, picture the pale cocoa satin scallops on a stocking cuff? Or across a heart sachet?
And a lovely, never used set of trousseau linens....

 Note the original price![oops, NO! not price $1.99..it's the size. 81 x 99, I think.]

I may keep them or, after a nice bleach and wash, sell the pillow cases in my etsy shop. The sheet will become part of a comforter cover or lining for those white stockings?

And some plain white percale pillowcases---the old tightly woven, very smooth cotton that I love---to sew my special laces to. I like my bed piled high with crisp white lace-edged pillows....I even enjoy the starch and ironing part.

And a collection of rhinestone brooches to turn into tiny picture frames and hang on a Christmas tree or tie to a special present......



like this.....

And just for me...you know how I love turquoise things: a turquoise necklace and an antique (pre-WW2) German Easter egg! So big and pristine. See how the bunny's sky is, well, turquoise? I just had to have him! He came with all the white linens, so I got a good deal, even though his price was more than that of ALL the linens!

Unfortunately it was really, reeeally hot! And so I passed up things that were wonderful but would have necessitated a long  drop-off trip to my car in the sweltering sun: an entire, huge printer's drawer filled with wooden type, wooden letters, all quite large. (sigh). Neat crates for fall decorating. And spectacular mums, only $5.oo each!

Oh well, next week, right?

What treasures did you guys find? Any goodies?



PS Remember our little guy? He sat with me all day Saturday while I worked on a white hearts order. He thought the snips from the seams were food, poor baby. NOT yum. So I fed him crackers.... :-)

 

love

         lizzy

..............gone to the beach