my friday five

I haven’t shared a “Friday Five” round-up with you all in a while, but there are a few new products I am obsessed with this week, and I wanted to share them with you guys!  

First off, are these FIGI EXISTENCE mixed color skinny jeans.  I just got a pair this week, and the fit and look of these jeans is amazing.  They are a really fun alternative to denim for the summer too.  FIGI uses artist John Rossi as inspiration for  the designs of their unique jeans and t-shirts. The colors they use are so pretty!

Aurorae’s luxurious microfiber beach towels are a big hit around here.  My kids have been using them all summer long.  They are super absorbent and a great size at 32” x 68”, but are very lightweight and fold up compactly so they don’t take up too much room in the beach bag or backpacks.  They are great for travel and camping too, and they come in a great selection of pretty colors, so everyone can pick their favorite color.  My favorite is Kauai Coast.  They also make a great yoga towelthat I love!  

Card Ninja makes life so much easier!  It combines your wallet with your phone in an easy to use compact way.  The Card Ninja attaches to your phone like a sticker, and holds your cash, credit cards, i.d. and more.  Even ear buds can fit in the flexible pocket.  I got these for my boys, and husband and they have kept their shape and are still working great after several months.      

Mendocino Farms in Costa Mesa is now my go to restaurant for lunch.  They offer a really yummy but healthy menuand have just opened a second location near UCI that we are so excited about!  My favorite menu items are the Kale Caesar, the Farm Fresh Turkey Club and the Prosciutto and Free Range Chicken Ciabatta.  Their food is so yummy and popular that they even catered our lunch this year for the Newport Harbor Home and Garden Tour.  Mendocino Farms has several locations that have popped up recently in Orange and L.A. Counties.  Have you tried one yet? 

Another new discovery I have made lately are Chalk Ink Markers.  They are basically chalk in marker form.  Chalk Ink takes your chalk board to a whole other level.  With them you are able to create beautiful lettering, so it makes them perfect for party menus, decorating furniture and walls, labeling items, place settings… the possibilities are endless!  I am working on a fabulous blog post for next week with lots of examples. 

Enjoy the weekend!

ciao! fabiana

color inspiration: navy

Navy blue is an elegant accent color for the home and such a lovely alternative to black.  To me it’s a color that reminds me of summer, but can transcend any season.  It’s timeless and can even be used as a neutral.  Calm, cool and collected, navy is so chic!    

images  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  | 8  |  9  

ciao! fabiana

Back Up To Speed via Kamchatka & South Australia

SURF IN SIBERIA ZIMA 1 from Kokorev Konstantin on Vimeo.
Сёрф-видео от студии Liberty films под названием "Surf in Siberia" - эпизод первый "Зима". Cъемки проходили на Камчатке. Участники: Морозов Антон, Кокорев Костантин и Елисей Гладников.
Это истории не про огромные волны - это истории людей которые живут волнами! История о настоящей жизни, о счастье быть свободным! Эпизоды об исключительно российских местах катания на серфе.
Мы планируем посетить Мурманскую область, Северный Ледовитый океан, Калининград, Санкт-Петербург, Владивосток, Курильские острова, Байкал и может быть Командорские острова!
На данный момент уже снят эпизод 2 весна в Сочи и мы ищем финансовой поддержки нашего эксклюзивного проекта!

Apologies for the lag in posts of late, but travel and sketchy wi-fi connections will do that. It's on a gain, and there's some great stuff here- new Mackies, new Parmenter fins, new Parmenter boards and  the full range of Kidman's 'Spirit Of Akasha' product is setting here ready to be sold as soon as pricing is sorted out- CD's and vinyl of both the 'Morning Of The Earth' and Spirit Of Akasha' soundtracks as well as DVDs, and the really good new Windy Hills CDs. Stoked! In the meantime, here's some surf travel goodness- the far corner of Russia (which makes me feel so weak for grumbling about having to endure a bit of traffic to surf crappy closeouts) and a nice shot of one of the last Mackie flextails, courtesy of Wibz who's at the other end of the globe. It's all out there....

The $3 trillion cost of bad policies

This post is practically a repeat of my post in April 2014, "Taking the measure of our discontent," except that I've updated the charts and the numbers and adjusted the commentary somewhat. It's appropriate and timely, since the GDP revisions released today show that the recovery has been even weaker than we thought.

