His Bill an Augur is
His Head, a Cap and Frill
He laboreth at every Tree
A Worm, His utmost Goal –
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #990)
forecaster
Category: Tim
a great salt marsh
Because we’ve been to Cape Cod so many times in our lives something I’ve wanted to do was visit a place there that we’ve never been to before. Bass Hollow Boardwalk in Yarmouth sounded enticing.
This long boardwalk extends out over a salt marsh on the bay side of the Cape and offers some breathtaking views and lots of birds to observe close-up. It was very windy the afternoon we went!
I don’t know what kind of shorebirds these are – would appreciate any help with identification!
greater yellowlegs
To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.
~ Rachel Carson
(Under the Sea Wind)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
One morning in Provincetown we drove out to Herring Cove Beach, where we used to spend days at the beach when the kids were small. The waves here on the bay side are more gentle than they are on the beaches facing the open Atlantic. When they got older they preferred the excitement of Race Point Beach. This beach is pretty rocky, lots of small stones, making trips in and out of the water rough on tiny feet.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
~ E. E. Cummings
(The Lyric Self in Zen & E. E. Cummings)
It was fun photographing the gulls sunning themselves in a different background than the large rocks they usually perch on at our local beach. The future is always uncertain, but lately possible scenarios seem to be monopolizing my thoughts, creating anxiety even as I try to stay living in the present. Spending so much time on the Cape has helped me restore a sense of peace with things as they are or will prove to be. It’s not so much a feeling of resignation, but more of an accepting of the inevitable flux and flow of life.
When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
(Letter to Clara Rilke, March 27, 1903)
slipping into the sea
An incurable early bird, on the last morning of our little weekend getaway I found myself unable to sleep and so decided to get up and read and gaze out of the sliding glass doors of our room at the Sea Shell Motel in Dennis Port on Cape Cod. It was about 40 minutes before sunrise and there was an intense yellow orange glow on the horizon.
As sunrise approached I decided to bundle up in my coat and my new Norwegian wool hat with ear flaps and walk down to the windy beach to take some pictures and enjoy some early morning solitude. It was the best moment of the day.
Thoughts turned to beloved grandparents who lived in Dennis Port, just up the street. When I was little we stayed with them at their house but sometime in the late 1980s, when my own children were little, my grandmother’s health problems became such that staying in a motel nearby became necessary. There’s no way to count the times we have stayed at the Sea Shell in the past 30 years or so. Each room is unique and charming, well-worn but clean and comfortable. No frills, just a short wooden walkway over the dune to the beach, the sounds of waves breaking close by.
I wanted to come here for old times’ sake. So often on this recent trip nature would vividly illustrate the simple truth that nothing is solid in the boundless flow of time and place, there is nothing to grasp. It was here that my grandparents embraced me with abiding wisdom and persisting love. But now they are long gone, even though I feel their presence still. The waves break on the sand and disappear and yet are still there, like the voices of my small curious children. Cape Cod is slipping into the sea.
supermoon eclipse
Nate & Shea are visiting us and last night the clouds held off so we could share viewing the supermoon eclipse combo with them. Lucky for us because apparently this won’t happen again until 2033. We went down to Avery Point to see the moonrise at 6:27 pm but somehow missed it behind a building. After walking around the campus a bit we finally found it, too late to catch a picture of it on the horizon. But it was still impressively large, and as most of us know, the camera does not capture the moon illusion that our eyes see.
After we watched the moonrise we returned to our house and watched the lunar eclipse from the balcony, which began a couple of hours later.
We were exhausted from a long day. In the afternoon we had taken a lighthouse ferry cruise on Long Island Sound. Nate and I stayed up until the middle of the total lunar eclipse (10:47 pm according to one website) and then turned in. The clouds came in overnight so we could not see the moon setting this morning. But we were grateful we stayed awake long enough to see half of this rare event.
photos by Tim, Barbara and Nate Rodgers
one year old
Thinking of my sweet little one-year-old granddaughter today. Even though she lives so far away in North Carolina I have had the joy of seeing her many times this year, the last time only eight days ago when I took these pictures. She’s a very curious and busy little girl!
