Tracks, Tracks, BIG (Turtle) Tracks

I am spending days trying to play catch up with too much on my plate so stories are part of that catch up.  The Portrait Workshop with Jane Angelhart, which brought me my old friends from home to enjoy, was fun as the week started with early class.  With it being a day off for me, I joined them for an outside lunch at Sliders Restaurant on the beach with some of the class.

A nice way to orient out of towners to our beach life.  Jane Angelhart in front on the right did a wonderful workshop as usual, with Chris (on the Left) saying it was "the best week of her life".  We won't tell her hubby, Tom, about that statement.

After class it actually clouded up and rained about 10 drops, but not to be deterred, we assumed it would only last a few minutes and took off down Black Rock Trail to see the Tree Graveyard.  The gals from Georgia read my stories, so they wanted to personally see everything they had seen in them.  It seemed nature had left a flowery welcome with the smaller variety of Magnolia which grows here littering our pathway with pretty blooms.

Artists all, they thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the patterns in the sand which were left by the water.

This was taken during an overcast afternoon, about 5pm.  The light was very different from any other time I had been there.  It was as if it was a nearly black and white world.

Chris, Doris and Leslie, (who managed to escape being photographed), enjoyed the unusual lighting.  It felt very much like we were in the middle of an Ansel Adams photograph.

It was a very different feeling, very pensive and dramatic without the sun to play light patterns on the trees.

Beautiful patterns as usual but with a very different feeling.

The black soft sandstone that the place is named for is interesting in it's own right with holes left by sea creatures which drill holes and by shapes changed by the tides.

The horizon was barely visible with the heavy humidity's haze filling the air.

We next went to another beach which is known to have some beach glass, for those who didn't know what beach glass was.  I loved the colors in this shell.  Can you find some beach glass here?

It looks like some huge hands are digging into the shells looking for beach glass of its own.

On Tuesday morning, after getting special permission to take my house guests on Turtle Patrol, Doris was the first.  It was an eventful morning for her, that's for sure.  Our first encounter was a beautiful deer in the area where our brick masons store their sand and bricks.  He was munching the leaves hanging down from the Live Oak branches when we arrived in the area.  Although he kept a wary eye on us, he kept eating until I finally started my loud engine causing him to bolt into the woods.  I hated to break the spell but turtle tracks were waiting.

As soon as we hit the beach we had our first Sea Turtle nest.  There is an escarpment in this area near the fort itself at Fort Clinch Park and this is the second nest that this lady has laid where she stopped at its base to do her nesting.  You can see where her front flipper left a second set of tracks on the side of the embankment.

Doris got to exercise her muscles with the sledge hammer driving all four stakes into the ground.

A bit of a funny confrontation occured as we were heading on down the beach.  Both tried to disappear down the one lane crab hole at once.  Both backed off and tried to stare each other down as to who had the right of way.  Finally when they figured our buggy offered more of a threat than each other and the closer one dived down the crab hole closely followed by the other.

Once we reached the beach we had another one of those difficult ones with a very elongated nest.  More hammering for Doris.  With all this activity she was obviously not going to make the class on time.  We found one more nest but since I had run out of stakes I decided to wait until the next day and let Chris have a hand at hammering in the stakes.

Next day Chris got to be a Horseshoe Crab rescuer.  We almost missed this one which was a small younger perfect female which had gotten herself stuck in the sand.  I didn't even see her because it was not an area they usually nest.  A kid on the beach walking with his mom had found it.  When I saw him fooling with it I called out to him to tell him it was probably still alive.  I dug her out and let them all see how to tell boys from girls.  Since we were right next to the jetty with no place to release her Chris got the pleasure of holding her until we could drive to the water's edge at the point on the ocean front.  The surf is not so noisy that she needed those hearing protectors, but the buggy I drive requires them.

Leslie and Chris will probably kill me for putting this photo in, but I thought it was very interesting; as we ate by the water the girls were discussing the things they had learned in painting class and today they had both been working on the area around the mouth and nose which is a very difficult area for a portrait artist to capture.  It certainly does look like a very weird conversation going on to the casual onlooker.

Just as they were discussing the children's portraits the perfect subject strolled onto the beach.  I regret that I did not also capture her "Dorothy" sparkling red shoes.  Such a cute little princess, but would yank that dress up in a very ungraceful way when navigating that soft sand.  Very cute, a little tomboy girl trying to be all grown up and lady like.