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 wasn't your typical recession. In every other recession in postwar history, the economy rebounded within a few years to return to its long-term growth path. But not this time, and it has nothing to do with the rich getting richer or the alleged increase in inequality. Instead, it has to do with the average person and the average family not making the kind of progress to which they've been accustomed. Understandably, people are upset.

The chart above compares the actual growth of real GDP (blue) with its long-term trend of 3.1% per year. Never before has real GDP fallen below its trend by so much for so long—and still, as we are entering the seventh year of recovery, there is no sign of a true recovery. The current "gap" between actual GDP and its long-term trend is about 15% by my calculations. That translates into a national income shortfall of almost $3 trillion.

This is the measure of the country's discontent: $3 trillion in missing income.

We see the same pattern in the chart above, which compares the actual growth of a subset of retail sales (which excludes certain volatile categories) to its long-term trend. These are the expenditures made by ordinary folk, not the mega-billionaires. This helps dramatize just how radically things changed beginning in the latter half of 2008. Retail sales by this measure would have to increase some 20% overnight to get back on their long-term trend path. This is a measure of how much middle class families are hurting.

After growing for decades at about a 1% annual pace, the labor force suddenly stopped growing in late 2008, as the chart above shows. Things have picked up a bit in the past year, but the labor force is "missing" around 10 million people—people who have given up trying to find a job or who have decided they just don't care to work.

If one thing stands out in these charts, it is the abruptness and the severity and the persistence of the divergence from long-term trends that began in 2008. Something REALLY BIG happened; what was it?

It was not demographics, since demographics change at glacial speed. The population didn't suddenly got older and start to retire en masse in late 2008.

It was arguably not monetary policy. The Fed was slow to launch its QE efforts in late 2008, but since then they have been working overtime to make sure the economy is not starved of liquidity and interest rates are as low as possible. (I could be persuaded that the persistence of extremely low interest rates has been a problem for savers, and that this has led to weak investment, but corporate profits have been setting records throughout the recovery and corporations have been very reluctant to invest those profits.)

The one thing that changed in a really big and durable way, starting in 2008, was fiscal policy. The Bush administration launched TARP in late 2008, and the Obama administration followed up with ARRA in 2009. Then came Obamacare in 2010, which purported to restructure fully one-sixth of the US economy within the space of a few years. Then came the Dodd-Frank super-regulation of the financial industry. Beginning in 2013, top marginal tax rates were increased.

As the first of the above two charts shows, massive fiscal "stimulus" (aka deficit spending) increased the federal government's debt from $5.34 trillion in June '08 to $12.45 trillion as of this week. As the second chart shows, that surge of borrowing more than doubled the federal debt burden, raising it from 36% of GDP in mid-2008 to just over 72% of GDP in the span of seven years. The only other time something of this magnitude happened with fiscal policy was WW II.

The federal government borrowed $7.8 trillion over the course of the past seven years and handed most of the proceeds out in the form of various transfer payments (which now make up over 73% of federal spending). Our leaders in Washington did this in the belief that this would stimulate spending and that would convince businesses to create more jobs. The federal government restructured the entire healthcare industry in the belief that this would lower costs and give everyone healthcare insurance coverage. The federal government rewrote the rules for the entire financial industry, in the belief that a more-highly-regulated banking system and greater consumer protections would restore confidence and optimism. And to top it off, the federal government increased taxes on the rich, in the belief that this would benefit the middle class by more fairly distributing the fruits of progress.

But it didn't work. Spending wasn't stimulated; job growth didn't surge; healthcare costs continued to rise, the vast majority of the uninsured are still uninsured, and millions have lost what coverage they used to have; banks are reluctant to lend and consumers are reluctant to borrow; consumer optimism remains weak; and the middle class has taken it on the chin.

If anything, the massive growth of government intervention in the economy since 2008 looks to be the Occam's Razor explanation for what caused the weakest recovery in history.

If there is a reason for widespread discontent, it is our federal government and its overbearing and intrusive ways. Thanks to all the government "help" that has been heaped upon us in the past six years, we have the weakest recovery in history. And the bill for all this is a staggering $3 trillion per year and counting.

Report Southbound Flagged Plovers

While we are on the beaches monitoring waterbirds this August please be on the lookout for Piping Plovers bearing bands and flags. Migratory periods have the most potential for marked birds to be found in Connecticut. Information for reporting each flag color is provided below. Please cc both Laura.Saucier@ct.gov and ctwaterbirds@gmail.com with any reports, and feel free to email us with any questions.

