Just Around The River Bend

Hey, want to head out in the kayaks tonight?  It's a beautiful night, and we'll be able to catch the sunset!

Look at those trees barely clinging to the banks of the creek...pretty cool eh?

Look, there is our favorite bald eagle heading back home for the evening.  I told you we should have brought the telephoto lens!

Turn around and look back towards the house, isn't the sun pretty!

And check out the heron flying low along the water.  Dang, next time, I'm bringing that telephoto lens!

See these marsh grasses?  The herons love to fish alongside the tufts of grass!

Keep paddling, we're coming up on the long bridges that connect the creek to the river!

Look, the tide is coming in.

It's pretty windy, the little fish windsock says so!

And watch out for the crab pot lines hanging down from the bridge!  Wonder how many crabs are in there?

I love these old tree roots, don't you?!

Last bridge before the river!  How are you doing...getting tired yet?

Mr. Osprey is not happy that we're so close to his nest!

Wow, we've already gone over a mile, but just wait until you see the river!

Shhh, look up ahead, see the heron silhouetted up in that tree?  If we're quiet, we might be able to sneak up before she flies away!  Oh, and did I mention that we should have brought the telephoto lens?!

Nope, there she goes.  Heron's are so skittish aren't they?!

Hey cool, look...I got the osprey, the moon, and that tiny speck (just to the left and a little up from the moon) which is an airliner...all in the same shot!  

Ok, we're finally here.  There's the river straight ahead!

There we go, out in the river!  See Virginia off in the distance...it's about 5 miles away...think we can make it before the sun sets?!

Yeah, you're probably right...not one of my best ideas...we'll stay on this side tonight!

There's just enough wind to create a little wave action...isn't the rocking motion soothing?!

Such a pretty sunset isn't it?!  Look at how it reflects off of the water!

And check out that cloud back towards the creek!

Ok, the sun is getting pretty low, we better start heading for home, we have a few miles to go and we don't want to lose the light.

The waves make it so much easier to paddle back in don't they?!

Hey, don't paddle too fast or we'll get in trouble with the Natural Resources Police!

I don't know which I like best, going out or coming back in.

The creek is always so calm this time of night.

Wouldn't it be nice to just sit on this bench every evening and watch the sunset?!

And here we are back home again.  Did you have fun?  I know I sure did, we should do this again sometime soon!

Thank you everyone for your well wishes for Mr. Tide, he's feeling much better today!!

Fish Food and An Exciting Week Ahead

Today was a quiet day around my house.  It was welcomed after a busy week and because Mr. Tide appears to have suffered from dehydration or food poisoning...so NOT good!

So after resting much of the weekend, he finally felt up to taking a stroll down to our dock this afternoon.

We had a leftover french baguette which had become hard and stale, so we decided to see if the fish in the creek would enjoy a little carbohydrate treat!  

We've never fed the fish out back before, but they seemed very appreciative and a little feeding frenzy erupted around each morsel of bread Mr. Tide tossed into the water!  I have no idea what type of fish these are, but some of them had the most beautiful blue stripes along there backs and tails.  And even though you can't tell it from my not so clear photos, they almost looked like tropical fish with those flashes of bright blue as they attacked the bread!

Mr. Quinn was quite intrigued by the whole business of feeding the fish, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that in his mind we were tossing away perfectly good bread that he would have happily devoured!

Now most of my fellow bloggers can relate to the fact that I rarely relinquish the camera these days.  Ever since I've fallen in love with the art of photography, I've become a bit of a camera hog!  Mr. Tide never minds, and it's not like I hide the camera or take it away from him, but I do tend to take the lion's share of the photos around here since creating my blog.

Today he headed outside with the camera and snapped a few great pictures, and I didn't even break out into a cold sweat or go through any kind of withdrawals!

He shot both of these beautiful trumpet vine photos.  I wish someone would start promoting the use of weeds and invasive species as ideal garden plants since they seem to be the only things which can survive and thrive with high heat and no water!!  Maybe I'll start the movement and see who jumps on the bandwagon.  Just think of all the time, money and effort we could save if weeds were the "new" flowers!

He also captured this gorgeous blue dragon fly perched on a grapevine leaf.

I just love the dramatic blue of it's body and those eyes!!!  We have lots of dragonflies around here in all sizes, shapes, and colors!  The red, orange, blue, and yellow ones are the most dramatic of course and you rarely see the blue ones, they tend to stay further up the creek in the wetlands.

And be sure to check back this week when you'll be treated to a few exciting posts!  I'll be showing you more of this breathtaking beach house owned by my friend and beach glass jewelry artist Julie, the owner of Frosted Trash!  Wait until you see the gorgeous pair of earrings she gave me to use as a giveaway!

