A Grand Day Out

Some friends are down visiting for the weekend and we took them out on the boat yesterday. We love sharing the beauty of this area with friends and one of our favorite things to do is to see the Shackleford Ponies. We really lucked out this time as we were able to get a good look at a very new baby.

 Cape Lookout National Seashore has some really good information on these wild horses here: Horses of Shackleford Banks Click on some of the links from that page if you want to learn more.

Baby was so incredibly adorable and even put on a show for us...excuse the jerkiness of the video...it's hard to keep it steady when using the zoom and no tripod.

Yucca in Bloom

Another Fine Day

A wee ghost crab peeking out of his hole

The Ingenuity of Squirrels

We have an area in our front yard that's evolving into a little serenity garden...We've recently put up a reed fence and planted caladiums, hostas, and elephant ears. This is also the area where two of our cats and one of our greyhounds that have gone on are buried and last year we bought little markers for them. Anyway, we've also put up one birdhouse and a couple of bird feeders. The birds are happy...so are the squirrels! Squirrels are pretty ingenious little buggers. One of the feeders is "squirrel-proof"....but that isn't stopping them from trying!

The white "stones" are the pet grave markers; the big wooden cat was a Christmas present & is carved out of one piece of wood!

Some friends made the dolphin and the seagull...

That's the "squirrel-proof" feeder with a bird in it

One of the culprits sneaking up there...

...making his way over...

...thinking how best to try this venture.

 I haven't caught it yet, but LoML's seen them actually hanging over the top of the feeder trying to figure it out. I think I'm going to have fun sitting on the swing (not pictured as I some how forgot to get a picture of it or the rest of the plants....maybe next time) and "spying" on the wildlife.

Living the Dream

What an amazingly beautiful place surrounds me.

Ferry Ride

Last weekend I went to a function hosted by one of the horseman's associations I belong to. Getting there involved taking a local ferry across one of the sounds. The ferry left the dock at 7:45 a.m. and it was an overcast day.

It's about a 20-minute ride across during which time I love watching the birds. The cormorants were lined up on the bulkhead...

Mid-way across we pass the other ferry that's running the opposite direction. The seagulls were having fun.

There are usually a lot of seagulls that follow along, feeding on any fish that get stirred up and on any bread crumbs that passengers throw...but this morning there were a lot of cormorants that flew along too. That's one coming in for a water landing with his wings still spread on the left-hand side of the picture below.