Please include the following information with each report:

    Flag and band colors, location on each leg, and any alphanumeric codes on the flags.
    Location of sighting
    Date of sighting
    Any photo that shows the bands and/or flag
    Condition of legs

Please report flag colors and band combinations as follows:

• Green flags (coded and uncoded) on the upper leg:  Please send reports to  vt.plover@gmail.com.  Some of the green flags are coded with three alphanumeric characters, but other pipers carry an uncoded (plain) green flag along with lower leg bands. 
• Pink coded flags on the upper leg with two alphanumeric characters:  Please report to wgolder@audubon.org with a cc vt.plover@gmail.com.
• Orange flags (uncoded) and bands: Please report to plover@umn.edu.
• Color bands on only the upper legs and no flag:  Some of these have one band on each upper leg, some have two bands per upper leg. Please report to michelle.stantial@gmail.com with a cc to vt.plover@gmail.com.

Although the current U.S. Atlantic banders (who are extremely vigilant about this issue) confirm that they are not observing injuries nor hearing injury reports from resighters, please copy anne_hecht@fws.gov on any report that includes information about a leg injury on a Piping Plover carrying bands or other colored flags.  They also appreciate reports of "okay" banded/flagged legs if the observer was able to make a careful assessment of leg condition.

Thank you!

my favorite summer cocktail

Proseccois a sparkling white wine made only in specific provinces of northeastern Italy.  All Prosecco wines are made primarily from the Glera grape, a native variety with origins in the lovely village of Prosecco, near Trieste.  All my father’s family comes from this region of Italy, and I feel like I have a deep connection with this “Italian champagne”.   And now, with the addition of a little pear and citrus, The Sparkling Portofino has become my favorite new summer cocktail.  It’s so glamorous and refreshing!  

And, I love that they have these adorable set of “go-anywhere” flutes available for a limited time that epitomize effortless summer fun.  These unbreakable flutes are perfect for poolside or beachside with their gorgeous floral design and are the perfect complement to those sun-soaked get-togethers that define the summer months.  The limited edition flutes by Ruffino and Govino are available on Amazon. They make a really fun hostess gift too!  Sharing this recipe with you all...

The Sparkling Portofino

16 oz chilled Ruffino Prosecco

4 oz pear nectar (or pear juice)

4 strips of orange zest

4 strips of lemon zest

Place two strips of zest into the bottom of each flute

Pour pear nectar into flute, filling 1/3 full

Top off with Ruffino Prosecco

Makes four cocktails

ciao! fabiana

Visit Pleasure Beach

Have you visited Bridgeport's Pleasure Beach yet? If you are a birder, butterfly lover, or all-around naturalist, we encourage you to stop by soon via the water taxi! Getting to Pleasure Beach is easy with free parking at the water taxi pier lot, 91 Seaview Avenue, Bridgeport. The water taxi will bring visitors to and from Pleasure Beach, and is also free.

 

While there you can enjoy our WildLife Guards program, which trains, mentors, and employs ten local high schools students and two crew leaders to monitor nesting birds and engage visitors, families, and friends about Pleasure Beach and its wildlife. The WildLife Guards are at Pleasure Beach every Tuesday through Saturday, approximately 9:30 to 3:30, and offer the following walks and outreach events each week.

 

Wednesday
11:00am Coastal Ecology Walk
1:00pm Touch Tank

Friday
10:30am Bird Walk
12:00pm Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
1:30pm Plant Identification Walk

Saturday
10:30am Coastal Ecology Walk
11:30am Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
12:30pm Piping Plover Activity
1:30am Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
2:00pm Seine netting

Coastal Ecology Walk
On this walk along the shore, participants will learn about Long Island Sound, its barrier beaches, and wildlife, from Piping Plovers to Prickly Pear Cactus.  Barrier Beaches are a rare habitat is Connecticut.  They provide habitat for many state threatened species, protect shoreline communities from coastal storms, and offers a place for visitors to learn about nature.  This is a 1 mile walk along the beach.  Bring water and sunscreen and appropriate footwear.

Touch Tank
Want to learn about the marine creatures that call Pleasure Beach home?  Stop by the Touch Tank at the Info Depot to see and touch crabs, snails, mussels and more.  Bridgeport’s WildLife Guards will be on hand to share their knowledge about these intertidal inhabitants.

