The Dock

Here are a few more snow pictures taken from my dock.

This dock needs some TLC, but in its heyday it was quite the gathering place, especially for my father and his fishing buddies.  And for me and my sisters back when the creek would freeze solid enough to walk on.

Now it's like a museum of memories.  Neither the fish cleaning table 

nor that gill net have been used for decades.

Amazingly, that turquoise bucket filled with gill nets stays put even when storms rage

and the tide comes way over the dock.  It's as if it refuses to budge. It's holding on.

Watch out for that last step, it's a doozy!

Although I don't get out here often enough, I do enjoy a walk out on this dock.

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In other news, today is yet another snow day for the teenagers, 

and tonight's basketball game is also postponed.

Instead, the varsity teams will play Saturday night at home against West Point starting at six.

(We beat West Point before, let's hope we do it again.)

I hope your weekend is a good one.

Boats

These are a few random boat scenes.

Callis Wharf

Edwards Creek

Redart

Today I'm in Charlottesville with Son and Daughter meeting with college admissions people. As much as I love Mathews, I am thrilled to be away from home even if it's just for a night.

Each day that passes brings me closer to my vacation in July, which cannot get here fast enough.  Between work, end of the school year stuff, house and yard maintenance, and Daughter's decision to play summer softball, which requires forty million games between now and the end of the month, let's just say nothing in the world will make me happier than to be a solid four to five hours away from any responsibilities other than deciding what's for supper and whether to get in the pool or the hot tub.

(Also?  Daughter has never played softball before in her life. Just as we're finally getting a break from the chains of the school calendar and sports schedule, we have a new one to dictate our life.)

Anyway, enough of my complaining. All in all, I have nothing to complain about and everything to be grateful for. However, I'm living for that week of vacation. The End.

Have a great week.

Sticks in the Mud

Here are more shots from the end of Old Mill Landing Road.

Because the tide was so low I was able to sink up to my knees in creek mud venture out onto the shoreline for a better angle and perspective.

In completely unrelated news, the Last Hurrah of a Storm was definitely a dud here, unless you count the gale force winds Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.  I actually went upstairs to make sure the roof was still intact. These winds all but dissipated once I crossed the county line into Gloucester on my way to work that morning, it was almost as if nothing had happened.  Then the rain returned and was joined by a little bit of thunder, lightning and even hail as I approached Williamsburg. Steady rain and winds lingered for the rest of the day.

On my drive home I was nearly blown off the Coleman Bridge, but otherwise the only indication that this was anything unusual was the flooding, especially at high tide. Some people did lose power, but all in all this was not that big of a deal, at least not in the 23076 zip code.

If I sound disappointed, I am.

If I get over that disappointment quickly, we can thank the end of the work week and the start of two days of sleeping late.

Have a great weekend.

Dockside

Here are a few more photos taken from the public landing at the Seabreeze over on the island.

The sky was quickly filling with clouds, but every now and then a burst of sunshine would brighten things up brilliantly.

In this last picture I especially like how the dock sort of directs you to glance in the general direction of Callis Wharf, that white structure way off there in the distance.  It appears to be sitting under the only patch of bright sky in the east. I wasn't thinking about any of this when I shot the picture.  I'm just noticing it all now, well after the fact.

My initial thought when I paired these photos together, though, was this song.

Hope this week allows you an opportunity to sit at least briefly if not on a dock then at least some place that brings you peace.

The Weather

Last Thursday when we had that dusting of snow, I drove down to Bethel Beach and then made a pit stop here at the public landing at Onemo.

 Heck, I'd driven that far, I may as well stop in here and make sure everything's OK.

For the record, everything was OK.

This was a weird sort of snowfall.  It stuck to the dock, for example, but not to the road.  It was on the sand at Bethel, but not on the grass.

Strange, I tell you.

It was right about this time, as I was getting comfortable on the snow-covered dock, taking in all the sights and marveling at the quiet, that I felt those eyes on me.

Those eyes. The beady ones you can't really see well in this photo.  But trust me, they're there.  And they're piercing.

Then, as I said in Saturday's post, I quickly left due to the bitter, brutal cold.

In delightful contrast to those frigid temperatures and light dusting of snow, yesterday's thermometer reached 70 exquisitely warm and perfect degrees. At work I went for a 45-minute walk during lunch and luxuriated in every precious breath of warm air and sunshine.

Later in the day I reveled in the breeze made when my daughter swished a hook shot in the first game of her basketball tournament.

I'm not just saying this because I'm her mother, but Chesapeake Bay Daughter needs to join the Harlem Globetrotters.

OK! Granted, maybe that is something only a bragging mother would say. But I still stand by my statement. This 12-year-old daughter of mine can play some basketball, and she has moves you cannot teach. It gives me chills, even on a 70-degree day inside a gym that's so hot and sweaty you want to dive headfirst into an ice bucket and then wallow in talcum powder. Do they even make talcum powder anymore? Is anyone still reading?

Today I brace myself for a tsunami of emotions a new climate known in the weather books as Clear Air Turbulence, or turbulence that may occur in perfectly clear air without any visual in warning in the form of clouds.

In other words, today Chesapeake Son gets his Learner's Permit when just yesterday he was a baby who nearly choked on talcum powder, which is a story for another day.

Or, in the words of my favorite grandmother, uttered slowly and with emphasis on all the nouns,  "Lawd have mercy on my soul and body."

The Dock

These are from my Christmas Eve trip down to Onemo, an effort to quiet my mind and distract myself from all the work that needed to be done.

To the left as you walk down the public landing are the remains of an old dock.

The way the boards are situated reminds me of the very first dock I remember walking on, over at my grandparents' house.

My grandmother used to take me out on her dock to feed the sea gulls.  We would throw out meat scraps, usually pieces of ham, the fat parts everyone trimmed off.  The sea gulls loved it.

But what was most memorable about that dock was how narrow it was and how it was constructed.

Typically when you step onto a dock, you are walking on boards placed horizontally in front of you.

My grandmother's dock consisted of  a couple planks of wood placed lengthwise, much like the boards above appear to be situated.

Although I'm not doing a very good job of explaining things, I do know that dock was different and you don't see them made that way any more.  Probably for good reason, as I remember being scared almost every time we went out on it.  There wasn't much room to turn around.

Plus those sea gulls can be aggressive, especially when you're gripping clove-studded ham bits.

Anyway, isn't it funny how something as simple as the image above can open the floodgates to so many memories?

In other news, this blog is taking a break for the next couple of days and will return on Thursday.  Hope you have a fantastic week free from aggressive sea gulls and unstable docks precarious situations.