Woods Walk

 We found something sweet on the beach I thought you’d like to see.♥ Feel like taking a walk?  Joe and I have walked the same road almost every morning since we discovered this place over twenty years ago; I wrote about it in my Summer Book; it’s my favorite part of our day.  Maybe you need a timeout and virtual trip to a warm beach on a summer day.  So come along . . . it’s almost three miles, out and back, easy walk!  Musica?  ♫  Oui!  ♫ –click it on, then come with us!

Already we feel the season beginning to change; the first little hints are in the air, lovely cool rain for one thing, a few red leaves; the cicadas are beginning to drown out the sound of the crows (and that’s saying something).  But every day, rain, snow, or beautiful August morning, we walk the same walk . . . through the woods . . .

On a dirt road where we’ve memorized every stick, birds nest, and squirrel hole along the way . . .

These woods are full of wonderful things; from wild turkeys lumbering across the road, to baby squirrels chasing each other up trees, to the patterns the sun makes as it filters through the trees.  Nothing grows better here than poison ivy. Nothing turns a prettier red in the fall either.  The smell on the road in late summer is pine and hot dirt.

Cardinals flit through the woods…

Wild blueberries and blackberries make a delicious breakfast.

Wild mushrooms are beautiful and scary and we definitely don’t eat them.  If you are familiar with the type of scientific minds we have, you understand why we take no chances.

Homemade signs along the road point the way to little houses in the woods. . .

 

 

 

 

 

As we walk along, eating blueberries, we get peeks through tree-openings of our destination. . .

And then, suddenly, the trees end . . .

. . . and out into the open sky we go . . .

 …to walk along the shore of the pond . . . this is the part of the walk I call “Ireland.”

Hundred-year-old fishing shacks line this narrow spit of land, they have an amazing view of the pond out their front doors →, and the ocean out the back ←. . . you can just see a little peek of the sea.

 

The houses are right ON the water.  In a somewhat scary fashion if you believe in the power of hurricanes which I do.

But they’ve been there a long time; so far, so good.

♥

 

 

 

 

 

 

These houses are all different inside, mostly unfinished with worn wooden floors and open shelves instead of cupboards. They’re not heated, so they get boarded up in the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

Beach towels flap from clothelines and front porches. Gulls and Terns dive overhead making all those wonderful beachy noises we love to hear; the waves lap on shore, the smell is wild beach roses, salt, and sand; the aroma of frying bacon floats out to greet us. ♥

Behind this blue door of one of the shacks lives the sweetest-pot-pie-people in the world.  We found out, if you walk past someone’s house for enough years, someday they will feel sorry for you and invite you in.  Give you coffee, tell you stories, play rummikub with you, and as the years go by, become dear friends.

They even, if you are very lucky, ask you to sit on their porch with them and watch the sun go down.

 

 

 

We stop here and visit as often as possible — but then we go on, to our final destination, to where the road ends and the pond cuts in front of you on it’s way out to sea.

Here’s where we stand in silent awe every morning and drink in the beauty. We come before the beach fills up; while it’s still quiet, just us and the birds.  The pond used to be landlocked, but it opened up during a hurricane and boat lovers along the shore could then have boats on the pond and get them through the opening to the sound.

And this is what the tiny beach there looks like on a summer day if you’re on a sailboat going through the opening….little kids, picnic lunches, umbrellas, and beach chairs.

And here’s what it looks like if you’re on board the sailboat!

But I digress . . . this story could go off into a whole other direction!  But wouldn’t you like to see what we found on the beach?

 I have a photo “collection” of sand castles I’ve happened upon like this.  The photo of this one makes three.  Because it’s August, and another summer is flying by . . .

. . . we stay awhile and search for beach glass and heart-shaped rocks, but then it’s time to say good bye, turn around and retrace our steps back along the pond, through the woods, popping blueberries in our mouths.  And home.

Did you have fun?  Do you want to come with us tomorrow?  OK, get your shoes on, we go at 7.  Be there or be square.♥