And now another amazing surprise as we now have some Leatherback tracks without buggy tracks through them.  These measured at least 7 1/2 feet.  Two now, WOW!!!  A great Friday morning.  We called in everyone for a consultation and just to get to see the tracks;  rangers, Amelia Island Turtle Watch Volunteers and fearless leader, Mary Duffy.

I laid my sunglasses down to show the size comparison.  A big girl.

After laying they often crawl on through the nest and do a doughnut, (or a crop circle) kind of area to help disguise the real nest area.  She then crawled back through the area where we believe she nested on her curvy-tracked way back to the sea.

Although both girls missed the great event we headed up there as soon as class and gallery work was over to get to see it while it was still fresh.  It was their last day and with Bruce's help we had a very nice "going away" dinner at home followed by a short trip to the Ritz Carlton so they could check out my neighbors to the South.  A great week.

One of my mom's famous strawberry specialties, (my low calorie version) was their final send-off treat, as we finished the evening with a great dessert.  Good friends, fun places to go, learning new things, good food whether home or in some of our local restaurants, and strawberry shortcake.  Just doesn't get any better. Someone asked me for my recipe and I would gladly share except that I don't really have one.  I can kind of tell you kind of what I do.   STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE EAST TENNESSEE STYLE Plenty of strawberries so that you don't skimp on the berries and juice when you make them up to serve.  You can see by the picture I am generous with the strawberries.  Slice these up, smash them a little bit with a fork to get some of the juice started out of the berries.  Add anywhere from a 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar to the berries and set them aside in the fridge so that the sugar and the juice of the berries make a lot of syrup.  You want enough juice to flavor the biscuits.  There is a name for this but I can't remember what it is called.  The cake is made as if you are going to make biscuits (I know, not many do that anymore).  Making biscuits is very easy with (must be White Lily) self rising flour.   Measure approximately two cups of flower, add about a 1/4 c. of sugar to the flour (don't want them to be very sweet).  Blend.  Add about a 1/4 c of butter (the real deal) and cut the shortening into the mix.  Add milk until you have a "semi soft dough" stiff enough to handle with your hands but just barely.  By putting flour on your hands you can pinch off and pat out or roll out a biscuit to your own size preference.  Less is better because they do get bigger.  Bake about 400-450 in the oven until lightly browned.  As soon as you take the biscuits out of the oven, cut them open and lightly butter them inside and very lightly on the top (Just want the flavor, not soggy with butter).  Set aside until you are ready to serve them.  You don't want them to get too soggy, and you want some of the crispness of the outside of the biscuit so don't fix too far ahead.  Have everything ready to put together and serve immediately. When you are ready to have dessert, put strawberries in the middle and on top of the biscuits putting plenty of the juice onto the biscuit.  Top with whipped cream, either the real kind or the low cal Cool Whip, your choice as to how many calories you want to splurge.  If my mom were doing it she would use more butter and sugar but I keep mine lower calorie and they are just as good to me.

A Break in the Weather

The commission piece I was working on is now finished, picked up, and on its way to its new home in Jacksonville. 

This one I had professionally scanned before putting under glass to make sure I have a good image for making cards.  Almost time for turtle season again.  Now to get to work on my Koi painting.  Will post progress photos as it develops.

Sometimes work in the gallery leads into one day after another and I forget the time of year except having the seasons of heat on, doors open, doors and windows open, and then air conditioning time.  I came to the realization that it was coming upon on Valentine's day this week when a male customer came in with a request for "hearts, -anything with hearts".  My mind went blank as I searched each cobwebby corner of it thinking hearts, hearts, do I have hearts?  I looked around in vain.  My brain just works that way sometimes.  After he left my slow brain said, of course you have hearts.  I knew I had a pair of Sandy Washburn's copper earrings with tiny hearts and I had some pretty blue pendants in glass.  But I also had lots of heart beads in my boxes.  Inspiration is sometimes borne out of need.  I spent a couple of days turning everything heart shaped into wearable art.  I now have glass blown heart pendants, and small yellow glass heart pendant, and lots of porcelin hearts turned into all colors of earrings.  So now my brain is ready to say "Yes, we do have hearts".

