Dear Sky,

I know you must have your reasons, but I would like to protest the amount of liquid you are pouring onto us. The ground is waterlogged, the bulbs are floating away, the spring flowers are delayed, and the egrets have not yet returned.

Can you turn it off? Please?

This time last year...

- I was getting ready to welcome Bella to the house (she has made herself at home)
- Jade and I went on a road trip to the North Fork (and saw some nice places)
- the egrets had returned (they are not back yet this year)
- and it was Karli's birthday (same today!!)
Happy Birthday Karli!!!

Causeway soundtrack

James Taylor, "You've got a friend"
Pink, "Who knew"

WEBE 108 had it right.

Virginia Woolf?

This evening, after a visit to West Islip, a detour beckoned... to the lighthouse!

I'd never been over the Robert Moses causeway and bridge before: it's the next bridge to Fire Island on the west after Smith Point.

The causeway road and the bridge were deserted: the vast parking lots, or "fields", closed except for one with just three or four vehicles. Desolate, empty, yet somehow sterile. I don't think I'd enjoy it summer-full of people: prefer the places that don't so many parking spaces.

What is that giant tower at the end of the causeway for? Is it military--there's a coastguard base on the bay side--or something from Mordor?

Iris and the hockey fans

I was in the city last night--invited to attend the Catalyst awards and dinner, along with nine other women from HP. It was at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and I really enjoyed the history of the place. There's a museum-type display close to the (huge) reception area, well worth a look!

The streets outside the hotel were not moving, traffic glue, at 9 p.m., so I walked back to Penn Station... which was full of drunken ice-hockey fans (in case you didn't know, the Islanders lost 5-0, everyone within a few miles must have heard). Good place to escape was KMart (where else is there a major store inside a railway station?) as I had 45 minutes before the sleepy train home.

Came out with:

- three Iris germanica "Loop the Loop"
- california poppy seeds
- two sorts of morning glory seeds
- "old mexico" zinnia seeds
- mexican sunflower (Tichonia rotundifolia) seeds.

Then I arrived home and found my order from Brecks for two more beautiful blue Iris sibirica "Blue King" had arrived too!

Now I just have to find time to plant them all.

Kindling

I have owned a Kindle for a few weeks now, and find I have a love-hate relationship with it so far:

Love that my favourite, relaxing, unwinding and escapist reads (all the best crime and thriller writers) don't have to clutter up my physical bookshelves). The ones that I know I'll read again, I'll keep electronically: those I know will be read-once-only can be deleted.

I find it very interesting that the actual words seem to be more important on the Kindle than in a physical novel. Maybe I'm more patient with a struggling (or bad) plot if I have to keep turning the pages. With the Kindle I have hit the "remove from this device" button within a couple of pages, rather than struggling through horrible non-literature just because I bought the darn thing and carried it home.

BUT, and it's a big BUT... I don't like being unable to share or pass on or donate my books, once read. There's something satisfying about handing on a book to someone else, "here, I think you'll like this one", and you just cannot do that with the Kindle. You can't even leave a copy of a bad romance in the back of an airplane seat for the next passenger to need a break from travel-monotony.

And it will never, ever replace my collection of hard-backed gardening and design books. They have to be lifted and weighed and enjoyed in all their colourful glory.

So I'm still debating... but in the meantime just downloaded the latest Peter Robinson. In time for bedtime.

Early Sunday morning

Here is the sound of an early Sunday morning in my part of Mastic Beach.

The sun has just risen, the bay is rippling from east to west; gentle breeze, clear sky.

What a difference a week makes!

Today: blue skies, sunshine, T-shirt temperature; children in a boat on the bay, joggers in shorts, everyone at Home Depot or Lowes in the garden center, pansies and crocuses and garden furniture. A cup of tea and a book, sitting on the deck in the sun. Grass growing, greening. Chalk hearts on the street; a birds' nest found.

The phragmites pointing sharply to the sky. They grew an inch overnight. Nothing there yesterday: today, pencil-sharp, right out.

Hard to believe that this time last week, we were (or at least, I was) cowering from the storm; watching it tear things up and away, washing the streets aflood.

The bay is the colour of blue eyes.

Beautiful end to the week

Spent most of the past two days outside, away from the computer, back to things that matter, like planting pale-purple pansies in two large pots; burying Dutch iris bulbs; seeing the ocean; a really nice couple of days with brilliant blue skies, spring weather, sunshine, smiles.

There are flowers in the garden! One purple, one yellow, tiny iris-crocus flowers: can't remember when I planted them, but there they are, all pretty as the day.

More storm pics... worked out how to load more than one

I admit it... user error. And a total lack of instructions about what had changed in the photo upload mechanism.

My neighbour Chauncy and Sandy-the-dog-who-used-to-be-bald-but-now-has-fur last Sunday as the water started to recede.

A tree on Lincoln

Narcissus  on Sunday morning

Trees on Maple

Tree that fell on a house on Lincoln Drive.

Mad March storm--a few pictures

... and when I figure out how to load more than one at once, I'll add the rest (Blogger, you have a bug!!!)

This is Park Drive looking south this morning as the water started to recede.

Another beautiful, beautiful day!

The sunrise was awesome... and now the sky is pale blue, the water like rippling denim; birds are singing, Bella is sunning herself on the deck, and you can almost hear the ground loosening to let the grass and bulbs (and baby weeds) poke through.

The magnolia is covered in hairy buds!

I have lost quite a few plant pots over this winter: terracotta does not survive well, it flakes away layer-by-layer until you have a pot that is very thin and fragile at the bottom, yet still sturdy at the top. The glazed pots, for the most part, survive very well: plastic becomes brittle after a couple of winters. (Yes, I could empty and store them all away before the first snow, but I the birds like to feed on the seeds, I'm lazy, and totally in denial when winter approaches until it's too late and we are six-feet deep in white stuff.)

I wonder if, this year, I can time the planting of the sweet pea seeds right?

And the red-winged blackbirds are back too!

(I swear I wrote that same line about a year ago!)

The roaming deck...

... is back, parked somewhere between my house and the trees on the far side of this part of the wetlands. It used to be wedged in one of the channels that feed into Lawrence Creek, but the recent high water must have lifted it and floated it north.

I swear it's the perfect size to fit over my soon-to-be-defunct pond. Just need about 20 hefty guys in waders to rescue it for me. I don't see that happening soon! But surely that would be really environmentally-friendly; removing debris from wetlands and reusing it in a good way?

Though of course the geese may argue that it's their ark.

The grackles are back!!!

First I thought it was a mocking bird... I could hear "someone" going through their morning vocal exercises, but it was a little more grating than a mocking bird. Then I saw him at the top of the tree, and thought it was a crow, but crows don't sing like that. And then the sunshine made his coat gleam metallic green-blue, and I knew: the grackles are back!

(Watch out, other birds on the feeder. These guys are very, very hungry. Every day.)

I have my beautiful sunrises: here's your opportunity!

This three bedroom, one bathroom ranch home is for sale, with views across Pattersquash Creek and the Great South Bay. There's just a quiet, narrow street between you and the water. Telecommuting? Your office will have one of the best-kept-secret views on Long Island's south shore. Looking for a weekend getaway home? Boating and fishing from your street or the community marina, ocean beach just a few minutes by road (about twenty minutes by bicycle). Want to go to the city? Regular trains take you to Manhattan every morning from the local station.

Open House on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. Come and see for yourself... and bring your friends!

Full details here:  http://c21sparrow.com/details_general.asp?id=18386003

MLS: 2263764 http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d54557a4d5455354d6a413d0d0a&blogview=true

We live in a beautiful place!