Tag Archives: nature

Of foggy morning and cats.

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Spring is here … though to be honest I’m still waiting for winter. March in Maine used to mean cold and snow but temps have been near 50 most of the month and up until last week’s snow storm we had green grass in places.

Sigh.

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It’s been damp and too warm all winter.

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Though I admit the morning fog is soothing.

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His Lordship?

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Never misses his morning coffee.

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And now that his scratchy post has been returned to its normal living room site…

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All is right with his world.

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I just hope the furniture stores don’t mind a little cat hair on their fabric samples.

😉

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No! Not the cheese…..

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Every day we’re bombarded with terrible news.

School shootings, plane crashes, natural disasters, war…. but this article I read the other day might be the one to push me over the proverbial edge.

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And it’s more serious than having an uncanny resemblance to our funky window insulation.

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Read on for some truly horrible news.

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Say it isn’t so!

I love Camembert, Brie and Blue….

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This isn’t bad news, it’s catastrophic.

My world will not be the same without the soft ripened loveliness of a creamy Brie or the pungent marbled goodness of blue.

😩

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Saying goodbye to the boneyard and quirky Edisto.

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Thought I was done with the Boneyard Beach photos?

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Almost…

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I promise.

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But who could resist framing their spouse in driftwood?

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Making our way back to the path, I snapped my last photos.

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And my husband joined in the odd shell placement tradition…

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Trying to balance one on the sign.

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Success.

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Exiting through the marsh …

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We climbed back in the ungodly expensive rental behemoth…

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Of which my husband had become entirely too enamored.

It was late afternoon of our last day of vacation so we took a leisurely drive around Edisto Island and enjoyed some of its quirks.

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No one knows who erected this odd marsh angel but apparently she changes with the seasons and has become a local favorite.

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This is the only acceptable answer to the question what do I do with dead palm tree stumps?

Hula girls, that’s what.

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We drove past this native while on the main beach road.

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It was a wonderful sight so I made my husband turn around and circle by him twice to ensure decent photos.

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A poo covered jacket seems a small price to pay for such a beautiful friend.

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This bottle display is an old Gullah way of driving out evil spirits. They have to be blue, but sorry… for the life of me I don’t remember why. The Clemson tiger paw is a modern addition.

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Remember the herd of tiny deer we saw every night? I wondered where they could possibly live in so busy an area…

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The answer was our resort’s golf course.

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Where they clearly didn’t read the sign.

😉

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Do you think the other trees are jealous?

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When you’re in Edisto Beach, South Carolina one image looms large.

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It’s the one lone tree that stands in the surf at Boneyard Beach in the Botany Bay preserve.

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Admittedly it’s a fabulous tree.

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Silhouetted against the sky…

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All by it’s lonesome surrounded by plouffe mud.

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It’s certainly the most photographed tree there.

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But it does make me wonder if the other trees feel left out.

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No one prints postcards of them…

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And some of them are fabulous too.

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Such a strange and amazing place.

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I never would have thought dead trees could be so appealing before visiting here.

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But they were.

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And as much as I would have loved to spend the entire day here, our last few hours in South Carolina were running out and we had to move on.

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Past some live trees that were decorated with shells.

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Shelling amidst the bones.

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Walking the relatively treeless section of Boneyard Beach, it was all about the shells.

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All the beautiful shells it was illegal to remove.

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So of course most of them were perfect.

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It was hard not to slip a few into my pocket.

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There was no one around and they were so pretty.

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But I chose to do the right thing and did what others do.

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Found a perch and left my favorite (look at those colors!) for future beach walkers to enjoy.

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And then it was back to the trees.

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Those marvelously twisted…

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Skeletal trees.

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Needless to say it was against the law to remove the driftwood as well.

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A driftwood selfie was the best I could do.

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❤️

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Bones, burls, swirls and above all… wood.

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Yes, it’s another photo filled post of Boneyard Beach at Botany Bay preserve.

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I’d say I can’t help myself, but I could. I just don’t want to.

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We loved this place and I want you to love it too.

