Fall Flea Market....

Hello! The weather is still quite warm, a more reasonable 70's though!
With a wonderful big "changes" wind blowing and bright sunshine...so...off to the flea market today.
And I did some early autumn home decorating when I got home....

Years ago I had a small but nice collection of 19th century stoneware crocks and fruit jars. They didn't "go" with my beachy look at the time so I lent the best  ones (extensive cobalt blue decorations) to my parents who also collected stoneware. And when my parents passed away and their collections were auctioned up on Cape Cod, my crock collection got sold along with. Hmmmm....

Anyway I still like the primitive look of stoneware, especially in the fall. So I've been buying a few very very very inexpensive modern pieces at the flea markets now and then.

This is my newest item, a salt glaze pitcher, from Germany. Again, my parents had lovely antique German crocks that I believe were from my grandparents' or great-grandparents' homes.

This is the same sort of style, but modern. You can see how the American potters of the 1800s brought their craft from Germany and Switzerland just as their wives brought their colorful ''Pennsylvaina Dutch" [ie German] quilting styles.

This small squat pitcher resonated with my memories and the price was right at  $5.oo!

This is perhaps the first crock/ jar I ever bought. It is from the Kane County Flea Market in Illinois.

It was too plain for my dad's taste so I kept it and it did not get sold.  

Now it holds my  sunflower crop that I am drying for my little winter birds who visit.

A newish piece, from Salmon Falls Pottery. I love the chickens!

Filled with beach grasses until I get my pumpkin set out.

And the tall pitcher from a few  weeks ago. It to is waiting, for me to go out to the marsh and cut an armload of invasive but so pretty (I am careful with it) bittersweet.

This was my mother's favorite plain crock or small churn. It was a souvenir from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She liked to imagine it travelling west in a covered wagon...

And she filled it with hydrangeas every fall.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend....Did you buy your pumpkins!? Some candy corn or Indian corn?

We were too lazy but we did buy our fall bulbs and also our forcing bulbs for next January. Now is the time, plan ahead!

love
  
             lizzy

gone to the beach....





Beach Weather's Back!



             

               October



That was the headline on the local paper yesterday. And oh boy, was it hot!

My car's thermometer read 90* in the flea market parking lot, when I staggered into my air-conditioned Jeep, drank copious amounts of water, and hoped I did not have sunstroke...

I never go to the flea market when it's this hot, but who knew?
I should have had an inkling.....ALL the drawbridges were up and down; I think every big white boat in the Atlantic was out on the water yesterday. Parking lots at the public beaches read: FULL-no parking....in October?!

Look closely, below, see the good advice?

 I went home, mentally postponed all my well-intentioned fall cleaning. I dug out my beach bag, located my sand chair, and headed down to the beach....

It was pretty busy, too. Look at all those footprints in the sand and folks just relaxing, pretending it's July....

  

Down by the water the temp is about 80* or so...really nice beach weather, especially for walking barefoot in the crisp, cool surf....

I brought my little doll quilt. I like the bright unshadowed sunlight on the beach for sewing....

I haven't worked on this little guy since I hastily sewed n the binding just before Hurricane Irene came.  Messy job I did too. I resewed it instead of ripping and redoing. I want it to be finished....

Columbus Day is the unofficial end of summer here (well, some years it's Veterans' Day, I have time, right?) But this was my summer '11 beach project.

Lovely soft doldrum-ish waves...

More jade green waves and big ships...

Farewell Summer sandcastles...

This was a beauty!

A few seashells...

a little companion...

and  wide open sands...

Life is good!

love

lizzy

    gone to the beach



Sunny Days

The fog has finally---I hope---moved on.

  

Today was what the weather guys like to call a Ten Best Day...72*, 20 mph wind, not a cloud in the sky and no humidity.

My shorebirds are in full autumn  behavior mode:

busy eating...

Then flying in huge wheeling masses of white/black/ white...

sanderlings take flight

The oystercatchers left promptly on October 2nd. They were there on Saturday, then all disappeared. Here today, gone tomorrow..back on St Paddy's Day. I surmise they know the date by the length of the days, or the angle of the sun, so much lower in the sky now. I'll miss them. They are my favorite birds, the pairs returning each year to their exact nesting spots, they seem like tiny friends.

 The sanderlings [above and below] arrive daily, they must number in the thousands now.

Small groups of passing through migratory shorebirds seek safety in numbers and stay briefly within the larger flocks...here are dunlins, sandpipers, plovers, and gulls...

Semi-palmated plovers...darker than the piping plovers, more sleek. Dark brow and cream white with a distinct neck ring...he is in the right crescent of this puddle, with other "peeps"...

 

 Larger sandpipers,below, probably spotted sandpipers in their spotless winter garb...running in rows...

 Tiny footprints in the sand, the flocks snuggle close together at night...

 A couple of fish crows?...[note the dark beak]
 

see his open beak, I think he is yelling for his mom! the bigger crow...


                    

Herons gather in the marshes...Mallards and sandpipers in the flood swales...




 And in my yard, the holly and bayberry bushes are busy with tiny visitors---all kinds of warblers and kinglet. Shy and hungry, they find the berries fuel for their long journeys south. Others hungrily pursue the many mosquitoes still swarming in the grass and ion the dunes. I hope the little birds eat their fill..eat 'em all!

And then I found this interesting burrow! I wonder who lives here, the hole is about 1 1 1/4 diameter. Not a snake, I don't think my island has snakes....and see the tiny footprints within the tire tread tracks? Maybe I'd rather not know! [huge bug? small mouse?].

edit: it seems that this is a ghost crab burrow: Ghost crabs which I have never seen on my beach. They are a southern tiny crab, maybe washed north by recent storms?

A few "treasures'' on the very bare sand and tideline:

a single shard of old cobalt glass...

an abandoned car!

 Here's a tiny butterfly shell pair.This mollusk is a favored food of all the birds. The pretty colored shells are about 1/2" long....above you can it to the right of the little toy car.

                          

Hope your October is lovely too! Tell me what it's like where you are?

PS:  pls email me if you're unable to post a message? lizzy.d@gmail.com

Thx!

love

                 lizzy

self portrait 5

                                   

gone to the beach!