Bird Walk
Pleasure Beach provides nesting habitat for piping plovers and terns.  It is also serves as migratory stopover habitat for shorebirds, songbirds, and raptors.  Join the Bridgeport WildLife Guards for a 1 hour bird walk.  Binocular are available on a first come first serve basis.

Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
Did you know Pleasure Beach used to have an amusement Park?  Want to learn more?  Join the Bridgeport WildLife Guards for a tour of Pleasure Beach.  We will explore the history of this amazing place and see some wildlife too.

Plant Identification Walk
Pleasure Beach hosts a variety of flora, from the state listed Prickly Pear Cactus, to Northern Bayberry – a favorite of the Myrtle Warbler, to invasive plants like Oriental Bittersweet.  Some of these plants provide food for wildlife, while others are less nutritious and tend to take over.  Learn what you can plant in your own yard to benefit birds and other wildlife.

Piping Plover Activity
The Piping Plover, a federally threatened bird species, nests right on the shore of Pleasure Beach.   Because their nests and young are very camouflage, visitors might walk right up to them and not realize it.  During this kid-friendly program, we will learn about the little things people can do to help these birds nest successfully.  We will make marshmallow piping plover chicks and signs to increase awareness about these birds.

Seine-netting
Want to learn about the marine creatures that call Long Island Sound home?  Meet the Bridgeport Wildlife Guards on the beach at 2pm.  We will use a seine net to catch fish, shrimp and other animals that live in the water off shore of Pleasure Beach. 

 

This is education, conservation and advocacy in action, all in one wonderful program, reaching thousands of visitors over the summer and making a difference for rare or endangered plants and wildlife on Pleasure Beach. We hope you take the opportunity to visit and enjoy it!

Credit spread update

As I mentioned last week, lower oil prices (and falling commodity prices) have given the markets a case of the jitters. Default risk in the high-yield energy sector is up significantly, and this has sparked fears of a credit default contagion. It doesn't help that Chinese stock prices are extremely volatile (and currently falling) and that the Chinese economic powerhouse has slowed down measurably. But looking deeper into the numbers, so far there is no sign of any contagion; markets are still very liquid and systemic risk is low. Markets are very good at weathering storms as long as they are liquid. It's therefore likely that this storm will pass, as many others have in recent years.

This chart shows the spread on high-yield energy bonds, which has spiked of late to a new post-recession high in response to the renewed decline in oil prices.

The deterioration in the energy sector has spread somewhat to other sectors as well. Investment grade and high-yield spreads in general are up, but only moderately. The damage is more or less limited to the energy sector.

I've long touted the ability of 2-yr swap spreads to be excellent leading indicators, because of their ability to give advance warning of big problems in the economy. The chart above adds to the story, since it shows that swap spreads have indeed been leading indicators of high-yield spreads, and sometimes by a considerable amount of time. Today, swap spreads are trading well within the range of what might be considered normal: 20-30 bps. This tells us that financial markets are healthy, and that in turn is a good sign that there is no fundamental deterioration going on in the broad economy. It's an energy "crisis" of sorts that is bad for producers and associated industries, but good for just about everyone else. It's not the end of the world.

It's hard to put complete faith in the economic statistics coming out of China, but according to the government, the economy is growing at about 6-7% per year. That's way down from the heady 10% growth rates which prevailed in the mid-2000s, but it's still pretty impressive—at least twice the growth rate of the most energetic developed economies. However, one number the government can't easily fake is the central bank's holdings of foreign exchange reserves, shown in the above chart. Forex reserves have been in a $3.5 - 4 trillion range for the past several years (most of it invested in U.S. Treasuries). Over the past year China's forex reserves have fallen from $4 trillion to $3.7 trillion. Meanwhile, the yuan has been relatively stable against the dollar for the past 4-5 years. What this means is that capital is no longer flooding into the Chinese economy. The rising tide of reserves—which lasted some 20 years—has reversed, with minor capital outflows of late. That squares with China's slower growth rate. The boom times are over; now, instead of extremely fast growth, China is experiencing simply fast growth. That growth is being financed organically, and China's growing and rapidly aging population is beginning to invest overseas, at it should. None of this is troubling, but it is a big change—a great inflection point—that will take some getting used to.

