Gale warning on the bay today, and yesterday was almost still. I took the dogs in the morning, anticipating today’s winter storm. I have only been managing to get there two or three times a week, so time my trips in accordance with weather and tides. Though it doesn’t much matter, low or high, the beach has always been walkable so far. In a way it’s more interesting at low tide; tide pools exposed, more things on the beach. But it’s always beautiful, choppy, rough, sunny, grey or glassine, the bay is always balm. Always good exercise for all of us, too.

Yesterday two fishing boats and a ship at sea; most usually nothing, just water, sand, shells, seaweed, wind, the dogs, and me.

This stump waits in a slight cove near the end of the beach, always there, always different: sometimes stilting feet above the sand, others nearly buried, sometimes under water… like today, when there’s a gale warning on the bay, and high tide at 4:15, just a couple of hours away. Rain pounds the house intermittently, wind shakes loose limbs from driveway trees. The Bradford pear in bud should survive the night even if it snows; tonight’s predicted low is not below freezing. It’s not a day for the bay, though part of me desperately wants to go see.