Sunday, August 11, 2013

I Love Cape Cod

Last Friday I packed a bag and headed to my cousin's on Cape Cod for the weekend.  I ended up staying until Tuesday morning. We didn't do a lot this trip, but I always have a fun time on the Cape. 
We walked down Main Street, and I did a little Christmas shopping .
Saturday morning we headed to the Barnstable Village Farmer's Market that is held on Saturday's on the side lawn of the Barnstable Court House, Barnstable on 6-A. Unfortunately, we didn't get there early enough.
Barnstable Village Farmers Market sign.8.2013
I wanted to buy Finnish Nisu/Pulla (cardamom coffee bread braid) from  Tekla's Braids and Breads boothBy the time we got to the Farmer's Market the Nisu was all sold out. I decided to try a walnut/cinnamon cardamom braid/bread instead to bring home to my mom and dad. I love Nisu, but my husband isn't a big fan of cardamom.
My mom use to make Nisu all the time, but for some reason I've never tried making it. I will have to give it a try this winter. I found these sites on a google search that has recipes and photos for Nisu.  Nisu , Nisu/Pulla recipe and photos , Nisu recipe with nice photo, another recipe site 
After we left the Farmer's Market we continued down 6-A to the Green Briar Jam Kitchen on 6-A.  ( Thornton Burgess Society)
Green Brier Jam kitchen sign 3. 8.3.2013
Saturday was their blueberry festival and members were making different blueberry jams. I enjoyed the  different blueberry jams they had out to sample...yum! I picked up a few of their jam recipe pamphlets they were giving out free. I want to try making blueberry peach jam, as that was so yummy. The jam kitchen has jam workshops throughout the year. Below is a easy recipe from one of the  handouts that Green Briar gave away.

Green Briar's Blueberry Topping recipe
1 pound blueberries
1/2 cup sugar (increase if you want a sweeter topping)
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Tablespoons corn starch.
Pick through Blueberries and remove any stems, leaves and unripe fruit. Rinse berries and add to cooking pot with remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer until thick and glossy. The topping can be served warm over ice cream or refrigerate to on top of pancakes.

Green Brier Jam kitchen 1. 8.3.2013 I love these old Hoosier kitchen cabinets that graced so many kitchens years ago. The First Lutheran Church on 6-A also has a lovely Hoosier cabinet in their fellowship room.     Hoosier cabinets

Before going inside the jam kitchen at Green Brier I took a few photos outside..loved this bird bath filled with succulents.
 Green Brier Jam kitchen bird bath w succulents2. 8.3.2013
The butterfly bush was in bloom and had hummingbird moths flitting from one bloom to another, but they moved so fast by the time I got my camera focused the moths had moved to another flower stem.
butterfly bush w hummingbird moth 8.2013 butterfly bush w hummingbird moth2.8.2013
Next stop we visited Tumbleweed's Quilt shop also on 6-A. I bought a few of the rolls of the little bits 1/8 yard fabric pieces to use when making fabric postcards.
Of course we visited several beaches and enjoyed some of the lovely sand sculptures that could be found on the Cape again this summer.
Sand sculpture West Dennis Beach 1 8.4.2013 Huge sand castle Wizard with dragon egg sculpture at Smuggler's Beach, So. Yarmouth
cape cod 8.2012 dragon sandsculpture sand sculpture of a dragon with eggs on the beach to the left of the wizard.
cape cod paddle boarding1 almost sunset paddle boarding
cape cod paddle boarding2
sunset 8.2013 West Dennis Beach Sunset Barnstable Harbor Millway Beach

Monday afternoon tidal flats across from the beach
click to learn more about the shorebird...Oystercatcher
cape cod 8.2013 oyster catcher at beach2 cape cod 8.2013 oyster catchers at beach3
cape cod 8.2013 oyster catcher at beach
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Egret , Snowy Egret,
cape Cod 8.2013 white snowy egret at beach2
cape Cod 8.2013 white egret at beachWest Dennis Beach

Cape Cod 8.8.2013 row boats on shore2 I wasn't fast enough to get out my camera after I parked my car to take a photo of 5 crows that had been sitting on one of the row boats. I think the crows on the boat would have made a fun picture.
Cape Cod 8.8.2013 row boats on shore more beached row boats
Seals in Chatham6. 8.3.2013 there were probably 50-75 seals in the water near a sand bar at Chatham Light/Coast Guard Station. Further down the Cape at Marconi Beach the beach was closed for awhile on two days over the weekend due to a 20 foot shark sighting about 3o feet offshore.
Seals in Chatham3. 8.3.2013hard to get  close up photo as the rafts of seals were quite some distance from shore in Chatham, but if you click on the photo you can view the photo better.
Chatham boating 8.2013 sailing near the seals in Chatham
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the time you spent visiting my blog and viewing my Cape Cod photos. I love Cape Cod.
I will be staying with my cousin again next weekend. I've already told Tom that Cheryl and I made plans. :-)

Elaine

3 comments:

Joanne Huffman said...

Thank you for sharing your photos. I haven't been to Capecod for about 30 years; so I really enjoyed it.

Patti G. said...

Wow Elaine! This looks fabulous! The flowers, wild life, berries, and the sand art! Wheeeeeeee!
Fantastic trip Elaine! So glad you enjoyed!
Huggies, Patti

Mervi said...

hello, Elaine, greetings from Finland!
here's a link to Finnish pulla recipes and how to do it...

Hope you will make success with your nisupulla;-))m