Enjoying -- oh, yes, enjoying ...

We are having such a beautiful autumn, the light is sometimes magical -- a few minutes ago I sat down here at my computer to write. The pale blue sky was streaked with pink -- that is an eastern sky at sunset, not sunrise. In ten minutes it has disappeared and evening has curtained the sky.  I am SO very much enjoying my early morning walks beside the ocean and beside this stream where it stretches for nearly a mile before it joins the curving ocean shallows.  The sun has mostly been out, it is not yet too cold to walk barefoot on the sand at the tide line although soon it will be. 

The great influx of horseshoe crab shells is finished and it's the season when a harvest of seaweed washes ashore in piles.  A few ducks are around every day; they are having a rest as they migrate somewhere south.  The tourists who come are only looking at trees and trinket shops and maybe some historic sites but they, or their guides, do not think the ocean side is interesting.  Good for me.  I hardly ever meet more than a half dozen people and maybe 3 or 4 dogs when I walk by the sea.
These days are a treat -- a  little like my habit of eating the cake first and saving the icing unti last -- these days are the icing of this past summer. 

We have had few storms but the farthest end of Long Beach has greatly eroded this summer.  I predicted two years ago after we had the tail end of some hurricane that that far end would eventually become an island.  Without a hurricane so far this year, it, nevertheless, seems to be continuing that trend.   Trees standing with some earth beneath them last fall are grasping for foothold and it is being washed away.  They are dead -- as they were not five years ago.  This is an old, old story of seashores, of course.  I've never had the opportunity to watch it unfolding.  Only partly in jest, I say sometimes that we are the last full generation who will know Cape Cod; that in 75 years or so most of it will be under water.  That depends on the pace of climate change and deepening of the oceans. It is not unreasonable. ... But for now.... for now, it's beautiful and I am enjoying each and every sunny day.