to the sea

Living a solid 4.5-5 hours from the sea, we don't get there so often.  Once a year for sure, twice if we really work to make it happen.  I mean, I always want to be near the sea, but, well....... sometimes even 4.5-5 hours feels unrealistic in the scope of everything else life brings our way.  This was the third year in a row (here are photos from our first trip) we've gone camping to the beach with a group of friends in the spring.  This year we landed back at Edisto Beach State Park in SC.  So, so good.  5 days of zero driving and loads of biking, plenty of time exploring the beach and looking for treasures from the sea.  5 days of her running wild with friends and plenty of connecting between the adults, too.  Seafood and campfires, shenanigans and live oak climbing, trying out some of our new camping gear we've purchased for the big trip this summer..... Just so good, all of it.  I've said it many times before and I will again and again- that salty ocean air is one of my favorite medicines ever.

I'm still finding sand in my pockets and seashells tucked away here and there.

hello, november.

So, here we are, in November.  October was of course, as October tends to be, quite lovely.  What with all the misty mornings and startlingly blue afternoon skies, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the amassing of pumpkins and other gourds, and that amazing juxtaposition of primary-colored leaves against a contrasting primary-colored sky.  The sudden onset of slipper wearing and fire-stoking.  The marked increase in hot tea consumption....

The changing of the leaves came to us a bit late here in Western NC and we are only right now in the thick of it here in down.  Just past peak, I'd say.  The hickories have gone from bright mustard to golden brown, the sourwoods vary widely from one location to another.  The sugar maples (few and far between here as compared to up north) are wearing their brilliant glow-orange attire, their more common red maple cousins ranging from bright red to deep scarlet.  We have an abundance of oak trees around, especially white oaks.  They will don their rusty-brown and tannin-rich leaves for weeks and weeks to come, slowly dropping them down to cover this little part of the world quite thoroughly.

It's been a while since I've spent time in this place, hmm?  And I'd even made a 'commitment' of sorts to write more, to show up here more often and unspool the thoughts in my mind and sort through them with intention fairly regularly.  To do so with words.  Well, it's a real thing, it seems, that "Instagram ate my blog" bit.  As quiet as I've been here, I've been sharing daily on Instagram.  About parenting and gardening and looking for land.  About voting and tea drinking and my love of living in a train town.  About herbs and inspiration, and rather a lot about the glorious cosmos flowers in my garden this year. Something about the ease of sharing a photo and a few words from my phone (!) just makes me so much less likely to sit myself down in front of the computer for time enough to put together something more.  Having only recently joined the ranks of smartphone users and Instagram account holding,  I've been a bit swept up in the convenience and beauty of that world.  I've not put anything else on my phone- my email, Facebook..... none of it.  I call, I text, I peek at the beautiful worlds of the various farmers and homesteaders, friends, and national parks that I follow... I check the weather.  That's about it.  Podcasts will be the next step, I suspect (recommendations welcome). Baby steps.

Fall has been good to us.  We've gotten into our homeschool rhythm after the lazy days of summer, and third grade has been quite fun so far (more to come on that soon, I hope).  The garden is mostly quiet now, aside from a couple beds of greens and the flowers that won't give up even after a few light frosts.  That would be the cosmos, the marigolds, some texas sage, and a few holdout coneflowers, zinnias, and larkspurs.  The garlic is tucked in for the winter, I've cleared away a fair amount of the things that needed clearing out and away.  There is something about the fall gardening chores that feel so solid and comforting to me.  So tidy and hopeful.  We're giving thanks for all that was this season before, but also looking ahead to another season of growth and sustenance that we trust will come after a bit of a hibernation.  A hibernation that, as I age, I've come to really enjoy sinking into.

There's a fire in the wood stove now about as often as there isn't.  More snuggling with Ollie on the couch, more quilts on the beds.  Definitely more tea drinking.

Happy November, all.

late summer beach trip, part one :: salty ocean air

A few weeks ago, after our trip to Maryland whereupon we swam in the Chesapeake Bay in lieu of the ocean because we wanted to save a bit of time in the car, I decided that yeah- actually I kind of needed some ocean time after all before summer's end.  That salty ocean air is such amazing medicine and soul food and it'd been a while since I'd had a chance to dive into the sea.  So we booked a quick trip to Kure Beach, just about 5.5 hours away from home.  We'd never been there before but have enjoyed trying out various NC and SC beaches and we were able to find a place short notice, so we went for it.  I am so glad we did.

The trip, in a nutshell, went (something) like this:  drive, tacos, grocery run to one of the cutest little places ever, beach, solo bananagrams (I always do this on vacation), sleep, rise early- tea and fruit and book on the teeny tiny (teeny tiny as in I couldn't even fit my unrolled yoga mat out there- but I could see the ocean, so.....) back balcony, bike ride to the pier and then up to the next town, beach, a trip down near Fort Fisher to a place that's great for exploring at low tide, seafood acquisition and resulting seafood dinner, beach, sleep, rise early and slip away for a solo walk on the beach complete with hot tea and a fresh loggerhead sea turtle nest, back to the beach with everyone, a trip to the aquarium, dinner out at a super yummy farm-to-table sort of place, carnival rides (photos from the aquarium and carnival coming up in the next post because a zillion and ten was too many photos for one post), ice cream, sleep, up early for a final beach trip, picked up lunch to go at the Veggie Wagon and alas, back on the road.


Thank you, thank you, thank you, salty ocean air and crashing waves and sand in my toes.