Late Afternoon in Sandwich

Dramatic skies and icy cold winds at the Canal.  Brrrrr!

Late afternoon at Town Neck Beach

I thought all the dark stuff was seaweed till I got up close.  Tens of thousands of dead mussels.  Probably scraped off the rocks by ice.  It was pretty sad.  

All clumped together.

Then we went to check out that old abandoned train car, now that all the grass and briars were dead.

There's a fence around it which I couldn't see the last time I was there.

We were chuckling at this crude ladder to get up and over.  Neither of us was about to try it out.

Boardwalk's now officially closed till it can be fixed.  I read that Barnstable County is going to send the minimum security jail inmates out to fix it, so that will be cool.  

We saw an otter playing in this creek but he was too fast for me to get a pic.

The marshes looked so cool with the dark sky and western sun.

Over to the mini golf which was closed.  And getting flooded from the high tide.

Then down 6A so I could get this pic from the bridge over the marshes.  Those are the spires of the old Doll Museum (now a private residence) and the First Church of Christ.

Our home town is picturesque no matter what the season!

Old Town Cemeteries

 We were in Sandwich the other day and had some time to kill between appointments so my trusty chauffeur took me around to take pics.  He is usually pretty creeped out by cemeteries but I love them, so I was surprised he said he'd take a walk through the super old one on Shawme Pond, where many of the town founding families are buried. 

Most of the graves date to the 1700s and 1800s.  The really old ones, from the late 1600s are worn too much to read.  The most recent year of death I saw was 1924.

Lichen and moss are doing a number on the fragile stones.

It was late afternoon and a perfect time to take a stroll.  So quiet.

First Church of Christ

Shawme Pond

The old stone art is beautiful.  Gravestone rubbings are illegal here.

This is at the Catholic cemetery, St. Peter's.  This section is called 'Crucifixion' and my dad, cousins, aunt and uncle are buried directly behind it. 

Every now and then you'll see these super sad children's stones.

I wonder what happened to her?

Looking at the Round Barn at Heritage Plantation.

Winter Projects

How is it possible that it's almost February????  I finished up this cross stitch in just 3 days' time. I love easy 'instant gratification' projects.

This was messed up from the get go.  I miss counted so much that I ended up just finishing to see how bad it'd look.  My friend Hannah loved it so much so I sent it to her.  I loved the design and colours but by the time I was done, I knew I wasn't going to keep it.

I found capiz shells on Amazon and made a couple of windchimes.  This is the one on a starfish.  I have another that I did with the shells descending in a spiral but I don't have a pic yet.

People were posting these cool pics of bubbles with pretty frost forming in the sub zero temps so I gave it a try but it didn't work that well for me.  

It just mostly fogged up.

This project is extremely challenging.  Building the Hogwarts Express out of teeny tiny pieces of metal, that have microscopic tabs that fit into microscopic slots.

Penny there for scale.  There are about 70 pieces that have to be carefully punched out and assembled.

You have to follow these instructions which are actually pretty easy if you go slow and make sure of each step before you commit.  I've had a lot of trouble keeping ahold of the super small pieces, even with tweezers and needlenose pliers, and a few pieces have broken.  Thank god for E6000 glue and toothpicks.

So far I've got the coal tender done and now I'm working on the engine.  Each piece feels light as a feather but put together it's surprisingly heavy.

One of my friends asked me to make this for her.  It was a quick workup....a few hours one afternoon.  I used four strands of rainbow floss for the lettering since it's on 12ct Aida.  I was going to outline the letters but it didn't look right so I took it out (thankfully I'd only done the M).  

Just waiting for him to be born so I can finish this one.