Quiet Time

Hi! This has been a delightfully quiet week here at the beach. Much as I love the summer busy-ness and friends and family galore, I also relish some quiet time alone.

Do you ever feel that way?

These photos were taken on a quiet late afternoon walk. It's been an oddly cool summer and even though the afternoons are often hot, in the eighties, by early evening the breeze has cooled things down.

The beach is filled with the returning gulls and their big dark ugly babies. Mosy of these gulls are herring gulls.

My beach is professionally cleaned by our town, mornings and evenings. But a midday high tide can leave a trail of not-pretty flotsam along the tideline. The lines of black are tiny empty mussel shells. They'll be gone the next day, only to return next summer as they hatch or whatever they do out there.

Gully wannabee. He came up to my chair and WAH-Wah!!, begged.

I think this is the real Gully in the background.

Maybe this is his or her bad baby?
A little Gully-in-training?

Unknown shellseekers, below. I saved this photo, thinking it would make a wonderful painting. I love the lack of color, just shades of khaki and grey---maybe just a bright spot of color, the boy's board shorts, or a sandbucket?

Back home, on the deck, I've been eking out a half hour each evening to sew on my Eagle block. Does it look less like a goose now? I redrew the eagle's head. [the stars inside the wreath are not as white as shown in the photo. But I may have to go back with tea and a paintbrush and darken it up.]

I am teaching Mo to sit beside me in his own chair!

He has a special Kong thing so he can hold his chew sticks by himself.

Unfortunately so far he thinks the game is Throw the chewy down for mom to retrieve. Stitch, stitch, pick up the chewy. Stitch, stitch. And repeat.

The eagle is about 1/2 done. Then there are the stars to be done this month. I think I will do them with a whipstitch, my compromise between too hard needle turn [too slow, I mean] and machine sewing.

I prewashed the corner triangles' reds the other day, and rinsed them in Retayne. I'm glad I did because they ran a lot even with the Retayne. I rinsed them until they showed clear rinse water. I hope that fixed the red dye! (Or disaster looms!?).

Have a great weekend! Here's hoping my blog friend Hunter weathers the hurricanes okay, in Maui!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach......

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.

Does summer's beauty make you sad sometimes? Or it brings back fond memories to enjoy?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach

 

 

Farmers Market, Seven Dollars in my Pocket

 

Hi guys! Yep, my pockets ''were to let'' as the heroes say in old fashioned novels. But don't worry, I'm not going to inundate you with ads or requests for ,lol, donations! Just poor planning on my part, I forgot to detour to the local ATM before shopping. One drawback of an outdoor farmers market is that it's cash only.

So what should I BUY!? Swiss chard looks interesting.

Lots of beautiful mid-summer ''truck garden" produce, plus eggs and herbs and cheeses. I think these softball sized round zucchini would be excellent stuffed with quinoa or couscous. [How would I precook the little green spheres? Microwave?]

Many onions for my planned onion tart. Lori from Humble Quilts has shared her rustic tart crust with me for that project.

 

But to me, fresh tomatoes almost always win, they're such a luxury.

I bought a couple heirloom tomatoes and a very tasty though funny looking giant yellow squash.

Every summer I must make fried tomatoes at least once. It's a tradition, from my dad, through his Virginia-raised mother's background. Like ham and fried chicken, but yummier. In my childhood home, fried tomatoes were traditionally served with pork chops [and gravy!] and corn on the cob. I usually just have the tomatoes and corn, plus a salad or squash.

Recently my friend Mel had mentioned loving squash dipped in cornmeal and fried. I had to try that! And it is delicious. We decided the cornmeal would be great used for fried tomatoes too. After all, I now own a huge sack of cornmeal, what'll it be?

I mixed in some flour and paprika, dried onions, pepper and salt. The flour helps the crust stay on the tomato and not stick to the pan.

Fried, yes, fried---in olive oil instead of bacon grease like my mom did. She kept an old green crock in the fridge, with the Sunday morning bacon renderings collected. I wish I had this crock! Wonder if my brother saved it?

The tomatoes [and the giant maybe Delicata squash?]---were wonderful. Well worth my seven dollars and I even had a few dollars to spare for a few ears of corn.

Frugal Lizzy? I'll be, like, on all the frugal queen blog rolls. Or maybe not! It's grey today, a perfect beach hike day! I hope I find treasure...

love

lizzy

gone to the beach......