T Stands for Some Random Photos

 Hi everyone. And a special hello to the folks who stop by at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  for T Day.

For this T day I’ll be sharing some random photos from around my little spot on the planet. FYI-this is a photo heavy post today.

I not only captured this cabbage white butterfly on my starting to bloom oregano, but I also got the bumblebee at the top too. I didn't even notice the bee until  I looked at the photo.

And I'm not great at dragonfly identification, but I think this is a blue darner on my bee balm.

A busy lady (honey bee) on this sunflower.

I'm pretty happy with my woods little garden. The sweet woodruff took off like crazy this year, and I recently picked up some coral bells to fill spots. (The greenhouse near me is now closed, but for a couple of weeks before closing for the year they have buy 1 get 1 free to unload all their plants.) I'm waiting for my Vinca to start spreading a bit more though.

I'm not too happy about these elephant ears bulbs though. I bought a big shade garden collection of them from Costco. Some went into a couple of pots and some went into the ground. There's nothing wrong with the ones in the pots, but the *+!@* chipmunks ate all the ones I put in the ground, which was most of them. Live and learn I guess. 

But these 3 year old zinnia seeds grew great and look nice in my rusting old  bucket.

And this plant started growing on the edge of the grass. I wasn't sure what it was, until now. It's a huge goldenrod. It doesn't look good the way it is all flopped over, but I know the bees and other insects really rely on it in August. And FYI- golden rod is NOT ragweed, which some people are allergic to.

A terrible photo, but I'm finally getting some little cucumbers in my garden.. 👍

  I made a blueberry with some cherries pie last week. I've never made crust in a food processor before, but it made a very good crust.

You may have seen the photos about my visit to Star Island that I posted about last week. (Here's the post Star Island if you are interested). We went into the hotel on the island to use the bathroom, and we explored it just a bit too. Here's a few photos. You can see how not modern it is. I bet it didn't look very different when it was built in 1876, except maybe these electric lights were actually gas lamps.

In the Pink Parlor  they had a small display about a famous historical local named Celia Thaxter. She was born in Portsmouth (New Hampshire), and then grew up on  one of the Isles of Shoals. It was a small island and the family was the only ones on it because her father was the lighthouse keeper.  The lighthouse was the only thing on the island. Thaxter became a relatively famous poet and writer. She  hosted writers on Star Island during the summers that included some big names in American literature such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier and Sarah Orne Jewett. And to connect this to my T day post, Celia Thaxter also  liked to paint dinnerware too.

Here's some examples of her dinnerware that were on display in the pink parlor. She did a lovely job. 

You might notice a cup in the bottom left, and there's a couple of drink pitchers at the top left. Those are my tickets to T this week.

They also had one of her handwritten poems  framed and hanging on the wall.

I think that is enough for me today. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead.

This Week Is Quiet But Last Week Wasn't

    Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you. I am really enjoying a very unscheduled week along with the rain and clouds we've been having.  I'm not really a rainy day person, but it was so dry we needed the moisture. Plus, since I haven't had much on the calendar this week (hurrah for a quiet week), it's great to have some time to do a few art projects, make a blueberry pie with some native blueberries I bought and even get a bit of a cleaning project accomplished. 😀

     During the summer my husband only works until noon on Friday's, so that's our boating/fishing day. Last week we took a break from fishing and invited a friend of mine and her sister out for a cruise. It was an absolutely gorgeous weather day (as tomorrow promises to be), and we went a bit offshore to Star Island, which is a part of the Isles of Shoals. The Isles of Shoals is a small group of islands about 7 miles offshore. Some islands are in the state of Maine, and some are in of New Hampshire.

     Star Island is owned by the Unitarian Universalist Church. It is definitely a  place to escape. Not only does the island run self-growth retreats, but it also runs art, writing, birding and a variety of other classes that are not religiously based. Star Island has a history of being a retreat for some of New England's most famous classic writers back in the mid-1800's when it was not owned by the Unitarian Church, and a famous local poet, Celia Thaxter actually grew up on one of the other Isles of Shoals as she was lighthouse keeper's daughter.

     Today there is  an old hotel on Star Island. The Oceanic was built in 1876. It is still a very bare bones place and hasn't had a lot of updating. You are welcome to come ashore and visit. We usually take  1 or 2 boat rides out there during the summer, and I have visited the island in the past. However, I haven't gone ashore since before COVID hit. It's always fun to take a step back in time, and I think the island is very scenic. One day I might even go for one of their (non-religious) programs and stay over.