Earlier in the week I took a friend with me as I checked on "ye ol' turtle nest" and did a bit of beach exploring with my photographer friend, Lea.  Some of the birds we were having trouble identifing but that is the way with gulls.  Their colors change so much with the seasons and age that since I am not a birder I don't worry about it that much.  The really big ones stand out because of their size and I am thinking that the smaller ones might be young laughing gulls whose black head has not fully changed in color.

I kept trying to catch a good shot of the big guys in flight as they kept leap frogging ahead of us as we headed up the beach.  We would almost reach them and they would fly.  This was repeated over and over until we finally got around them.

The tide was going out making it a very good day to watch the formation of the patterns I love so much in the sand as they were happening.

Lea says she calls them beach trees which I think is a pretty appropriate name.

Since we were sure the tide was heading out we decided to explore the jetty a bit more thoroughly.  Some of the rocks held depressions which always hold water when they are not underneath the surface.  Unlike the West Coast ones, ours do not have that much life in them.  Some sea moss was pretty in this one but no sea urchins or starfish like I have seen in California.

A close view of the tiny barnacles are pretty even though too small in reality to be very eye catching.

I thought the combination of ripples formed by the water in conjunction with bird tracks lightly washed over was pretty nice and not the usual.

The base of the jetty holds lots of broken shells, sometimes pretty enough for retriving sometimes just pretty with their surroundings and best left for others to enjoy or the sea to envelope again next tide.

Mostly the shells are broken pieces attesting to the force of the water as it hits the rocks.

Of course I would spot one more white feather, this one had become a part of the flowing tidal formations adding to the overall design.  Mighty nice, momma nature.

A very close up snails eye view of the beautiful pink (non native invasive species) barnacle with its bits and pieces of pink tentacle or root like appendages along with a tiny bit of bright green seaweed which has become part of this whole minature world of a barnacle which traveled on the bottom of some large ship from far, far away to be dropped on our shore.

Oyster shells also evidence the precarious life that finds itself clinging to any surface available to sustain their survival, deter their demise.

Pools form underneath the massive rocks evidencing life forms there.

The dead and living coexist with one living and building on the other.

More broken pieces of former sealife have crashed upon the rocks either as living or empty shells of a former life.

The mosses mixed with brown and green colors looks like the back of some great hairy beast.

Some spots were almost all brown, some mixed...

...and some bright spots of vivid green among the neutral colors that make up the biggest part of the jetty.  I am told that these great walls against the sea were built from rocks taken from New York when the mass transit system was being built in the early 1900's.  It was an engineering feat to get these great pieces of rock and concrete placed so that they withstand the storms that this great ocean can produce.

The remnants of some great ship's rope has become part of the great sea wall.

More pretty sand patterns wait as we cross on to the river's shore line.  With my hands full of the pretty pink shells I have picked up and the sun getting low I say it is time to leave.  Another day is about to be gone.

The shadows from the almost setting sun just catch the top of the tallest dunes as I drive down the road on my way out of the park.

The light on the West side filtering through the trees convince me that just a few minutes more won't matter that much as I stop to take a look over the marsh and Egan's Creek looking toward the lighthouse.  Sunlight on the Spanish Moss is a nice thing this time of day.

One shaft of light shines through the trees brighter then any other so I stop to see how it has happened and to follow its pathway.  Looking though the sunbeam it is almost like looking into a sun cave with the sun itself peering back at me.  I almost expect to see a Hobbit peer back at me as I look through this magical spot.  Nice to have some warmer days to get outside.  Our visitors from the north say that it is balmy not cold but to us Floridians it has been cold. As the week moved on the weather warmed with days when we can open both the gallery doors.  So for a few days at least the cold that has been so dreary for us has moved away. A bit of news from Charles the Monarch of the Magic Kingdom.  My son, David, was working over at Disney a couple of weeks after I left Charles and he called to say that he saw a Monarch Butterfly there.  I told him of course it had to be Charles because all the others were in Mexico, having left around the first of November.  It was about the time when Charles's mother happened by my flower garden on her way (I actually saw her that day) and with one farewell effort laid the egg that became Charles.  It was the only Monarch I had seen in my yard all year.  I had even tried to photograph her but she was too fast and fleeting for me but I had seen her sitting on the very plant on which I found Charles' caterpillar stage.

By the way did I tell you we have hearts?