CapeMay - Lewes Ferry ~ Vacation Starts

Today's the start of vacation with friend, Bernie and myself going away for about 9 days. The plan is to meet her in Lewes after taking the ferry.  One of the neat things about taking the ferry is watching the birds off the back of the boat and being able to see my house and the lighthouses from a different perspective.  

My house (brown) overlooking the bay

Black-backed Gull

Harbor of  Refuge Light ~ Lewes, DE

Delaware Breakwater East End Light ~ Lewes, DE

My yard ~ American Lady Puddling

North Wildwood Blvd ~ Osprey Nest with chicks

Osprey with chicks

My yard ~ FOY

It's been a slow summer for butterflies though they have begun to pick up in numbers.  I am finally seeing 6 or so Monarchs floating around the yard and saw my first of year large Monarch caterpillar today.  I also saw some more eggs.  Another FOY was this Pearl Crescent butterfly in the gardens.

Part of the back gardens taken from above.

Lisa & Fin

Baby Finley was born on June 1st, 2014 to Lisa & Brandon.  I hadn't yet given them the quilt for Fin so when Lisa came to stay the night with Fin this was the perfect time to give her the quilt. Hope Fin gets years of happiness in using it from me.

My yard ~

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Mourning Dove

Bee on Partridge Pea

Mexican Sunflower

My Yard ~ Early Morning visitors

Pammie watching through the screen

Red Admiral on fruit

Common Buckeye

Yellow Warbler ..and Fall Migration begins

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Blue Dasher Dragonfly

Halloween Pennant

Wordless Wednesday ~ North Cape May Sunset

My yard ~ Red-spotted Purple Butterfly

My yard ~ Matching Cabbage White's

My yard ~ Hummingbirds return

My Yard ~ Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Bitterfly

My yard ~ Eastern Black Swallowtail Butterfly

Wordless Wednesday ~ North Cape May beach ~ Jellyfish

Time to say goobye

Leaving is both sad and exciting.  It's sad to say goodbye to Philippa but we had a wonderful time together.  We have great hopes that I'll get to New Zealand to visit her in the next year or so.  But for Philippa it's exciting because she's been away from home for 8 weeks now so she's ready to go home and see her children and grandchildren again.  Philippa has made me the most beautiful wallhanging.  I really love it and it's perfect me living here at the shore.  It's heavily embellished with beads and specialty threads.

Shamus and Philippa

Cape May ~ Oldest Seashore Resort

Cape May is the oldest seashore resort in our country.  It is also on the National Historic Landmark. My visitors are always anxious to take tours of the historic houses.  Philippa and I had taken an informal drive around the town but decided also to do a trolley tour that ended at the Emlin Physick Estate with a tour of the house there.  Here are some of the houses we saw from the trolley.

Henry James Doman arrives

Awaiting Henry's birth 6/30/14

Henry James joined the Doman family on July 4th at 12:59 PM. Their healthy, energetic little man is 7 lbs 11 ozs and is 21 inches long. Congratulations to all of the family.

Quilt made for Henry James

Seth & Stacie Doman with Henry James

Happy Independence Day

The beaches in front of my house have become busier every summer.  Here's a picture from today.

I have always wanted to see the Flag ceremony that uses the Veterans" casket flags at Sunset Beach so this evening Philippa and I went over attend. What a nice acknowledgement of the veteran's service to our great country.  Everyone is also respectful of the ceremony.

Cape Island Creek ~ Kayaking

Great Egret

     One of Jenny's goals for this summer was to kayak with Shamus, her 6 year old grandson.  I wanted to get Philippa into a kayak.  She was very skeptical and quite concerned she would fall out of the kayak regardless of how much I reassured her that this would not happen.  Off we went to kayak along the creek.  What a good time we had except that the creek current and winds were much stronger than Jenny and I are normally see.

Shamus having fun!

Jenny & Shamus

Philippa decides kayaking isn't too bad.

Clapper Rail

Fabric Dyeing with Philippa

12 Step Color Wheel

Philippa is a quilter and quilters are always happy to acquire more fabric.  Since I am not only a quilter but I also dye fabrics I though that doing some fabric dyeing with her would be fun to do. Here are some of the results.

Green to Blue Color Run

Moss Green Gradation