I was tooling around in wine country yesterday afternoon and got to enjoy a little snowy scenery in Southold.
This little vineyard is right around the block from my mom’s house. Passing it on my way home in the snowstorm, I snapped this picture in the blue light of dusk.
While some people were afraid it might be too cold out or that there’d be too much sand on the beach 🙂 yours truly braved the sand, sea and bitter cold to bring you this beautiful Long Island sunrise.
Way off in the distance you can just make out Fire Island as a dark band on the horizon.
While I was wandering the beach I came across this horseshoe crab frozen to the eelgrass that’s been washed ashore.
Horseshoe crabs are one of my favorite sea creatures. They’re perfectly harmless in spite of the way they look, have great medical potential, and have been around for millions of years.
The morning was finger-numbing cold, clear, and absolutely beautiful. Hope we have much more of the same on Long Island in 2009.
The town of Cold Spring Harbor really does the holidays well. I was there last weekend and had a great time shopping, eating, and hanging around with pirates, actors, horses… I almost felt like a Charles Dickens story.
Here are some pictures and a flyer detailing the events for this weekend and next. If you like Christmas, don’t miss it.
Read more about cold Spring Harbor here.
Grasso’s Restaurant is one of my favs and right on Main Street. Read my review here.
There are a lot of things I like about winter. The long nights give me a chance to hibernate. The cold, dry air makes sleeping so easy (and rising so difficult). And the dramatic grey, stormy skies bring anticipation to the day—will it snow? Sure looks like it will. Sure hope it does…
There’s nothing like a good snowstorm.
February, typically Long Island’s most snowy month, is almost over. As we move into March the odds of having a good one decrease with each passing day.
But last Friday, just in time for the morning rush hour, February gave us a teaser. About 4 inches of snow fell by daybreak and it continued to snow lightly throughout the day.
As much as I love the snow, I can’t stand when Mother Nature drops a small one on us. Sure, it pretties everything up for a few days, but driving in it can be a nightmare. It’s not the snow itself that makes conditions dangerous, but the bonehead drivers who don’t clean their windows and speed down the road like it’s a beautiful spring day. I can’t stand that.
On second thought, maybe driving with a camera in your hand is not too smart either. Here are 2 views from a snap taken in my little corner of Long Island during my drive into work.
The snow is still falling and you can barely see the trees beyond the bridge. Pretty cool if you ask me.
I love the panoramic view
But this is closer to what one actually sees when driving in the snow
If you live on Long Island you probably woke up this past Saturday morning to the sound of shovels and scrapers. I’m an early riser so I had a few hours of quiet time before the racket started, but it wasn’t long before I found myself out there with everyone else shoveling snow and scraping ice.
I helped two of my neighbors dig out their cars and then drove over to my girlfriend’s house to shovel the slippery ice from her concrete stoop and sidewalk. After that my son and I shoveled the ice off of his boat and went for a ride.
A boat ride on a snowy winter’s day? Well, I did have to twist his arm a little, but it wasn’t too hard.
Joe is one of Long Island’s baymen, so with the exception of a short haul in the early spring his boat stays in the water all year long. For most of us a boat ride in the winter is a bit of a novelty. For Joe it’s all in a day’s work.
Joe shoveling snow from his boat to prevent ice melt from ending up in the bilge.
Seagulls know that they frequently get meals from fishing boats. They started following us as soon as we left the dock, but soon gave up when they realized we were empty handed.
Icicles hang from our pilot house, and snow covered boats and buildings line the canal which is at an unusually high tide. The careful observer will note a small boat sunk up to it’s gunwales, a victim of the late winter storm.
An old, but too young to retire net boat.
I love this little house/garage on the canal.
Heading southeast, Fire Island is visible way off in the distance while Long Island is far behind us. (The wooden table is for separating scallops from seaweed.)
The Robert Moses Bridge stands alone under the gray winter sky.
Cap’n Joe really hates having his picture taken. Safely back home, the long shadows at day’s end tell me it’s time to settle in for the night.
Well, that’s not exactly your typical day on Long Island, but Long Island, with it’s fleet of fishing boats and spectacular coastline is one of the few places where it’s possible.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love living on Long Island? 🙂