Friday
June 4, 2016
We started the day with chilaquiles for breakfast…one of our all-time favorites. They are delicious and always lead us to reminisce about Susan Ramos, a friend who introduced us to them at a little street-side joint in a small fishing village on the pacific coast of Mexico where we were living at the time.
Since we arrived on Seguin Island, we have mowed all of the trails, the lawns, and every other inch of grass that needs to tending (most multiple times) with the exception of the North Trail. We hiked the North Trail with Cyndy and Michael the first week we were here, trimming back some of the vegetation along the way but we hadn’t mowed or weed whacked any of it. When we hiked it with Cyndy, it was easily passable and we didn’t expect to have to do too much except in one boggy area
towards the end. Boy were we wrong! I’m not sure if we were just enjoying the view and not paying attention on that first hike or if it really shot up so much in a short time but it definitely needed weed whacking the entire length. The North Trail is the longest trail on Seguin and it had knee high or higher growth the entire length except where the trail passed over a bald.
I led the way with the weed whacker and Patty followed behind raking the trimmings off the trail. We worked all morning and when we reached the point, about 2/3 of the way down the trail, where it splits into a loop, we headed right which leads down to the bog. 20 meters or so after the split, the weed whacker ran out of gas and we decided that was a sign from above that it was time for lunch. We left the weed whacker, gas, and a rake where we stopped and started our hike back to the house. Along the trail, we had encountered several seagulls that were none too happy to see us as they have started to
nest. In fact, we saw one really large nest under a tree the trail passed and the adult gulls gave us a good squawking to. As long as the weed whacker was running, they seemed to give us a little space. Or maybe they didn’t and we just couldn’t hear them. Whatever the case, they definitely let us know on our hike out that they were not happy. Lots of dive bombing and screaming at us…
We made it back no worse for wear and had left over fish salad sandwiches. They were just as delicious as yesterday. When we finished lunch cleanup, we decided that I would go out and finish the trail and Patty would stay to get some chili started. Michael made a large pot roast the first week we were all here together and we had a lot of it leftover in the freezer. Patty thawed it out and re-purposed it as the meat base for homemade chili. So she got started on that and I headed back to the trail. This time with a hoodie
sweatshirt, hood up. I passed by all the angry birds we’d passed before and picked up near the bog where we had stopped earlier. I especially wanted to get the bog done because someone is coming out on Friday to look at the boardwalk in the bog with plans to replace the boards. I figured it would be helpful if he could actually see the boardwalk.
I got as far as I could on the bog side before the gulls put up such a fuss that I decided to go back. I wanted to get the trail trimmed before it’s too out of control to tackle but I really didn’t want to disturb the nesting so much that it would stress out the gulls too much. At the split, I started trimming the path that is a more direct line to the north point of the island and again turned back when I felt like I was stressing the gulls. Honestly, they were kind of
freaking me out too with all the close calls as they perform fly-bys just above me hoodied head. The remainder of the trail that I didn’t get to is mostly rocky so I feel pretty good about the condition we have it in now plus we’ll likely discourage most visitors from hiking that trail until the gulls are finished nesting. I only wish I had gotten some pictures of the gulls but I didn’t think about it until I was back at the house.
When I got back, the house smelled great with the cooking chili. The weather was foggy and cool all day and it wasn’t getting any nicer so we were done with outside stuff for the day. We spent the rest of the day inside, paying bills and some other equally exciting stuff. We had leftover hamburgers from the other night and sat on the front porch enjoying a cold beer. Afterwards, we hung out in the living room reading and relaxing with the heater blasting.
No sunset tonight. We also never went down the hill the entire day. I think that’s only happened one other day since we arrived.
Visitors – 0
Favorite Moment(s) – seeing large seagull nest under a tree on the north trail.