UPDATE: A decline in China's forex reserves means that the central bank is selling some of its forex reserves in order to keep the yuan/dollar exchange rate stable. That in turn means China has been (and most likely will be) selling Treasuries. But what happens to the dollar proceeds of those sales? The dollars raised by the central bank's sale of Treasuries must, at the end of the day, be spent on something in the U.S., such as equities, bank savings accounts, real estate, tourism, movies, and assorted goodies. In other words, capital moving out of China means increased purchases of U.S. goods, services, and equities.

Long Beach Trash

Another day, another pile of trash removed from the beaches by one of us. This time CT DEEP's Rebecca Foster snapped this shot of all the garbage, especially balloons, that she took off Stratford's Long Beach during one walk! As she noted you could probably do this multiple times a day at this point of the year and come up with the same sort of pile. Summer brings all sorts of parties and events and very little thought applied to where those balloons, or the rest of the trash that can blow away or is tossed aside, end up. Those of you reading this are already very environmentally conscious, but for others who may innocently not imagine where their trash goes or others who do not seem to care, please keep encouraging them to change their ways.

Dont sweat the little stuff

When I go to the beach with a metal detector, I go to relax, have fun and hopefully find something cool. 

I do not worry about sanded in conditions, tide times, who is already metal detecting or who may show up to metal detect. 

Internet metal detecting forums are jammed packed with questions from people asking if their metal detector is good enough, am I getting enough depth, where should I search. 

The answers to those and many other questions usually turn out to be irrelivent in the real world of beach and water hunting. 

Sure you can worry about the compactness of the sand,  targets out of reach, or a whole number of other things beyond your control, but they are not probably going to make a difference. 

In my opinion, you are going to find what you are find with the metal detector you are using at the place you are searching. 

I am a firm believer that when it is your time it is your time, the little stuff is not going to make a whole lot of difference. 

In my books I refer to "Beginners luck" and explain why it is important to try and think like a person new to the hobby. 

All excited and jacked up ready to hit the beach in search of treasure, with no misguided things learned like the best time to search the beach or best metal detector to use. 

Newbies grab their new metal detector, hit the beach regardless of the tides and conditions and often recover some pretty amazing finds. 

Unfortunately,  people new to the hobby often get away from the things that created that early success, by sweating the little stuff. 

Tide times, metal detector depth,  other beach hunters, just a few examples of stuff that really did not matter when they first started beach hunting. 

For example low tides, sand composition, surf height, movement of coins on the lower beach, all mean nothing if that information holds you back.

The less things you think about to deter you from going to the beach with your metal detector the more stuff you will find.

Do not get me wrong, it is good to know certain beach dynamics, but it is not a code more like a set a guidelines as Jack Sparrow would say. 

I would rather spend two, three or four hours at the beach having fun and returning home with gold, than spend eight hours returning home empty handed following the code. 

AAfCW 2015 Volunteer Update #17

This is the seventeenth weekly update by the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (AAfCW) for the 2015 season. Today's update includes reports of Piping Plover, American Oystercatcher, Least Tern and Common Tern from July 20 through 4:00 p.m. on July 27 with sightings of birds by volunteers and staff spanning that period.

Informational updates:

It is going to be a hot week with temperatures expected to be in the 90s tomorrow and likely through at least Thursday, with the dew point rising each day. This means it will be dangerous for you and the birds to be out monitoring during the peak heat of the day, so please watch the weather, take the proper precautions and monitor very early or very late if you plan on going out. We feel it is best to skip a monitoring session if the temperature is over 90.

Thank you to everyone who has been picking up bags of trash from our beaches throughout the season. Please keep letting us know how much you collect and remove from your monitoring trips, and tell us about any particularly problematic situations that require additional assistance in terms of cleaning up. As a staff and volunteer group we have removed dozens and dozens of bags of garbage this year from our beaches.

Lastly, as we enter August we still have nests that require our attention, hatchlings, fledglings and juveniles. There will be adults on the move more frequently. We still need your help and monitoring not only for the young birds but to track migratory staging areas, in getting counts of birds on the move, finding banded or flagged individuals that may suddenly appear, and educating beachgoers in a very beach-friendly time of the year. We will look to keep monitoring throughout all of August. Thank you!

