Heritage Plantation

To celebrate my birthday my daughters and I went to Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, a town here on Cape Cod. It's 70 acres of planting, most famous for it's spring time display of rhododendrons and azeleas. Last year on the first weekend of June it looked like the above photo. This year we had a very early spring and all the rhodies were gone but I was not disappointed. Even before getting through the entrance I had seen my favorite flower, the peony -- as big and totally luscious as a flower can be.
Then we saw a flowering golden rain tree which was very tall and wide so that this photo really doesn't begin to show what a lovely sight it was.
Many mountain laurels were in bloom, some white and some with red and white blossoms, they were more delicate than rhodies and lucky to have a time to themselves to really shine.
We saw a couple of museums, one with rubbings and photos of 18th century gravestones and another another with wooden indians and a handful of paintings. Then we followed a winding path above and beside a lake with ducks on it, came to a labyrinth which we dutifully walked. And then strolled across a beautifully manicured rolling lawn to the hosta garden and then to the herb garden.
And to top the afternoon off we made a stop at Titcommb's bookstore in Sandwich which has a very browse-able selection of new and used books and very tastefully selected gifts. Plus Rachel discovered she knows the very personable manager. What more could one hope for?

A day in Wellfleet

Rachel and I had a nature and art day. On the way to the lovely, gallery filled town of Wellfleet, we stopped at this beautiful site -- the name of which has gone out of my head -- a former estate that was about to be cut up into residential development when, the story is, JFK was being flown along the shores and decided to purchase the whole estate and give it to Massachusetts as a preserve. It has short trails through a cedar forest with boardwalks over marshy areas and beautiful vistas of inlets and salt marsh. Several people were kayaking. It also has ticks, which R. knew about so we wore light colored long pants and brushed off the few that that seemed to think we looked like yummy bufets.

Wellfleet has maintained it's traditional look with many galleries, stores with crafts, hand made jewelry and quite lovely, poetic type of clothing. We wandered around a couple of hours. The gray clouds blew in just when we wanted to find a nice place for a picnic. Instead we picniced in the car but at the harbor watching fishing and pleasure boats returning before the possible storm arrived. Although the lovely warmth fled before chilly ocean winds, we got only sprinkles. After eating we stopped to visit another three galleries. Among the crafts we enjoyed were some ceramic plates with leaf decoration -- this in fact is not the one I liked best but it gives an idea. I felt shy about taking a lot of photos but the morning was a feast for the senses and a chance to truly enjoy artist's talents and cleverness and to wish we had a bottomless bank account to purchae art and romantic clothing and jewelry.

In the middle of town is an old church which is no longer used. It's a big white rectangular building surrounded by a sunken garden. The billboard says the town is trying to raise money to make it a community center. Meanwhile it's bell tower sits on the ground looking a bit like a gazebo, and one of the benches is on the hill, precariously tilted -- R. is mugging in the picture.