Oceanic Wilderness

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed by email! Thanks for visiting! Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple. by Mary Oliver

This angelic chonk told me last night, “You don’t know what it’s like to be a kid!” And to that I knew we are quickly entering the tween years! (well, that and some back talk and sarcasm…little kid land isn’t going to stick around for much longer!)

I’m cheating a little on this one, this is two years ago. I didn’t have anything interesting on Flickr from a year ago, or within a few days of a year ago today but I did have some interesting things from 2020. Forest is playing with the feral/neighbor’s cat Miles here. And Forest’s hair! It’s so long! This was the end of the first semester of kindergarten which had been all online at home. And being as it was the pandemic before vaccines, we didn’t go many places and certainly not for a haircut. My collards were heading into year 2! The red giant mustard was looking amazing here! WOW!…

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. May Sarton

I, like many others, do not write by hand very often. Sure, I take notes, make my lists, but I’m generally not writing by hand very often. Apologies to everyone who ends up with a handwritten note from me and can’t decipher what I’m writing. I tend to start off well and then by the end my cursive tends to run together! One thing I have started this year, but haven’t done as much of as I wanted to, is handwrite short notes to Forest in this little notebook. It’s really for him to read in the future, at whatever point I feel like giving it to him, but I…

This prompt was a little difficult at first because I couldn’t think of anything big that I said goodbye to. But then I thought a little bit deeper and realized that I say goodbye to a lot of little things throughout the year, in particular things revolving around Forest as his grows up. So, this is a goodbye to the sandbox! He hadn’t played with it in a couple of years and I would keep asking if I could get rid of it but he would say no. Finally he told me he was done playing with it and that turned out to be a good thing because when I…

How about some beach treasures from South Padre Island for today’s post? Common Sundial, Architectonica nobilis Spotted Porcelain Crab, Porcellana sayana Lettered Olive, Oliva sayana, with Common Atlantic Slippersnails, Crepidula fornicata Gray Sea Star, Luidia clathrata Clearnose Skate, Rostroraja eglanteria –a mermaid’s purse, the egg case for this species. Western Gulf Stone Crab, Menippe adina Giant Hermit Crab, Petrochirus diogenes Blackback Land Crab, Gecarcinus lateralis Yellow Prickly Cockle, Dallocardia muricata

…Florida again for the first time in a little over 2 years. The last time I had been in the state was January 2020 and that was in central Florida, and the time previous to that was in March 2014 when I was pregnant with Forest and that was to south Florida. I hadn’t been back to the panhandle since we hiked through in February/March 2011 on the Florida Trail. I had forgotten what a stunning part of the state the Apalachicola area was and it really made me want to move there. A little bit of Florida without the crowds…just perfect! Chris still pretends he’s along the Forgotten Coast…