Charleston woke me early, as usual, with the thrust of an insistent paw to the sliding glass door (and a whine) so, I groggily slid open the door for his exit. Immediately encountering his foe, he raced back to a different glass door, begging, this time, with a paw and a whine, to be allowed in for breakfast smelling like skunk.

Instead, he was treated to a cold bath by my husband with the hose and a few surprisingly effective household products the FDA has not yet approved for this use. After bath and breakfast, I treated him to our usual walk. 

Happily, yesterday's rain is long gone and we woke to a stunning blue horizon over Vineyard Sound. 

Every morning I make my way across thousands of sea smoothed stones washed up on the sand. There is no way around them but over and I let them massage my arches as I go, swiftly now, along the shore. Today my top delights were these:

another figure in a found object for my collection – I call her mother and child;a leaf, decomposing into fine lace on the path to the beach; a rock like an abstract painting, boldly red, ages old, with painterly splotches of yellow, cream and black, tossed, turned, heated, cooled, tossed here on this beach to brighten any beach-goer's morning.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017