Happy Birthday, Katie!
Vøringfossen II
Dinner is served from 7-9 p.m. at the Fossli Hotel and we were treated like royalty – my goodness everything was so fancy! I had reindeer for the first time in my life and it was delicious. And the distinctive cool water in that pitcher was straight from a nearby glacier.
The company was great, the view amazing, and the food delectable! The other family and we had the place to ourselves!
After dinner we went back outside, amazed that it was still light out. It was still quite cold up there in the mountains in May.
It was time for bed. It was still light out when we went to bed and already light out when we woke up the next morning. We could hear the waterfall lulling us to sleep. Sweet dreams…
Vøringfossen I
Back in May, after a long day of traveling up the north side of Hardangerfjord we ventured inland a little, up a steep valley, Måbødalen (more like a canyon!), to breathtaking Vøringfossen, a waterfall in Eidfjord. The road was full of hairpin turns and tunnels. We arrived at the Fossli Hotel just in time to take a quick peek at the falls before dinner.
Apparently Edvard Grieg lived in Fossli Hotel during the summer of 1896, where he composed Norwegian Folk Songs, Opus 66.
To have the ability to withdraw into oneself and forget everything around one when one is creating. That, I think is the only requirement for being able to bring forth something beautiful. The whole thing is a mystery.
~ Edvard Grieg
(Edvard Grieg: 16 Lyric Pieces)
A couple of tourist buses stopped to let passengers get out to see the falls, but after that we had the place to ourselves. There was only one other family staying overnight at the hotel, a couple and their young son. It was wonderful hearing nothing but the roar of the waterfalls…
I had hoped to get all my pictures from this trip onto my blog by the end of the summer, but it didn’t happen. Perhaps by the end of autumn?
Last week we had another visit from Katie and nobody got sick this time, although the terrible humidity did spoil our plans to go apple-picking. But we managed to enjoy the great indoors with our granddaughter. The humidity finally vanished the day after she left – sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, as my mother used to say.
This week Nate & Shea are coming up from Georgia!!! It’s been way too long, although we did see them last year at Dima & Larisa’s in North Carolina when they came up to see the new baby. Hopefully we will get around to apple-picking while they are here, and we are all excited about the supermoon and lunar eclipse coming on Sunday night.
5.25.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway
Next: dinner and more scenery…
a long fine life
Of course no evening at the beach would be complete without a visit from our old friend with the mangled leg and foot. The gull may just be greeting us in a friendly manner, but his call is so mournful and long we often wonder what tale of woe he is trying to share. The burdened gull looks in a lot better shape now than he did at the beginning of the summer.
I’ve learned not to feel too sorry for this gull. He doesn’t seem to feel sorry for himself. His large strong wings work perfectly well and we see him flying and fishing out over the rocks and the water. And every summer he’s an expert at swooping down and snatching hot dogs from unsuspecting diners at the picnic tables. I once saw him swallow a foot-long hot dog, whole, in one big gulp! Human food is not good for gulls and most people, including us, obey the rules not to feed them. At least not on purpose. 🙂
We learned that we are not this old gull’s only friends. While a group of three off-duty lifeguards were walking along, chatting and gathering up their equipment for the last time this summer, he flew over and landed on a picnic table right in front of them and squawked at them. They all said hello and spoke to him and then finally one said, as the gull flew off, “Good-bye, Claws! Please don’t die!”
So Tim & I are not the only ones who wonder at the end of each summer if this wounded gull will make it through the coming winter. Since I first met this gull in 2011, he must be at least four years old, probably more. Gulls live ten to fifteen years so it is possible he may be around for many summers to come.
Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.
~ Richard Bach
(Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
photos by Tim Rodgers