Survey and monitoring updates:

Piping Plover
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/20
2 pairs, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling, 2 juveniles at Long Beach on 7/20
1 adult, 1 fledgling at Pleasure Beach on 7/20
2 pairs, 2 adults, 10 fledglings at Hammonasset on 7/21
3 juveniles at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/21
4 pairs, 1 adult, 6 hatchlings, 3 fledglings, 2 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/21
2 pairs, 1 adult, 3 hatchlings, 2 fledglings, 2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/21
2 pairs, 6 adults, 4 hatchlings, 16 juveniles at Milford Point on 7/21
2 adults, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling at Long Beach on 7/21
1 pair, 3 adults, 2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 adult, 1 hatchling, 3 juveniles at Long Beach on 7/22
6 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 adult, 3 hatchlings, 4 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
2 adults, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling at Long Beach on 7/22
1 adult, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/23
3 adults, 3 hatchlings, 11 juveniles at Milford Point on 7/23
1 adult, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/25
8 adults, 3 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 adult, 3 fledglings at Bluff Point on 7/25
6 adults, 2 hatchlings, 2 fledglings, 5 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/26
2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/26
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/27
1 fledgling at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

American Oystercatcher
1 pair at Long Rock off Griswold Island on 7/20
1 pair at Long Beach on 7/20
9 pairs, 1 adult, 13 juveniles at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
1 pair, 3 hatchlings at Hammonasset on 7/21
1 adult at Tuxis Island on 7/21
1 pair, 1 adult at Griswold Point on 7/21
1 pair, 3 hatchlings at Bluff Point on 7/21
3 pairs, 1 nest at Milford Point on 7/21
3 adults at Long Beach on 7/21
3 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 pair at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 pair, 2 hatchlings at Lewis Island, Thimbles on 7/23
2 adults at Thimble Islands on 7/23
1 pair, 5 adults, 1 nest at Milford Point on 7/23
2 pairs, 5 adults, 1 fledgling at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
1 pair, 2 juveniles at Channel Marker on 7/24
1 adult, 1 juvenile at Umbrella Island on 7/24
1 pair, 2 juveniles at Kelsey Island on 7/24
1 pair at Darrow Rocks on 7/24
1 pair at Great Captain's Island on 7/24
1 adult Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 pair at Griswold Point on 7/26
3 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

Least Tern
15 pairs, 30 adults, 6 hatchlings, 3 fledglings, 1 nest at Griswold Point on 7/21
5 pairs, 16 adults, 1 hatchling, 3 nests at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 pair, 11 adults at Bluff Point on 7/21
100 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
26 pairs, 18 adults, 20 nests at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 adult at Long Beach on 7/22
60 adults at Milford Point on 7/23
9 pairs, 3 adults, 3 nests at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
6 adults at Pleasure Beach on 7/25
40 adults/fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 pair, 8 adults, 2 hatchlings at Bluff Point on 7/25
20 adults, 2 fledglings at Griswold Point on 7/26
1 pair, 6 adults, 1 hatchling at Bluff Point on 7/26
50 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

Common Tern
5 adults, 7 fledglings at Griswold Island on 7/20
9 adults at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
9 adults, 13 fledglings at Hammonasset on 7/21
40 adults, 10 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/21
2 adults, 1 fledgling at Bluff Point on 7/21
42 adults at Milford Point on 7/23
2 pairs, 1 adult at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
5 adults at Kelsey Island on 7/24
1 pair, 1 adult at Great Captain's Island on 7/24
2 adults at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/25
15 adults at Pleasure Beach on 7/25
105 adults, 15 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/26

This concludes update #17 through 7/27/15 as of 5:00 p.m.

sunday m.o.

“Your calm mind 
is the ultimate weapon 
against your challenges. 
So relax.”    

ciao!  fabiana

quote by Bryant McGill  photo via frontgate

vintage brass accessories

I have been a little obsessed lately with these little vintage brass accessories.  I have picked up a few here and there over the years, but I recently found some really fun ones on ebay.  It all started when I spotted one of these Eiffel tower pieces, and then I found another…. The prices are quite reasonable on most of these.  It’s so fun to sprinkle them around here and there where you need a little zhushing.  A little brass detail looks great in any room! 

Next I found these pretty little hands,  

and this cute little alligator that also doubles as a nutcracker.

I love this little turtle from Halcyon House.

Here’s an elegant stallion from Domaine .

This is one of my favorite looks,

but honestly, those horns scare me a bit!