And I'll finally be posting the first in a 3 part series about the wonderful women behind AtticMag!  You won't want to miss my interview with Jane F, and you'll get a sneak peek at her country house! 

So be sure to check back this week for the giveaway, and to see some truly beautiful homes!

Marsh Mallows

Have you ever wondered where those yummy little confections we know as marshmallows come from?  Well today they come from manufacturers and are usually made with things like sugar or corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, and water.

But according to Wikipedia, the use of marsh mallow plants (which some claim have medicinal properties) to make candy dates back to ancient Egypt!  

The use of marshmallow to make a candy dates back to ancient Egypt, where the recipe called for extracting sap from the plant and mixing it with nuts and honey. (Another pre-modern recipe uses the pith of the marshmallow plant, rather than the sap. The stem was peeled back to reveal the soft and spongy pith, which was boiled in sugar syrup and dried to produce a soft, chewy confection.)^[2] Candymakers in early 19th century France made the innovation of whipping up the marshmallow sap and sweetening it, to make a confection similar to modern marshmallow. The confection was made locally, however, by the owners of small candy stores. They would extract the sap from the mallow plant's root, and whip it themselves. The candy was very popular but its manufacture was labor-intensive. In the late 19th century, French manufacturers devised a way to get around this by using egg whites or gelatin, combined with modified corn starch, to create the chewy base. This avoided the laborious extraction process, but it did require industrial methods to combine the gelatin and corn starch in the right way.

We have lots of marsh mallow plants near the waters edge on our property.  They love having their roots in very wet ground!  And each morning, their delicate pink and white blossoms open up to greet the day, but when evening comes, they curl up and say goodnight until the next day...

How fitting that something so pretty could be turned into something so yummy, and apparently even good for you too!  Maybe I'll have to find an old marshmallow recipe and try and make some the old fashioned way! 

My Kind of Drive-Thru

When my late father retired after 38 years of government service, he decided that retirement should be about doing those things you love and have always wanted to try.

So even before he retired, back in 1989, he started gathering woodworking equipment so that he could make furniture.  And having grown up in Michigan, he had a real affinity for blueberries!  He knew all about the health benefits of these little blue berries, but it was the taste and the idea of growing organic fruit that really appealed to him.  So he planted between 40 and 50 blueberry bushes on my grandparent's small farm just down the street from where I grew up.

My grandparents had long since passed away, but they always had fruit trees, grapes, and a huge garden on the property, so I think my father wanted to carry on that legacy with his new blueberry crop.

He and my mother planted several different varieties.  Some didn't survive that first year, while others have slowly waned with each passing season.  The bush above was never a great producer and with the help of that tenacious weed called honeysuckle, it probably won't last too much longer.  And although you can't really tell it from these photos most of the healthy bushes are nearly 8 feet tall!  You need a ladder to pick the berries at the tops of the bushes so we usually let the birds have their fill of those.

Thanks to my sister "M" most of the bushes are free of honeysuckle and blackberry brambles, which also love climbing up the blueberry bushes!  And now approximately 25 bushes remain and are doing well.  Shortly after I took these pictures my sister and her husband arrived to mow around the bushes.  Now that the berries are getting ripe, she and I will take turns each week mowing to keep the weeds and ticks to a minimum!

When my parents were alive, we would all go to the farm, including the grandkids, and help pick the berries.  Then my father and mother would take them to a local farmer's market each Saturday to sell them.

Today, my niece and nephew pick and sell the berries locally.  We weren't sure how this year's crop would fair since we've had so little rain.  And it's still hard to judge since they are just starting to ripen and are always a little sour at the beginning of the season!

Mr. Tide and I used to live in the little farmhouse on the property when we were first married, and later we moved just down the street.  Each morning, on his way to work, Mr. Tide would take a small ziploc baggie with him and drive right up to the bushes and pick himself some berries "to go!"

Not much has really changed, except that the bushes are much larger!  These pictures were taken from our big SUV and you can tell from the picture above this one that these bushes are mighty tall!

During the relatively short season each year we eat our weight in blueberries, resulting in a few tummy aches over the years!  We also freeze lots to use in pies, pancakes, and blueberry lemon bread throughout the winter.  But nothing really beats a handful fresh off the bush, sweet and ripe and ready for the picking!

I wish everyone had this kind of organic drive-thru because it sure is a lot better for you than a fast food drive-thru!

Thanks to everyone who left such sweet comments about Puddin's house, I know she appreciated each and every one of them!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! :-)