Now I’ve got metal detecting and swimming excuses to go to the beach early in the morning…

… is another man’s new hobby.

I’ve really been enjoying my new metal detector. I still mostly find trash, but I’ve been fixing some settings to learn more about what to ignore, and today I bought a couple of upgraded gadgets that should help me be even more discriminating.

I’ve found a few “spendies”, coins that are just current spendable money, and even a couple of slightly older coins that would be ever so slightly collectible if they were in much better condition. Some of the coins have been surprises, looking just like lumpy rocks on the beach. But take them home and whack them with a hammer, and out pops a coin. No rings or jewelry yet, but that will happen soon enough.

As one of our Christmas presents, we went to a workshop we’d seen on Facebook where you make your own mosaic lamp.

It was fun… you get totally engrossed in gluing the little glass pieces onto the lamp globe.

Here’s the finished product…

We’re headed to a New Year’s Eve party in a little while, so this is the end of the blogging year for me.

I see and hear a lot of people eager to be shut of 2023. Some of them have visible reason: it’s been a tough year to be unemployed, or sick, or heavily into cryptocurrency. It’s been a bad year to be anywhere near Ukraine or Gaza… or lots of other places we hear less about. It’s been a bad year to be one of the many species that vanished.

But in my own circles it seems almost a fad to lament the awfulness of everything. I guess the glass usually has a full part and an empty part, and you can talk about either.

Here in the Shire, here in our house, we’ve been able to avoid nearly all that horror. Instead, I’m constantly reminded that we live in an age of momentous change, an age of science fiction techno-magic. How cool! And also scary… but how cool!!!

If there’s a lord to be praised, and if praising them has any influence on bending the course of events to my liking, then all praises to the most high! Stay the course, o holy one!

But if the world works in some other way, I hope it keeps working about the same here in the neighborhood. Maybe, World, you could just nudge our politicians ever so slightly leftward.

I wish you and yours all the best for the coming year. I hope your glass is full enough that you can look away from the empty part and take joy from the world’s many wonders.

Longtime readers will recognize the setting of the above photo, as I post more or less the same thing fairly often.

But they will immediately spot some differences from the usual. First, it’s a bit later than the usual sunrise shot. That’s because today’s swim was held at a very civilized 8:00. And second, it looks like someone has photobombed me with a metal detector.

Well no, dear friends, that’s actually MY metal detector, a complete surprise Christmas present from Lee.

I’ve long had an interest in finding treasure: cool rocks and arrowheads and fossils as a kid in Colorado, old pennies in a roll from the bank, collectible books and other stuff from the thrift store, money on the street, restorable watches from bulk lots at auction and on EBay. So metal detecting is an obvious next step.

But I’ve always thought the gadgets are expensive, and do I really need another hobby, and so on. So, the best kind of present: something I wanted but wouldn’t just go out and buy.

Sitting on the trowel is the very first thing I unearthed: the ring pull from a drink can.

Here’s the complete haul:

The piece of a plate was just laying there, but I figure it counts because I found it whilst detectoring.

YouTube and Facebook are full to overflowing with detectorists showing off their Roman coins, Napoleonic cannonballs, gold rings, etc. So there’s definitely room to improve. But I think this was the first of many happy hours geekily wandering on beaches and in parks looking for treasures.

Above, the after shot. And below, the before shot.

Over a year ago, during my vehicle inspection, I was warned that I should do something about the discoloration on the van’s headlights. They had gotten quite yellow over time… plastic, sunlight, road yuck…

So finally during this Christmas stay-cation I got after it with a purportedly magical paste from the auto parts place. WOW, how incredibly rewarding!

I’m usually skeptical of products like that… will a $32 petroleum distillate actually work better than baking soda or vinegar or rock salt or whatever? But I’m also too lazy to do my own experimental research. So I plunked down the money and got to work. Maybe next time I’ll try the lemon juice method.

It took maybe 45 minutes of rubbing firmly in small circles, but now I can see and be seen better, and the few chicks who weren’t already swooning over the mighty minivan are sure to come round.

Our neighbor who gave us our first artichoke plant commented that she didn’t eat them, just grew them for the flowers.

We got several good meals this year from the offshoots of that gifted plant. But this one got left on the stalk a little too long, so we brought it inside but it ended up in water instead of in a belly.

Now I can almost see why you’d grow an artichoke plant for the flowers.

We haven’t walked by Scarlett and Rose’s fairy castle much this year because last January’s floods damaged the trail we use to get there. But the trail is passable now, even though it’s still technically closed.

The big tree stump and fairy castle are gone, with only a few little figurines remaining. And the little plantings they sell for ice cream money have taken center stage.

We’ve never seen these girls but it seems like they must be growing up!

We pause to reflect on the recent summer solstice. It may be the beginning of summer, but the days start getting shorter as of now, meaning all the glorious morning beach swims will soon be memories.

For today’s swim, Tony brought his (not a swimmer) wife Amber, who took a walk and met us on the beach after.

She took this picture and posted it to our WhatsApp group:

Just a few minutes later our resident tech guy Aaron posted the image below… his own creativity and a little AI.

Pretty amazing! If only he’d taken the time to put some hair back on my head.