The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Sunday Morning at Chepiwanoxet Point

 

Chepiwanoxet is a Narragansett Indian word that means - depending on who you ask - "devil's island" or "at the small separated place."  Personally, I like the latter.     

  

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture above, Alex was sitting there when an older gentleman with a bucket went by, chomping on a cigar.  Alex - because he is six - announced loudly to Bill "I feel bad for that man - he's smoking!"  Later on, when the man came back past us again, he stopped to make sure we'd heard Alex.  He seemed kind of pleased, actually.  And he showed us the baby crabs in his bucket - bait for tautaug fishing, which he planned to do the next morning, when most people would be at work.  And then he re-lit his cigar and went on his way.

 

 

 

I get such a kick out of watching my kids fish.

 

 

Oops.

 

That's better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's a heron.

 

 

 

 

Seaweed - not a fish.

 

Do you need help, Julia? 

No, Mom, I can do it myself!

 

 

Dumping water from her boots.

 

Replenishing the water in her boots.

 

Time to go home.

Treasure

Yesterday, completely on a whim, I decided to bring the kids to the beach.  Alex is in the middle of a 4-week study of the oceans and sea creatures of all kinds, so I figured this would be especially cool for him.  It was a gorgeous day, too.  And the best part was, I didn't tell the kids where we were going.  Just bundled them up, gave them rubber gardening gloves to wear in case it was cold (and because we'd be collecting sandy, wet treasures along the shoreline) and off we went. 

We went to Oakland Beach, in Warwick, because it was close by.  We drove past the little house that Bill and I rented for a few years way back when, and we got chowder and clamcakes and lemonade at Iggy's.

We filled my deep coat pocket with all sorts of shells and rocks and crab claws, and I took a bunch of pictures.  The kids chased seagulls...we climbed on rocks...we saw 4 dead jellyfish...and we were out in the fresh air for a couple of hours. 

The kids see our collection of shells as their bounty, but I look through the pictures and see our time spent together as the real treasure.  I've included a few shots in this post, but if you want to see the rest of them, you can go here.

 

(and I didn't put that little starburst highlight on the shell - it just came out that way.)

and lastly - a bit of dabbling with artistic effects...we saw a pair of swans on the way home...here's one shot:

and here's what happened after I played with it a bit:

Fun stuff, huh?

Anyway, like I said, if you want to see all of them, you can go to my Oakland Beach set on flickr.

Good thing we went yesterday...it's pouring rain today.