I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Friday, May 20, 2016

Pansies, Herring Moon, Horseshoe Crabs



Hello! May is rushing by, isn't it. Next week, summer begins, ready or not!



Here at the beach, May is pansy month, their little sweet faces filling garden corners as the tulips and daffs fade into memory.






I've always adored pansies and their dear little cousins, violas, or Johnny Jump Ups as we called them when I was a little girl. Every spring I'd beg my dad to plant pansies...."No, too hot, they'll bolt." He was adamant. Until we lived in Cape Cod, where, as here, the cool salt air Spring is perfect for growing pansies.






I usually get a pot or two, they do make me smile. I'm happy when I find assortments like this, I have such a hard time choosing. I like to put them in my funny old pink crock.


I bought my pansies at least a month ago, but they've just been huddled shivering on my deck til this week. It's chilly and windy but there's been enough sun for me and Mo to sit outside and sew on Summertime and Dotty, an hour here and there.





Enough blooms now for some tiny bouquets.


I tuck the flowers into little seaglass bottles I've beachcombed over the years.


I especially love this bottle.


It's actually a 1930s-ish art deco salt shaker. Like from a roadside diner. It's wonderfully sand blasted on all the ribs.  I imagine  it, long ago, being tucked into a picnic basket to salt the fresh corn and tomatoes, or even the watermelon. Then it rolled off the beach blanket, into the sand, and was left there on the beach for maybe 80 years, until I found it and brought it home. To me a treasure. [but is it happy to be back on my kitchen shelf? Or did it love the freedom of living wild and unfettered all alone on the beach? Oh dear. Maybe it wants to go back?]


Summertime's borders are going steadily but slowly.




A learning curve here, it's good to learn new things [Itell myself hopefully]--like how the flowers and birds have to be sewed before the long garland stem, because they must tuck under; the baskets' stars have to go on last---and must be lined with opaque Pellon so they don't shade through and look messy, because the stems go in behind the baskets, which must be left open. Then the yoyos!? They will wait until everything is done, even the binding and washing, after the quilting is done. Only then can I sew on my adorable yoyos from from Sue, and the birdies' eyes and the stamens in the morning glories.
Not pressed because the stem line is drawn in Frixion pen....


Patience is key.


Are you a patient person? Do you think it's a needed trait to be a sewer or a quilter, a cook, a gardner, a mom? Do you value patience in others? Or is it just...boring?

love


lizzy

gone to the beach.....

PS full disclosure: I am very patient with a project, or with animals and children. I'm okay with traffic delays even. But I won't wait even a  minute at a store, to pay for something. Grocery store excepted. LOL.


Tonight the Moon is full. The May moon is called the Flower Moon, though I have always known it as the Herring Moon, when the herring swim from the ocean, upstream into the freshwater creeks, to spawn.





Tonight and tomorrow at low tide, the ancient horseshoe crabs will crawl ashore and lay their eggs. They slowly rotate and dig a hole that they somehow line with a sand and ''glue'' substance, and the females deposit their hundreds of eggs. Some will be food for the plovers and terns, but many will become crabs, big as a trashcan lid! Life's circle.

google images




8 comments:

  1. The delicate blue and peach pansies are a wonderful complement (spelling?) to each other in that sweet crock. Me thinks the salt cellar is happy to have a home again. Enjoying the progress of the quilt shown above. So free and sweet. You brighten my day, dear friend. Blessings.

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  2. I love your pink crock! Just perfect. And your story about the salt shaker, made me smile. I am glad you found this lost treasure, and I am sure it is loving living in your lovely home. Occasionally, lift it up to show it the sea. :) Kit

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  3. Oh the pink crock! Love it with the pansys. So very happy looking!

    Oh the salt shaker is for sure happier being with you. My eyes locked on the photo of it before I read the text and I immediately fell for it ;)

    As for patience...with most things I have a lot. Especially with animals. I am laughing to myself about your comment that you won't wait in a store to buy anything. I DID have a mental tantrum at Target recently. They had installed tandem registers, I assume so that they could open more lines when needed. Well, it was busy and they only had two registers open. The line wrangler person asked if I wanted to utilize the self check-out. NOOO! If I WANTED to use the self check-out, I would be over there. WHAT I WANT IS FOR YOU TO OPEN MORE REGISTERS! Again, that was all in my head. Stupid Target, what's the point of having more than a dozen registers if you're not going to use them. Sheesh! Ok, rant over.

    Kelley

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    Replies
    1. Mel & Kel----Oh you re so right about the self help check out. A few weeks ago, when I was feeling REALLY bad, the store guy insisted I use the self check. I said I have no idea how to do it, so he stood there and did it for me. So stupid. Then he left before helping me pay, I had to go get him back to run my credit card. Then, even tho I could barely move, I had to pack my own groceries. I was so annoyed. [normally I do pack my own groceries but that day I was in so much pain...]

      I think they don t have cashiers to fill the spots, minimum wage etc.

      My Target is always really good, lots of cashiers, short lines and very fast. Kohl's is always a nightmare, huge lines.

      What s a tandem register>

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    2. Yes, even when you're not feeling poorly, self check out just requires you to do too much...you're unloading your cart, scanning items, getting your payment out (and back away again) getting your receipt and change, THEN bagging your own stuff all while trying to hurry and not feeling especially confident about what you're doing. It's too much. Usually when I am approached by an employee asking me to use the self check out, my response is "if I do, my head will explode."

      Well, say where there used to be 10 registers/lines, theye have added 10 more registers using the same amount of space. There's one register nearer the front, and a second register about half way back, but they are directly in-line with one another. Hmmm, not sure that paints the picture, but it's the best I could do ;)

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  4. Love the pink crock of pansies, it certainly looks like spring!

    Some days I'm fairly patient, other days not so much. Most of the time I'm willing to wait a reasonable length of time in a checkout line IF the employees are actually busy and not messing around or chatting. But, like Kelley, I really hate when the big stores have 20+ registers and only 2 or 3 open. WalMart also recently installed a bunch of self-checkout machines but I refuse to use them. The few times I gave them a try they didn't work right and someone had to come fix it anyway. Their profits are high enough, just open some more ATTENDED registers already! It's especially annoying on weekends or holidays when they should have planned for it to be busy, with enough checkers on the floor!

    Oh, I'd love to watch the horseshoe crabs! I think they look like aliens, LOL. I can't decide if seeing a bunch on the beach would be creepy or not....

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  5. The pansies are so sweet. They don't last long here because of the heat. I love your little salt shaker. :)
    I wait in lines when I have to, but I live in a small town so it isn't that often. I use self check all the time! So much faster for me unless I have a lot of stuff.

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  6. When I was in college I had a poster: "God grant me patience and I want it right NOW!" The older I get the more patient I have become - except with the freeway. I would rather take surface streets and move (slowly) than be on the freeway and not move at all!

    Love the flowers!

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