In and Out, Out and About

Hello! What a glorious day we had today. In fact the whole week has been pretty good, funny how quick we forget though. And it is March. Big winds!

Mo and I are continuing our walks every day right before Mo's dinner, at sunset. I'm training him to expect just the short walk to the beach bench then past the feral kitties' winter lodging, then round the corner and home.

But one day was soooo nice we took our old fave route to the koi pond!
We went through the secret beach path alley.

We found daffodils shoots,

and snowdrops.

The koi were bright orange but motionless.

They seem to go into a state of suspended animation. Frozen fish! The round thing must be an aerator not a heater since there was ice forming on the pond surface.

Back home my forsythia is still blooming brightly! Third week, for 3.99. What a bargain.

This is one paper white narcissus that was a very slow grower. I like how small it has stayed! It's very cute, no scent.

And the pussy willows are cheery and fun too. I put some trimmings in a sea glass medicine bottle,

the rest are on the pine bride's bench. The fluffy blooms are so adorable. Though they don't stay pink, too bad.

Today it was 61* when I drove to the post office. [with probably a wind chill of low 40s, but still.] I rushed home and prepped a hand applique block so Mo and I could sit on the deck.

Oh this makes him so happy, it's even better than getting to sleep in mommy's bed. So, okay. (I enjoy it too. Natural vitamin D!)

My first pineapple, for Fall Festival.

A messy rush job.

The red gets trimmed away, it's just there for stability. The technique is called ''reverse applique".

Here's a section of the pattern photo, so you can see how the pineapples will look.

A few people have said they don't like the idea of pineapples and as I sewed I had the notion that, if shortened a bit, they could be wonderful bee skeps/ bee hives with black crows sitting on the top?  I love the pineapples, so now it's a quandary!

Mo and I watched the big sand mover truck. It came right up onto our dunes where the boardwalk has been all winter.

[The walkway was lifted up so the machine could grade the path, then it will be relaid. Otherwise the path becomes too steep.]

All this good weather and hints of spring? Hahaha...big snow coming tomorrow , followed by frigid temps, or so the weather bug tells me.

I'll be busy with my Wild Geese spacers. Mo is practicing wearing his Mad Pilot hat. We're ready.

PS Mo's current trick-in-training is to dance on his hind legs, and to pirouette!  He's got the dance down, but the spin needs work, hahaha. I think he knows there's a pink tutu in his future...

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

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.

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