Gone To The Beach: 08.05.2014

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Peeking into the Neighbors' Gardens!

Hi guys! Too hot to walk!? Not if you have a puppy in the house.

cool and shady beach lane

Mo and I walk three or four times a day, and a minimum of a half mile each time, according to my Walk My Dog app [I'm a bit dubious; it doesn't seem that far], so for July we might have walked about 40 miles. Each walk takes between 15 minutes and half an hour---I won't do the math but that's maybe 30 hours? It makes me hot, sweaty and tired just thinking about it. If I could remember to use the app for every walk, which I do not, MMDW will tell me a summary at the end of each month.

I love my doggy but this gets a smidge boring. So what we do as we meander through the neighborhood, is peek stealthily into everyone's gardens....

Lots to admire. Look at the immense 2o foot sunflowers!

The edges of this beach lane's sidewalks are so prettily planted in the margins of the old weathered fences.

Funny sidewalk ''volunteers"...

a tomato?

squash?

Pretty wildflowers...

Daylilies...masses of daylilies.

A LOT of black eyed susans. The seeds must have been very dispersed after Sandy.

The hurricane flood, almost two years ago now, and the very cold windy winter weather really damaged a lot of my area's gorgeous hydrangeas. It's been fun and interesting to see the new varieties that people are planting instead.

I love this new delicate lavender hydrangea.

Mo likes the blue ones! Even if they too are turning pink in our ''wrong'' sandy soil.

This blue lace cap is amazing! I believe it has also now turned dark rose though.

It's hot at midday but this has been a fairly cool summer. These past few days have been blue skies and sea breezes and just about perfect. Like Kelley here in the comments, the late summer days make me a bit nostalgic and homesick. For years in mid-August I'd pack up the kids and head up to my family's home in Cape Cod. Usually we'd fly up, in the crummiest little planes! If we were lucky the pilots would fly low over the Cape for a stunning aerial view. (Unlucky could mean fogged in on Natucket!)

Today was such a Cape Cod day---I could just see myself there: a morning spent with my mom shopping in the wonderful boutiques and stores of the Cape, then an afternoon of sandcastle building at our little beach. Drinks on the deck at sunset, and maybe a lobster boil dinner---with a big extravagant steak for me, since I don't eat seafood. Maybe--ice cream at Lulu's? Some perfect things and ways should never change, I think sadly. But of course change happens, and those days are gone except in our hearts.