Winter Beach

Hi! Let's go for a walk!
I was watching treasure hunter videos on You Tube the other night! Very inspirational, lol. And since the wind died down a little I could get out with my cameras.

You can see the path to the beach is already rebuilding itself, above.

My town is helping the dunes rebuild by piling up discarded Christmas trees. The branches attract sand and the dunes repair themselves naturally.
I was surprised to see so many trees.  I often think I am the only person around who buys a real once-live Christmas tree, in this age of prelighted green plastic. It's also kind of nice to think one's tree, once admired and treasured, then just tossed aside, can have a second life rebuilding the beach. Cool.

This isn't a very pretty picture, below---unless you think about what was here just a month ago. This is where that huge storm debris garbage dump was! Many trucks came just before Christmas and hauled the junk away in only a couple days. It was many football fields' worth of, sadly, the remnants of peoples' homes.

....

Heading west, far away, I could see this red thing! [just to the right of the brilliant security light which is actually another mile or two beyond and marks a washed out dangerous stretch of beach.]
See it? Big as a mom-van...whatever could it be?

 

 

No! It is the red channel buoy, still here. There is a red flasher out 10 miles in the shipping lane, so I thought this one had been hauled back out to sea.

But no. Either it isn't ours, or it was easier/ faster right after Sandy to just put a new one there. Its timed red flasher warns large ships away and marks the entrance, to my east, to the inner bay and fishermen's marinas. It contains a computer operated light sequence, and broadcasts information like wave height, air and water temperature, wind velocity. 
It sends out information to ships that lets them locate their safe routes in our surprisingly treacherouse water.
You'd think it was valuable enough to salvage, wouldn't you? Well unless it is from South Jersey or somewhere far....

 

 

Then the early winter sunset began, catching me by surprise a couple miles from home.
You'll notice the sky and beach get lighter again as the sun peeks beneath the snow clouds, before the final dusk.
.
I'll just let the pictures talk, enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then...the full moon, the January Wolf Moon, rose in the eastern sky...

 

 

 

 

And as I headed home in the near dark the first fluffy snowflakes began to fall. Pink snowflakes....happy sigh.

And hot tea...

love

        lizzie

           gone to the beach

PS   This was the only treasure:

Isn't it so cute? But too heavy to drag home. Look at the darling handpainted bows---even on the seats!--- 
and white weathered wood.

They seem to be old stadium seats that someone redid as a country kitsch, shabby chic bench. .  Too bad I have nowhere to put it...

 

***don't forget to click and supersize the photos!