Let me know what you think of this look.

ciao! fabiana

Moving and shaking

I have recovered more than my fair share of really nice finds at the beach, from Spanish treasure to design name jewelry. 
This time last year I was picking this Tiffany & Co platinum ring with a 1.5 carat rock out of my scoop basket. 

I was very surprised to see this sparkly beauty glistening in the sun, it was probably the last place I would expect to find such an expensive diamond ring. 
That is the beauty of beach and water hunting, you never know what you will see in your scoop. 
If you search a lot of different beaches, you will recover a wide variety of jewelry and coins. 
Recently I have been scouting new locations to go beach and water hunting, and I have several very interesting places to search when I have the time. 
I have no idea what I am going to find, but that makes me want to search these new sites even more. 
The last three times I have gone metal detecting I have recovered gold at new sites, places I have never searched before. 
I have no doubt, adding these and other new sites to my list will lead to many more nice surprises in my scoop basket. 
In my opinion, the more you move around the more you will be shaking your scoop basket looking for gold inside. 
The more targets you dig at the beach, the more chances you have of recovering a really good find. 
Yesterday I hit a beach that obviously had not seen a metal detector recently, but a mile down the road I saw 5 guys water hunting and two people wet sanding at the same site. 
The weekend is the perfect time to reevaluate your beach hunting strategy. 
Do you want to fight the detecting crowd looking for scraps with few signals at the main beach, or take a chance on another beach with probably more targets to scoop. 
I base my beach and water hunting plans on searching a site with lots of targets, not lots of different people metal detecting. 

pretty summer basket totes

It’s so fun to see my blogging friend Andrea included in this month’s Coastal Living Magazine.   Andrea aka The French Basketeer imports beautiful market baskets and totes that are made in French influenced areas of Morocco and Madagascar.  These are a great alternative to the canvas grocery store bags we all use.  I have a few of her market baskets, and they are so fun to take shopping!  Isn’t this blue herringbone one cute? 

ciao! Fabiana

Commodity prices in perspective

Consider this post a public service announcement. The objective is to put recent commodity price trends into a long-term, historical perspective. I think that what it shows is that despite significant declines in the past few years, commodity prices are still holding up quite well relative to where they've been in the past.

We start the review with "Dr. Copper." Copper prices have been extraordinarily volatile in recent decades. Copper has declined 40% from its early 2011 all-time high, but it is still 290% above its 2001 low.

The CRB Raw Industrials index is my favorite commodity index. It doesn't include any energy or precious metals. It includes mostly just basic commodities of the sort that don't lend themselves to speculation or stockpiling. This index has fallen almost 30% from its 2011 high, but it is still almost 110% above its 2001 low.

The chart above shows the inflation-adjusted value (in today's dollars) of the CRB Raw Industrials index. Here we see that despite the huge increase in commodity prices since their all-time lows of 2001, prices today are still about 30% below their early 1980s level in inflation-adjusted terms. I don't include prices going back to 1970 because the composition of the index changed, but most commodity indices show almost no change in real terms from 1970 to 1980. Similarly, commodity prices in the 1960s were largely unchanged in real terms. In the end, what becomes apparent is that commodities tend to become cheaper over long periods. Presumably that is because of technological advances in exploration and extraction techniques. This vindicates the late Julian Simon's view that the only scarcity that exists in the world is human ingenuity. There has demonstrably been no scarcity of commodities.

The CRB Spot Commodity index consists of the Raw Industrials index featured above, plus the CRB Foodstuffs index. After adding in notoriously volatile food prices, the picture remains essentially the same.

The chart above extends the CRB Spot index back to 1970. Note that commodity prices were relatively stable from 1980 through 2000, then they surged from 2001 to 2011.

The chart above converts the index from nominal to real terms. Note that prices in the 1970s were volatile, but ended the decade relatively unchanged.

Finally, the chart above compares the price of gold to the CRB Raw Industrials index. Note how closely they move, but also note how much more volatile gold prices are than most other commodity prices. Both are in a weakening trend.

Are lower commodity prices bad? Are they symptomatic of the onset of deflationary conditions? Do they reflect a weakening of the global economy? Or do they simply reflect more abundant supplies and reversals of the very strong commodity prices that we saw in the years leading up to 2011? I tend towards the latter explanation. After, all, as the saying goes, "the best cure for higher commodity prices is higher prices." Higher prices elicit more supply. We know that for sure is the case with oil: