Hello. It's me.

Winter Beach

Hi there. It has been a long time since I've been here but I've been missing the Giraffe Head Tree.  I've dreamed about the tree recently - maybe because I've recently been to Alabama to visit family and friends.  The Giraffe Head Tree, and this blog, was a large part of my life for years. Those were my Awakening Years.  So, today I'm visiting and seriously consider making books from this blog.  Should anyone read this post (chances are slim - I've been MIA) who has gone through this process and can recommend a company I'm wide open to suggestions.

In the meantime I bring you a beach photo for your day.  Peace, friends.

Transitions

For various and sundry reasons I am making the move from Blogger to Wordpress.  I'm still learning WP but am finding many aspects to it that I prefer.  Blogger and the Giraffe Head Tree will always be a part of my heart but they no longer fit where I am Today...in the Now.

You can find me at my new blog:  http://debibradford.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

Brought to you by Led Zepplin

September 28, 2013

This is a grand adventure.  Sunrises and sea turtles, northern gannets and ruddy turnstones, sand between my toes and sandspurs sticking in the bottom of my flip flops.  Bald eagles and ospreys, salt marshes and the Cape Fear, ferries and fossils.  Sadly for you I've not been blogging about most of it.  It is time for a change.

August 22, 2013

It's also time to change my blog.  Past time, really.  I'm working on a new title and am excited about traveling in a new direction in blogging.  I have really missed it, this blogging world, and I've missed YOU!  I've amassed quite the collection of images which have been posted mostly on Facebook.  FB leaves me kind of cold though.  Not the people who I reach and chat with, but FB itself with its constantly changing Rules and Issues.  Frankly, I don't trust them. 

July 8, 2013

But I digress. Soon, I'll have a new blog and will be directing you to it somehow - surely it can't be that difficult.

Listening to:  Ramble on, by Led Zepplin

Hello

I seem to have writer's block.  Possibly even photography block.  What I am clearly having is hip block, as my left one is experiencing technical difficulties keeping me off the beach for a bit.  Still, there are tons of images taken since our arrival at my disposal, lots of experiences not shared and ideas not brought forth to my blog.  My poor, sad, neglected blog that so desperately needs a change.

We are fortunate to be living close to a beach.  Photographing sunrises has been a favorite activity of mine since our arrival last March.  Walking along this pier, watching the fishermen and women hauling in all manner of creatures (and letting most of them go), staring at the waves crashing beneath me, marveling at cannonball jellyfishes, sharks and stingrays cruising around, avoiding the pelicans and gulls who think they're going to get fed, then leaving through the store, buying locally made ice cream, is such a treat.

Riding the ferry brings intense joy.  No matter how many times we passenger the Cape Fear River ferry to Southport and back again the trip never grows boring.  Never.  Ever.  Such a peaceful calm.  Watching the pelicans, gulls and terns swoop and dive for lunch, and the gulls pacing the ferry hoping for a handout is so cool.  Occasionally dolphins will mirror the ferry for a bit before disappearing toward the mouth of the river into the ocean.  Once, we spied a bald eagle.  There are always sailboats, fishing boats and even ships to watch.

The salt marshes lend an exotic, mysterious, amazingly beautiful palette of seasonal colors.  Bright greens in the spring, purples and browns toward summer ending in the luscious golds of autumn.  I am in love with the salt marshes with its crabs and grackles, herons and egrets, snakes and oysters, dragonflies and damselflies.  The salt marshes are the magical fringe between brackish waters and the maritime forest housing creatures and plants unique to that environment. 

The coolest thing EVER is that we have our own turtle nest incubating at the end of our walkway to the beach!  These little guys are due to hatch sometime in October.  I hope and pray I will be here for their birth and slipping and sliding into the ocean.  How incredible!  What a miracle! 

So I'm pondering my blog again and considering even changing to Wordpress, thanks to a creative genius friend and blogger who encourages that direction.  Blogger always seems to have spacing problems, unless it's the blog-ee (me!) and not Blogger's fault.  No matter how tight I make spaces in between photos and text there are sometimes these large spaces that I can't make go away.  But, since it's just a blog let's just Let It Be.  For now.  So that's my random blog post for now!  I hope you are all doing well - I really miss you all!

Brought to you by the letters "E" and "A"....

After a five week journey to North Alabama helping family through surgeries and sneaking in a few visits along the way, I'm back at the beach.  There's an odd disconnect one experiences after being gone for so long.  In order to find myself again there has been lots of sleeping and simply "being," a couple of early evening Toddies on the Beach with the hubby, and yesterday...my first beach walk.

We've had an abundance of rainfall the past few days.  Along with the rain drops came lightning and thunder, north winds and heavy seas.  After the heat of early August I welcomed this change with open arms...and bare feet for my first serious walk.  My goal was the green rocks of Fort Fisher.  However, the universe had something completely different in mind for me.

Trash

Stepping onto the wet sand off our walkway the first thing I noticed were lines of beach flotsam and jetsam deposited by the sea.  It was just past high tide, and these markers were high spots of deposits.  There, amid the bits of shells, seaweed and bits of grasses were cigarette butts.  Leaning down to pick up the first one I spotted 5 more.  This continued for about a hundred yards south.

I never made it to the green rocks. After about 20 minutes my collecting bag was nearly full.  Back aching, hip complaining I turned back to do a sweep on the way back and collected even more.  North winds blowing my hair out of my eyes I could see more trash, even watching the waves deposit more as I walked.  It was staggering, the amount of garbage.  A personal best...er, worst for Kure Beach.  More tourists on a smoking beach = more cigarette butts.  

Kure Beach Trash Pickup: August 15, 2013;  1.4 pounds of trash
1 hour over a few hundred yards.  Mid-afternoon, after storms and rainfall at high tide with heavy seas. 

10 Children's toys
Over 50 bits and pieces of paper and plastic
2 tubes of chapstick
8 plastic cigarillo tips
1 complete empty bottle of water
1 Landshark beer bottle cap
1 plastic spoon
The letters "E" and "A" from something
1 quarter
22 bottle caps
448 cigarette butts

That last one bears repeating:  448 CIGARETTE BUTTS

This is plain nasty.  I'm going to buy medical gloves for these beach pickups it's becoming so gross.  This time I did receive pay for my efforts - one quarter. 

I leave you with a pretty photograph of how a beach should look, sans trash:

...isn't this better?