Write in your heart that every day is the best day of the year. Part of the joy in taking photographs, to me, lays in the discovery of simple and familiar things seen in a different perspective. Today that joy was from the summer sky above the delicate blossoms of Queen Anne’s Lace.
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Cape May, December 2007
Be glad of life because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. –Henry Van Dyke
There is always something to savor at Cape May… any day, in any weather, at any season… something is always making its way through the skies overhead.
The time that holds the greatest interest for me is from late August until the middle of November: the fabled fall migration period. The variety of habitats: ocean and bay, salt marsh, freshwater ponds, dark swamps, woodlands and upland fields all attract a diverse array of migrants… hordes of butterflies and dragonflies, hawks and falcons, shorebirds, songbirds, bats, seabirds, owls – you name it!
Conveniently, the New Jersey Audubon Society throws out the welcome mat at one of the best times to experience migration at Cape May for its Autumn Weekend this year on October 24, 25, and 26.
Some of The Flock are getting restless and making preliminary plans to attend. Susan and KatDoc are driving from Ohio (and will hopefully avoid a stop in Camden), Lynne, I think, will cash in the ticket she bought last year and fly all the way from Minnesota (Yay!).
Other Flock members are saving their pennies for New River in April, but maybe they can be convinced otherwise. Mary, Delia, Susan, Nina, Ruthie, Jayne (can that be? Really, you’re gonna come?) – why not join us in Cape May, too? That farmhouse in W. Va. is gonna be pretty crowded and loud I think!
I’m also thinking maybe we should harass Larry into making the trip or Dave (hey – Alaska’s not that far and we could all get to meet Ghost!). Maybe Bobbie could join us for lunch and what about Heather in Pa.? The more the merrier!
😉
I’ll sneak away there at least once before October – for the Monarchs that breeze past the lighthouse or the falcons that scream down along the dunes. I just can’t resist… there’s something in the air.
Labs are nothing if not trainable…
Luka knows to sit, stay, wait, speak and shake hands on command. He can also do all those things with just a hand signal. He goes to his crate when we tell him to and will mostly stay there of his own accord. Down, off, leave it and drop it are things we’re still working at.
😉
Let’s face it though; these tricks are limited in their usefulness. It’s nice at dinnertime to be able to send him to his crate so he’s at least begging from a few feet away, nice when visitors come so he’ll be calm and not underfoot, helpful when I’m vacuuming so he’s not able to wrestle the hose out of my hand.
On walks, he knows to sit and wait at intersections before I tell him it’s okay to cross with me. He sits and waits to let me go out or come in the door before him. He sits and waits for his dinner. Good manners, I think, are important. Luka and I went to 16+ weeks of obedience school to learn the basics that I’ve since applied to our daily lives around here so that we can live together fairly nicely.
My husband teaches him parlor tricks.
We remove his collar whenever he goes into his crate for safety reasons. The DH taught him to retrieve the collar from the dining room table when he’s let out of the crate for his mid-afternoon walk. He reaches up, mostly without putting his feet on the table, grabs the collar and then carries it to the back door to sit and wait to go out.
Very convenient, right?
Only… he does it all the time now, whenever he wants attention. For example, this morning I was up late for work, had just stepped out of the shower and was sitting on the bed in a towel… and there he was in the bedroom doorway with that damn collar in his mouth, wagging his tail at me!
Pick up the phone and there he is with it, suddenly wanting to go out. Have your hands in a sink full of dishes? Luka’s rattling his collar at your feet.
He also likes to prance around with it and not give it up when you’re finally dressed enough to take him out. A great game when you’re already late for work, don’tcha know?
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Silly dog!
(Silly DH for teaching him that trick.)
Is it just me or do you imagine how it must really hurt to walk around on a coneflower?
I think I must be working too hard or need a nap or something. I’ve gone off the deep end… I’m channeling butterflies.
😉
Autumn comes at night, I think. It creeps in on soft footsteps in the darkness after days of thunderstorms and billowy clouds. Its telltale creaks on the stairway are the katydids, rasping at the edges of the night and shaping the season from August to September, to Autumn.
Autumn is my favorite time of year and I’m happy for the hint of it the last couple nights have brought. The air is almost crisp and there’s a tinge of ripening apples drifting in the open windows; the stale humid air of summer is a memory on nights like these. It makes me want to head out the door after midnight, down the road and to the beach, to feel the cool sand underfoot and to look at the moon and the stars and the sea with its ever-changing moods.
During daylight hours, it’s still high summer. Wet shells shine in the noon sun and the air smells of coconut oil; the slap of flip-flops is the soundtrack, the atmosphere like an amusement park. Nights though, and Autumn, bring relief. Relief from all that energy and heat and all these people. The beach can be mine again.
Cropped out of this pic is the ice and snow that decorated the bay on the January day it was taken. Also cropped out is any sense of scale; this is a remote-controlled toy sailboat. I watched a bunch of *grown-up* men playing with them in the midst of a snow squall… proof that many of us are so enamored with the coast and its many pleasant pastimes that seasons or weather can hardly keep us away; we pretend our way through the meantime.
Who in their right mind makes chili in the middle of summer?
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Me.
I’ve been looking for an excuse to make this recipe for a while, but it didn’t turn up until today. The peppers were cheap at the market and there’s still those sweet onions I plucked from the dirt a couple weeks ago, so all I really needed to buy was some chicken to roast and shredded cheese to drown everything in.
Why, BTW, is chicken so expensive? $13.00 for 4 split breasts… jeez. Good thing I don’t eat meat very often; I could hardly afford it.
Anyway… this chili is nice; not a traditional spicy chili, but something lighter and sweeter. I added some kidney beans and served it with rice… and had an avocado on the side. Delicious.
I like hot stuff, but traditional chili can easily end up tasting like dirt if you’re not careful with the spices. I usually make something like Cincinnati-style chili, sweetened with cinnamon and served over spaghetti. That’s probably my favorite way to have it. Susan keeps promising me an authentic recipe. Hint, hint!
While I’ve sort of veered away the last two weeks from the intent of Vicki’s Saturday Shopping Challenge, a good by-product is that I’m paying a bit more attention to what I spend and I’m actually spending some time in the kitchen on weekends. Generally, I’d rather do anything besides cook!
So… what was on the menu for you tonight?
Taken two months ago (nearly to the day) a few miles southwest of Carrington North Dakota. The *ridge* or what passes for one on the prairie, seen in the far distance where the radio towers are barely visibe, is a couple hundred feet above the surrounding plains.
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hot hay-scented breath in your face brings on fits of giggling…
homemade peach ice-cream fixes a belly-ache…
busy bees fly off with your troubles…
pausing to admire a ladybug is sure to make you smile…
silly puppies with their first-ever bandana will cure anything that ails you!
No… not one of my pampered housebunnies, but a wild one caught freeloading in the veggie garden.
The neighborhood cottontails seem to know they can get away with it here. The groundhogs still haven’t figured out they’re not welcome, after many years of well-aimed flip-flops tossed in their direction.
😉