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It was truly one the weirdest natural wonders we’ve ever explored.

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The husband insisted I take this next picture.

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Clearly size is important to men.

Some of the wood was gnarly, some dried out and some twisted.

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But this piece was marvelously swirled.

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As we walked farther down the beach the trees were really piled up.

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Each weirder than the last.

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As we rounded a bend we found areas where shells had been strategically placed.

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It’s illegal to collect and remove things from this beach so people get creative.

It’s a wonderful way to conserve the beauty but this treeless stretch had some amazing shells that were hard to leave behind.

My husband, not caring about shells… found something else photo worthy.

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I can’t imagine why.

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🤣

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More of Boneyard Beach

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I wouldn’t be lying if I told you I took hundreds of pictures of this beach during our trip.

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And while I promise I won’t share them all…

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I am going to post quite a few.

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It was just that good.

The trees.

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The sky.

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The shapes.

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The weird and wonderful sculptures of nature.

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I see a person running here, anyone else?

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💕

❤️

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A boneyard with no bones.

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Day 7, the last full day of our southern anniversary vacation started like the previous 6… with a card.

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This trip was our gift to each other so I opted for a card a day instead.

I’m thoughtful that way. 😉

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It also started with the malfunction of my very last can of (the now reformulated and totally awful Aussie instant freeze… may a pox fall upon their houses and render every last one of the executives bald) hairspray.

Oh, the horror!

With my drastically unsecured hairdo, we headed out that morning to buy a thank you gift for our neighbor who was caring for Lord Dudley Mountcatten in our absence. On the way out of the store I chuckled at the appropriate license plate of the elderly owner.

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And speaking of moss…

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We decided to make the most of our last day and return to the Botany Bay preserve to fully explore Boneyard Beach at low tide.

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Passing under that gorgeous canopy of trees again on the way in.

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It never got old.

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Our previous two trips to the beach were shortened first by loss of daylight and then by rising tide.

We hoped for better viewing this time.

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I know the pictures don’t do it justice…

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But you have to trust me, this place was amazing in person.

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Even with bad hair and high winds.

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The skeletal remains of all those trees made it feel like another planet.

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Or maybe this one after some kind of Planet of the Apes scenario.

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Look…

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My husband smiled, so you know it was special.

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I swear if I lived in this area I’d be here everyday…

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❤️

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Deer, dolphins, turtles, rogue sand, a parking miscalculation and me.

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Returning to the condo after Boneyard Beach, we met the nightly herd of neighborhood deer.

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They wander the area at will, not the least bit scared of cars or people.

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Southern deer are much smaller than the ones we’re used to seeing up north.

To me these are basically large dogs.

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We wondered where they slept in this area… it’s a beach after all, crowded with houses and very little undeveloped woods.

Did I mention we had dolphins in front of our resort twice a day? Two hours before high tide and two hours before low. They follow and drive the fish and we loved seeing them frolic.

Of course every time I tried to film them they stopped. Pay close attention here and you’ll see one break the surface.

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And speaking of sea creatures, Edisto Island is all about the turtles.

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Brightly painted and prominently displayed.

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Some of them were quite creative.

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On the main drag?

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The sand seemed to be gaining ground.

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And every time we drove by this rental house? We laughed.

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Oops. Major parking dimension miscalculation there.

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Another balcony selfie, slightly squinty as I was looking into the sun.

😉

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Sunset at Boneyard Beach

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I’m not sure my vocabulary contains enough adjectives to properly describe how sublime Boneyard Beach at sunset can be….

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Mysterious.

Spectral.

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Otherworldly.

Striking.

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Wondrous.

Captivating.

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Preternatural.

Glorious.

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Exquisite.

Magical.

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In other words… fan-flippin-tastic!

We really didn’t want to leave but the tide was rolling in fast and there are warnings everywhere about being trapped, so we headed back down the marsh land path.

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Where the sunset was also pretty sweet.

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As we left, I knew if we had the time I wanted to come back at low tide and walk the whole beach.

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It was that good.

😊

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