Tuesday Snapshots

A Rocky Harbor on a Shifting Shore

Here's a few bonus photos to share with you from yesterday. It was such a lovely day that it seemed a shame to head right home after work, so I decided to kick around the Rock Harbor area for a little while.

Now, I know that I often share photos of the bay from Rock Harbor, clouds, sunsets, beach people and boats, but I've never really shared much context.

I'm most often standing out on the breakwater where that guy is in this picture (for a change, I was shooting from the other side).

While many of you certainly have the capacity to go "Oooh, pretty" without worrying yourselves too much, it's possible that one or two of you have sat back and thought, "Where the heck is this Rock Harbor Greg's always talking about?"

And so I put a dot on this satellite photo of Cape Cod to give you some sense of just what place I'm talking about. A red dot, which you can see more clearly if you enlarge the image.

I just love the way they sketch in the outlines of the Cape, as though our sandy edges were not shifting every time the tide turns or the wind blows.

Of course, it then occurs to me that this does nothing to answer the question, "Where the heck is Cape Cod, anyway?" and so for those of you who're troubled by that one, I've taken this larger satellite photo of the northeast USA and added a cute little arrow and a dot each for the approximate locations of New York City and Boston for orientation. This shot gets bigger, too.

So that's us, sticking fifty miles or so out to sea.

(And it further occurs to me that the truly geographically challenged amongst you can now go load up your Google Earth accounts if you're still a little lost.)

Anyway, the harbor, with its marina and picturesque break waters on Cape Cod Bay, is located just north of inside "elbow" of the Cape, at the mouth of Rock Harbor Creek. The creek weaves its way from there through the salt marsh behind the harbor nearly to Route 6 and the ocean beyond.

Thanks to the Orleans Historical Society, we know that it used to look like this and also like this.

I've been stopping by Rock Harbor for years now, since it was long on my regular commute to and from work and the parking lot at the boat launch offers easy access to nice views. Since last fall, it's been slightly out of the way, but old habits die hard and its such a beautiful spot to visit. When I visited this time, I went the long way around, down Governor Prence road to the marina side, where there's a second boat launch ramp.

That road, like so many out here, bisects the salt marsh behind the marina, but it seems well-culverted to keep the life of the marsh going anyway.

Did you know that salt marshes rival rainforests as one of the planets most biologically productive habitats?

I've always been fascinated with the way salt marshes absorb the debris of the oceans, all the decaying plant and fish life to be used to bring new life in the way of a few plants who begin to grab hold, and cause new land to be formed, as plant roots begin to fight the erosions of the tide.



No matter how careful we are, there are always casualties in the places where the natural world and the human world (who ever thought to seperate them in the first place?), and I found these odd remains on the edge of the road when I stopped for my photos.

I'm not an experienced birder, or perhaps I'd be able to recognize the species here. I get the impression that it could've been some youngster who was maybe run over, since there's a frozen aspect here that seems like a moment from time, when it made an ill-timed effort to dash across the road. Of course, it can't be more than an impression, since all that remains here is essentially a cave painting done in feather and bone.

Check out the far side of this marsh, where the land has long ago been reclaimed from sand, and the marsh's work has allowed a transition to be made, and a small bit of forest is born.

On one side of the Cape, the sand washes away with each new tide. On the other side, new land is formed. In between there's life and death. And it's going on all the time. I often think that this is what I love about Cape Cod. No matter how long I've been here, there's always this sense of change in progress. Even the ever-changing motels and gift shops and other businesses sort of underscore the theme.

I like it. I mean, nothing ever really stays the same, anyway. That's just an illusion we create when we're not paying attention to the world around us. At least here, you get the reminders that it's always happening. The birds and the whales come and go with the seasons, and so do the people. A shifting sandbar, channels that need dredging, old homes washed away in ocean storms, new ones built at the fringes of the marsh. The change just goes on and on.

There's something comforting about that, somehow.

Last Sunday in June

Another daylily country heard from this morning, as this one opened amidst a jumble of curly grass to the right and rudbeckia to the left (and pansies and allyssum all around). It seemed to me it has a little more red in it than the others, and is about half the height of those other orange guys.

I did welcome some new daylilies to the fold last fall (divisions from a friends renovated garden) without having seen them in bloom. I wonder if this is one of those.

This here pot gnome is the reason I was so happy to find those tiny hens and chicks yesterday. The pots he holds are big enough, but still pretty small, and so something with an alpine background was called for. I hope these guys will do nicely in his embrace.

Last night's weeding opened up a few spots in the border, so I already knew where I was going to be siting the marine heliotrope plants before I grabbed hold of my trowel this morning.

I also finally planted out that last wave of morning glories, putting a few near the base of the lamp post. I figure they can hitch a ride in the clematis vines this season, since they are already a tangled mess...and I'll sort it all out come fall.


I also dug up and relocated a few of the seedlings which are now large enough to cope with such activity. In the case of just about every kind of seed I'd sown, there were healthy looking plants too close together. So I pried loose some cosmos, or some bachelor buttons and moved them around to different locations, watering in well when I'd finished.

I also potted up the fuschia I mentioned yesterday, and a lantana I forgot to. Those are both in hanging baskets on the front of the house, where I expect they will do very well. I also scattered still a little more allyssum seed along the margins of the lamp post garden and planted a pack of Four O'Clocks, which are among Granny's favorites.

Sometimes it seems that she's on the mend, but other times her recovery seems a little tougher going, and of course, it's hard to be sure of what's really happening at such a distance. Still, I hope to talk with her soon and perhaps that will shed some light...and maybe I can get some advice about those four o'clocks.

I learned this week that I have possibly been doing myself and others I know a disservice all these years. I had always heard that yellow roses signified Friendship. But in that book I was talking about the other day, as well as Love in the Time of Cholera, I have read that yellow roses signify Jealousy...which was never my intention.

Oh, dear, what a confusing world of flowers and love it is, eh? I think that's the Chrysler tea rose with it's first yellow bud, and a host of others following shortly after. If so, it has apparently somehow lost its metal tag in the move.

There's a fifty percent chance of showers for us tonight, though so far nothing has materialized. This storm, seen over Cape Cod Bay from Rock Harbor late this afternoon, seemed to be a localized affair, as there were a few spatters of rain on my windshield as I left town, but I seemed to drive out of it.

Dogs Walk. Boats Return. Tide Rising.


Here's one of those heliotrope plants, making a nice pre-Fourth of July display of patriotism in its new location.

Of course a bluer tone would be more ideal, but the white centers of those tiny purple flowers do approximate the whole starry field thing nicely, don't they?


Once the planting and watering was complete this morning, I rounded up the appropriate hardware to get the new flags added to the fence, just in time for celebrations of Pride.

Of course, there was no parade in our neighborhood, per se, just the usual assortment of dog walkers and Big Wheels. But I celebrate in my own quiet way...and I'm glad to know that the next time I go looking for a Rainbow Flag, I won't have to look any further than my own front yard.

For those of you rolling your eyes and grunting at the whole business of gay pride parades, please, let me encourage you strenuously to check out Joe.My.God's take on that whole attitude. If you will.

To my gay, lesbian, transgender friends and our friends(and Dorothy's)and supportive families, near and far, hither and yon, up and down, left and right and wherever else you may be (we don't need all the details), Happy Pride!

Celebrate wisely, but do celebrate!

Foggy Night

Stopped to enjoy the fog at Rock Harbor on the way home from work this evening. This was taken just before 10:00 p.m. Our temperature tonight is 66.

Blue Boat

On the other side of the work day, I stop for a look out across cloudy Cape Cod bay.