Gone To The Beach

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Sunflower Days

Hi! Remember my friends who have the tropical garden here at the beach? Well this year their garden has been commandeered by wildly hugely overwhelming volunteer sunflowers!

Seems they did not dead head last year's sunflowers early enough. ALL of the sunflowers in their garden are from last year's seeds.

Now I love sunflowers, so I think it's wonderful. My gardener friends aren't quite so happy, although they do have lovely lilies, a lime tree, a big pot of herbs, and a tiki or two---but no tropicals. Yet.

I love the corners of cool blues, greys, pinks they've added.

This sunflower, I think last year's seed envelope called them Russian Giants, has to be 10 to 12 feet tall and growing madly each day. The stalk is thicker than my arm!

I was interested to see that the sunflower hybrids, the fancies, did not revert to plain, but remain as original. In theory hybrids do not reproduce uniformly.

Miniature ''sunflowers'', black-eyed susans, in reality, grow well here. Exuberant color!

My friend also planted some tropicals for me. So far this is my Elephant Ear. It's more like a Mo ear in size. And my Russian Giants, dwarfed by growing in a deck pot.

Thus year my friend is trying to trim the sunflowers before the seeds start dropping. He had been bringing them to me to dry. I love them, even though the little seed head flowers drop and make a mess. Next winter I'll bring them to the dunes for the little winter birds and rabbits.

Summer at the beach means it's very humid. So I spray a lot of Tilex around every morning. Then I find myself burning pretty scented candles because not everyone loves the aroma, mmmm..., of Clorox, lol.

Have a good rest-of-July! August is almost here, too bad. How about you, are you tired of summer yet?

My summer has just barely begun! I waded in the pool this weekend hooray.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

from Kelley, in California, some stunning photos of the huge fire out there. Surreal.

and here at the beach...

Friday, July 22, 2016

a Sailor's Valentine

Hello! "Hot enough for ya?" It's 97 in the city, only 80 here, but there's a crazy gale wind blowing from the south today. Hot wind, about 40 mph sustained! At 4 o'clock Mo and I tried to go out to sew on the deck. The wind captured my Watermelon-block pieces and hurled them off into the air. Mo gave chase, I hobbled after and together we rescued the prepped pieces. But didn't last long, just too windy.

The other day when I showed you all the tiny shells found on my early summer beach, Mel and I talked about making sailors' valentines with the shells. Briefly these were a supposed craft made by whaling ship sailors to bring home to their sweethearts as gifts. Truth is, they were an island craft and sold in places like Barbados. Tacky souvenirs were just as popular in 1840 as in 2016! This way the men could drink their rum and sleep off-shift and still have something to show for their time at sea. Now this shell art is very prized and costly, both antique examples and new versions.

For awhile I made some Sailors' Valentines. This is the only one I still have.

I loved making the Valentines but at that time the hexagonal/ octagonal boxes were not available to buy [and my dad totally refused to make me some!] and I had no outlet like etsy to sell them. Instead most were given as gifts or simply discarded and I stopped making them.

The box is decoupaged and distressed,

...the inside holds two Valentines. I used a faux scrimshaw carving and an old faded sepia photo, added tiny shells.

I especially love the little rosettes, a motif often seen in the old Valentines.

This is the companion box, a small Shaker-style oval box, also distressed and decoupaged. It contains only memories.

Just a peek, my Whalies! For P2. They too got frazzled by the wind earlier....

Have great weekend!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

PS Look who is visiting! This is the Twins, so I am hopeful the other friendly but much tinier visitor is my Kitty, their mom. They are all part of our local neuter and return program. The neighbors finally realized that the small colony of feral cats cuts down on rats, raccoons, possums, etc. The cats are good neighbors.

More sailors' Valentine's, here.

Sailors' Valentines History, here

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Thunder Moon ~ July

Hi! Tonight and last's full moon, for July, is called the Thunder Moon.

Tradition was, July is the month with the most thunder storms [though actually here June is the more stormy month.] This name supposedly derives fro Native American tradition. The other name for July's full moon is the Hay Moon, an ancient English farming name, when once upon a time farmers used the full moon's light to add hours to their days of harvesting hay. Not something most of us think about---hay? I do recall the giant harvester trucks working later into the night under their bright lights to harvest---something?--back when I was a little girl in Illinois. Probably corn or soybeans, no moon needed.

Later last night, spooky!
[the small bright white dots are planes or ships.]

No, Thunder Moon is far more suitable to my life and times here at the beach. The other day the air felt so heavy and stormy, I was sure there's be a big storm by afternoon. The Weather Bug said ZERO chance of rain. Hmmm. Around 4 PM the clouds hurtled in from New Jersey, leaving the lifeguards to scramble frantically to clear the beaches.

In fact two people were struck by lightning at the beach in Point Pleasant NJ, which is far by road, but just over the water expanse as the gulls fly. Maybe 20 miles away? [see in the left corner where it says Long Branch, that's by Point Pleasant NJ. My beach is under all the yellow lightning Z's. Not far!

This is from my cell phone, another stormy evening. I know It's silly but I get such a kick out of the animated weather pictures displayed in real time on my iPhone. The lightning is even different each time, how cool is that. I also am very fond of the snow screen in the winter,lol.