     My husband dropped us off at the boat dock, and he took the boat and anchored in the harbor. I think he took a nap while we went for a walk around the island and explored. I thought I shared a few photos today of our trip.

My husband's boat is the tiny one on the far left of the photo.

The views from our walk were very scenic.

Besides the hotel there are some cute little cottages on the island. I'm not sure who lives in them during the summer, but I'm guessing the people who run the island.

The island is the largest off-grid solar farm off the coast of New England, all to be as  self-sufficient as possible.

     This post is getting long, so I'll share some more photos another day. But let me end this post with a few photos from another island in the Shoals. I don't know the name of this island, but I do know that the cormorants love it. We cruised by it before we ended up in Gosport Harbor at Star Island.

Enjoy your day!

     

     

T Stands for Storms at Sea

 Hi and happy T day everyone.

As promised today I will share my boating adventure story from Friday. It will probably be rather dull as I mentioned it before, and I am sure people built it up to be more than it was. I will also warn you, this is a long post. Sorry!

Friday last week was a decent day weather wise. Seeing we've had a lot of dark and rainy days this July, my husband took a vacation day from work, and we decided to go out in his boat. We hadn't been out since June, which shows you how wet the weather has been.

First let me explain that we store the boat on it's trailer; we don't keep it in the water all summer. However, instead of pulling it back and forth from home we leave  and store the trailer at the marina. They have a big field where they put very large boats in winter, and during the summer the field is not as full, so we keep the boat there. Although we pay to store it, it doesn't cost a lot and comes out less than the cost of the gas we would used to trailer it home and back. Plus it saves a lot of hassle that to moving it back and forth between home and the marina's boat ramp would cause. 

When we got to the boat that morning, my husband went to hook the trailer up to his truck. That's when he realized that part of the trailer not needed for driving had broken.

I found this nice photo on the internet to explain if you aren't familiar with boat trailers. If you look on the bottom left side you see a part called the jack stand. It would be down  (as shown in the diagram) in order to store the boat when not in use. It keeps the trailer parallel to the ground so the bottom of the boat sits flat. When you are driving on a road trailering the boat, you would flip up the jack stand and and tighten it so that little wheel is not touching the road.

When we arrived Friday the crank that turns up the jack stand so we could move the boat down to the water had snapped a pin, and it wouldn't move into the up position. The first thing we had to do was leave and go find another jack sand, and we had to  come back and replace it. Luckily we found one at Harbor Freight Tools, and my husband could replace it and remove the old one, so all that it really did was set us back  about 90 minutes of boating time.

 

We put the boat into the water.

It was a nice day, humid and hot, and the water was calm, so I suggested we cruise 6 miles out to the Isles of Shoals to have our picnic lunch. It is much cooler being the 6 miles offshore than being right on the shore. The hubby liked that idea so we cruised out and tied off to one of the empty moorings in Gosport Harbor.  As it was Friday, there wasn't a lot of boat traffic or boats in the harbor.

I've mentioned the Isles of Shoals before. They are a group of small islands that are parts of  the states of New Hampshire and Maine.  

This  one in the above photo is Star Island and Gosport Harbor would be on the left where you see a couple of boats.

And this next photo is Smuttynose. Due to the angle of the photo as we were anchored in the Harbor when I took it, Gosport Harbor would be in front of it; the water is actually in the harbor.

Between those 2 islands is a man made seawall which creates this harbor.

This above photo is looking deeper into the harbor from out boat which was moored on one of the white moorings, just like you can see in this above photo.

And yes, if the sky looks  dark that's because while we were there we had not 1 but 2 storms comes through.

The first one wasn't too bad. The heavy rain went just beyond us so we had about 5 minutes of light wet.

 Now my husband's boat has what is called a cuddy cabin. It is small and not for living in. We use it for storage, and it does have some cushions, so one person could lay down and say, take a nap in there. (Or in our case usually a dog or two naps in there.)

During the rain, both my husband, myself and our 2 dogs squished into the cuddy cabin and waited out the storm. 

Then the sun was out again, and we thought that would be the random shower that those weather folks said could happen. We wiped off the seats and moved back outside. Pete and I even went for a swim off the back of the boat.

And since Maddie with her thick coat looked hot, my husband put her into the water to cool off. She likes to be wet and can swim great, but in the process she went underwater, which she didn't like.

I had barely dried off when we looked at the sky and saw this.

According the radar, which we were checking on our phones, this was a much larger storm with some thunder and lightening associated with it.

