Friday
July 8, 2016
The morning started off very cloudy with just a small patch of sun shining over the ocean to our northeast. We had a steady 15mph north wind which blows into the cove making mooring there less protected than when the wind is coming from the south which is what we’ve had
most of the time. Without conditions improving, it didn’t seem likely that we would have many, if any, visitors today. With the prospect of having a slow day, Patty took the time to make blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries for breakfast.
After I finished cleaning up from breakfast, we walked down the hill for a few things. I went slowly, clipping back brush that creeps onto the sides of the trail day-by-day while Patty went ahead with four empty gallon water jugs to refill from our big jerry cans down in the Donkey Engine House. Patty also hooked up a new hose we bought off-island on Wednesday when our best efforts to patch the old one just led to two new leaks for every one we mended.
With the new hose hooked up, she hosed down the Clivus and the swept out the excess water. Together, we walked the Cobblestone Trail clipping back the brush there and then collecting driftwood on the beach to use for signage on some projects we’re working on. Before leaving the beach, we sat on the rocks for fifteen or twenty minutes watching the ocean waves crash on the rocks and the gulls floating on the wind.
We returned a few stray walking sticks we’d picked up along the trails to the stand at the bottom of the Lighthouse Trail and then headed up the hill with our water and driftwood. It was only around 11 but, despite the big breakfast we had, we were both hungry so Patty started making a salad with seared tuna left from last night’s dinner and a dressing she concocted with sesame oil and wasabi. We didn’t think Ethan would have a group today because of the weather but I went up in the tower
around 11:20 to see if he was headed our way from Popham and, there he was (I thought), half-way between Pond Island and Ellingwood Rock, making towards Seguin. We were surprised but figured we had a least twenty minutes so Patty quickly finished putting the salad and toasted bread with brie together and we ate quickly. Usually by 11:45, the first visitors from his groups will start to crest the Lighthouse Trail and we’re on the porch waiting for them but 11:45 came and went, then 12, then 12:15. Hmm… I walked down the tram to get a glimpse of the cove and it was empty; no Ethan and no other boats either. I was so sure I saw him on his way over but either it wasn’t Ethan’s Leeward or he had a fishing charter and not an island group.
Maybe it was a good thing we didn’t have the group because while I was washing up from lunch, Patty somehow got a piece of dental floss caught in her teeth and couldn’t get it out. Then she got another piece stuck trying to get the first piece out. She wanted me to cut the floss off with scissors but then started laughing, with the tips of the scissors in her mouth, and I thought we were going to end up with something way worse than stuck floss. She did somehow eventually get the floss out.
So, instead of hosting visitors, we sat inside with the heater on and read and each had a hot mug of tea with some cookies our friend Jude in Brevard sent us last week. The sun came out a little later in the afternoon so Patty went outside to work in the garden, thinning the beets and weeding. I’m not sure what I was doing but after she’d been out there working for a time, I threw a handful of Mike & Ike’s in my mouth and went out the front door to the porch and was surprised to see a group of six walking towards the porch from the garden with
Patty. With the doors and windows closed and the heat on, I didn’t hear them come up. I stood there like a dufus with a mouthful of candy while Patty introduce me….
Patty took them up the porch and into the museum and I went and opened up the tower and gave them a tour after they’d finished looking through the museum and signing the guest book. They were two families, one couple originally from southern NJ and southeaster PA and (not far from where we used to live) but who now live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We have been out in that area camping and hiking and told them how much we loved it there and some of our favorite spots. The other couple was more local and had a sailboat in the area.
Just when we came down from the top and were saying goodbye, another group of four came walking up the lawn past the bell towards the tower. It was two fathers, each with a late teen/early 20s son – Patty and I greeted them and found that they were from Connecticut and Pennsylvania but keep a sailboat in Maine and all had visited Seguin before. I spent a pretty long time up on the catwalk with this foursome and looked down to Patty in the garden where she’d gone back to work.
After these two groups, it was quiet again and we decided to collect the trailhead signs and take them down to the Whistle House to repaint. We got most of them, leaving three that are farthest away for another day. I removed the old stakes which I’ll replace and then washed them off before Patty put a fresh coat of green paint on each. While we were working in the Whistle House, I got a text from Julie, one of our contacts with
F.O.S.I.L.S., who was letting us know we should lower the flag to half-staff because of the shootings in Dallas. We don’t have a lot of access to news out here but had heard what happened… This is the second time we’ve had a period of mourning with the flag at half-staff and were grateful to Julie for letting us know right away – last time where it took us a day or two before we knew. But….two times in only a little over a month is distressing.
After painting the signs, we also shored up the base of a tall birdhouse post that is just at the top of the Lighthouse Trail with some brackets we got while off-island on Wednesday. The temperature was dropping a little and it was still cloudy and kind of dreary when we finished up with the birdhouse and decided to lock up the tower and call it a day.
Patty roasted some garlic and then made sautéed scallops with pasta with the roasted garlic and a side of fresh
garden greens that she picked this afternoon. We didn’t have any sunset to view this evening because of the clouds so we stayed inside where it was warm and cozy and read until pretty late (for us) before making our move upstairs to bed.
Visitors – 10
Favorite Moment(s) – eating fresh greens from the garden with dinner
Sunrise – 4:54pm
Sunset –8:16pm
#Seguinisland #seguinislandlight #seguinislandlighthouse #maine #LifeOnTheRock
