Frozen bay, frozen (ocean) beach... but the hunt goes on

Smith Point ocean beach on Fire Island, frozen this morning; baby waves rippling onto the sands where plates of sand-mixed-with-ice had floated and cracked. A strange and unusual sight.

How cold must it be for the ocean to freeze?

Seagulls standing on their reflections on the bay; deep ice in Pattersquash Creek this morning.

Cold, but not cold enough to deter us from going to the beach, nor to keep hunters-and-their-dog at home, nor preventing the guys in the rowboats from going with the ice floes at the end of Cranberry in Mastic Beach.

It's the sunshine that does it. Makes everthing possible, despite what brain/eyes/thermometer says.

Never two the same... just spectacular

Keeps happening. Every day.

I like this guy

Really nice renovations, beach cottages

A shout out to the folks who have turned the cottage on the corner of Whittier and Dogwood, just before the marina. A few months ago it was an unloved eyesore, dark and abandoned. Now it is a beautiful, happy beach cottage, a subtle but cheerful green, somewhere anyone would be proud to call home.

All over the village of Mastic Beach, people have been working hard to renovate homes. A walk down Park Drive is a good example--many of the cottages have been given new leases on life. A new home has grown up where the house damaged by fire once stood.

There's a lot of opportunity here. Look at the prices, the proximity to the bay, to boating and fishing, to watching the birds. Think about taking a bicycle ride to the ocean beach or just nipping there in your car. No ferries to catch. No Hamptons-horrendous beach parking charge.

Nice place to spend your weekends, even if you are not ready to leave the city full-time... yet!

Another day, another sunrise

And a reminder: this could be your morning view!  See the house on the MLS. MLS# 2315270, find it on Realtor.com or MLSLI.com or any of your favourite real estate search engines!

Sunday melted away...

Temperatures well above freezing; the bay-ice just a melted shadow. Mist rising from ploughed, dirty piles of snow. Across the water, suddenly crystal-clear then fogged from view again. The sun tries to break through, then retreats behind the clouds. Just teasing.

Happy New Year!!!!

May it bring you health, happiness and good things.

010111 

Last day of the year, 2010

Still ice on the bay, but less than yesterday, and there is a drip-drip-dripping sound as the sun melts away the snow... but the bay ice seemed to radiate a chill into the sun-warmed air.

Another grackle invasion

They came in a crowd-cloud and scooped up all the bread, tipped the birdseed all over the deck, and then had a group pooping-session all over the deck railings. There are many brown (juvenile?) grackles in the crowd this year, disguised as something other than their beleathered counterparts.

I do like grackles.

Frozen bay, sunshine on the snow

 It looks like the Arctic came to Long Island. The Great South Bay is covered with ice; static in the shallows, flowing with the current in the boating channel. This was low tide: the ocean beach was huge, the tide way, way out, frozen seafoam on the sand, drifts of snow on the dunes, and the tunnel from the parking lot a sheer drop down a wall of snow drift.

Smith Point bridge from the new fishing pier, Smith Point

Smith Point condos from the new fishing pier, Smith Point

I went to the beach

It was pretty. Snow, sand, shadows. 

Sunrise, December 30th 2010

Looks-colder-than-it-is today

Ice is floating on the bay, chunks and slices, plates and slivers. The bay is a giant, grey slushy today; it's less cold and the air is still. The ice must be lifting from the beaches in the salt-fresh water.

I am watching out for the playful seal in case he comes back this year.

Watching the birds watching us

I am very very hungry. I think I can eat it all.

How dare he?

Well I guess there is enough to share...

What's all the fuss about?

After the blizzard

There was a lot of shovelling to be done: the driveway, the deck, the bridge/slope from the deck down to the lawn, the lawn steps, my neighbour's driveway... Tomorrow I have to do the area in front of the mailbox or, once the street has been ploughed and the mailman can get through, he'll leave an officious note letting me know it's my responsibility to clear the snow so that he doesn't have to get out of mail van to put the letters in the box. But today, there was no mail because no-one was driving much down here... only a couple of big trucks, and the kids on their ATVs.

I hope this is the last blizzard of the year.

Boxing day 2010

We didn't have snow for Christmas, but it's here today, Boxing Day (they day-after-Christmas to those who don't know what Boxing Day is!) (Which should also be a holiday-day. Really.)

Just after midday, and the snow is fine and settling. Blizzard warning for later today, with the worst to arrive early evening in the city--possibly, hopefully less here.

I have learned from last year's digging-out experience to leave my truck at the end of the drive, close to the street. It might be more sheltered closer to the house, but it's a lot of digging once the snow stops! I bought pet-friendly snow-and-ice melt for the deck so that Bella (and I) can get outside without slipping. It may be pet-friendly but judging by the grass beneath the bridge to the back yard, it's not grass-friendly. Oops.

Hope you are having a warm snug and safe day wherever you are spending it!

Bella on a cold morning

The wind was blowing her ears! Doesn't she look well! She is big and strong and kind. She is still scared by silly things--like the reeds rustling in the wind, or going through the front door--but so much better than she was a year or so ago.

Recently, someone on Long Island was arrested for starving a Great Dane to death. How can you do that? They are the size of a woman or a teenage boy. Bella now weighs about 145 pounds... and she weighed only 105 lbs when she arrived here. This is Bella, a couple of days after she came to live here in March 2009. It made me cry when I saw this picture of her again. How could anyone have not noticed how hungry she was???

She still sometimes sleeps all folded-up or wrapped into a tiny ball, like a kitten, and with her paws folded right back against her dog-wrists. But mostly she sprawls. All over her favourite sofa. All over me.

Bird visitors in December

This weekend's bird visitors included grackles (just a few, not a gang), various titmice, all sorts of sparrows, grey-bluejays (they are a much greyer-blue than California bluejays and they make nowhere near as much noise), lots of cardinals both male and female, looking like mini-parrots and squabbling over the food. The great blue heron has been frozen in place next to the creek in his favourite fishing spot, only occasionally rising to fly, creaking loudly, across the wetlands.

And one beautiful flicker. Red-headed, spotty-chested, long-beaked. He sat on the deck rail and ate a lot of the seed. I've only seen him on the bird feeder before, never so close to the house. He darted away anytime there was a movement behind the glass, but returned again and again for food.

Grackle invasion

They are back: arriving behind the storm, swarming the roof and the telegraph wires, finding the seed left out for the bluejays and titmice and cardinals, squabbling and feasting and fighting, and then suddenly they are gone again.

Grackle season.