We would not miss it if we headed into shore, and we did feel safe being moored int he harbor.

Once again, into the cuddy cabin we went.

And the rain came down.

It took Maddie a little while to decide it was better to go into the cabin than stand in the rain, which meant even with a toweling, we also had a wet dog with us.

We had a bit of thunder and lightening too. 

The sun did come back out, and we went outside. I wish I had captured it on my camera, but I saw a big bolt of lightening  actually hit the water, closer than I would have liked. Luckily we were OK, and the storm moved quickly off the islands and further out to sea. It must have been rough out there though, as you can see the waves breaking on the rock jetty wall that close in the back of the harbor.

We heard later a private fishing boat had actually capsized further offshore, and the people had to be rescued by a Coast Guard Helicopter. Luckily no one was hurt.

Before the second storm was close enough to even know we would get it, I did snap a picture of my drink for T this week. (Be sure to stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog for T this week.)

It's the floating Diet Coke bottle-smile.

Now I will finish my story. 

The day ended just as interesting as it began. On the way back to shore we stopped to do some mackerel fishing, and we had our best catch in a long time. All of them went back into the ocean, but we caught about around a dozen in a short period of time. 

On the way back to the marina, we pass through another onshore  harbor where a friend I used to teach with moors his sailboat. We saw him and some other people on it (2 more of my former co-worker friends), so we cruised over and tied up to chat for a little while.  In the process Miss Maddie hopped over onto his sailboat. She visited with everyone and then decided to take a nice long pee on his boat. How embarrassing. I guess a dog poop would have been worse.  (Good thing they were all dog people-smile).

At this point, it was time to go in, pull the boat out of the water and head home. I didn't need, nor want, any more adventures. 

This has taken me forever to write. Hop you enjoyed my day of boating adventures. And I apologize if this too too long for you to read also.  Smile.

Hope you have great T day and wonderful week ahead.

A Toast for T

More lazy summer days out in the boat for T today. 

If you stopped by my blog a couple of days ago you read the boating story and saw a few photos from last Saturday's boating adventure to the Isles of Shoals. If you missed the post and if you are curious about the Isles of Shoals you can read a little about them here:  A Day on the Water. 

Here we are looking out onto Star Island with some sailboat action to make it a more interesting photo.

We were anchored in the harbor  called Gosport and took the launch, a little shuttle, from our boat over to the island.

 The big white building is the Oceanic Hotel. It was built in the late 1800's when people came north from places like Boston and New York to escape the heat. The hotel is still very primitive and now a way to escape some of the trappings of modern life.

Thought you might find the hotel interesting. I do.

The outside has a huge wrap around porch filled with rocking chairs.

And fantastic views too.

You can see there's something going on on the dock. Since it was Saturday it was change over of guest day. I imagine almost all guests come by the Thomas Laighton, a large ferry. (photo below)

But there are other smaller boats that bring luggage and boxes of food and supplies, plus take away the trash.

The two islands you can see in the photo above are Smuttynose (on the right)  and Appledore (on the left).

In our ramble around the island, we went to the back of the hotel. Here they are unloading some luggage which gets carried up to the guest's room by the summer staff, known as Pelicans.

 It was really interesting to watch them, almost as if they were putting on a show.

 The first floor of the hotel has a couple of rooms they must use for meetings or maybe are quiet places for guests to be. They are very much old fashioned rooms.

 The bathrooms are on the upper floors, which even the day guests can use. None of the bedrooms have their own baths either. So when we went up to use the potty it gave us a little peak into the hotel rooms.

 A view out of a second floor window on the landing by the bathroom.

 The second floor hallway and below, a second floor bedroom.

When the Pelicans put in the luggage they don't close the doors and in fact, I  don't believe there are locks on any of the doors.

And a few more photos.

 The landing outside the bathroom

 Another view out the back of the hotel

 The huge line of departing guests waiting to board the ferry back to the mailand

The  hotel garden

Ok, so what does this have to do with T day?

So before we went ashore we sat in our little boat and had lunch and chatted. And for dessert we each had a little margarita in the tiny little red paper cups my daughter packed. (Not the big red party cups we thought she said she had.) Of course she didn't have a margarita because she doesn't like them. Instead she had a little can of sangria.

Cheers to a sunny Saturday afternoon on the water.

(And truth be told, the little cup was all I needed)

Stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to join in to the T party. We all shared something we drank and often food too. Its a lot of fun and we'd love you to join us.

Thanks for visiting

and happy T day!