VISITORS, WELCOME AND OTHERWISE

YES, I GENERALLY WELCOME all God’s little creatures, just some more than others. OK, I admit it, I am picky when it comes to my friends, and I like some critters that other people hate. It seems that I have a small flock of robins living here. That is not unusual for the Eastern Shore, tho’ I wish for their sakes they would go further South where there is more to eat. I hate it when the ground is frozen or covered with snow and they are hungry. I think of my friend who raises worms in a big vat which she sells for people’s composters. But that would not work. Poor worms would freeze before the robins could get to them.

It has been dry here. Except for that 1/4 inch of snow Sunday morning, it has been a while since we have had any significant rain. As you might recall, I keep several containers of water, 4 bird baths and big dog bowls, most of which are empty each day. But when it is this cold, the water freezes overnight before anyone can drink it all. Then in the morning, the poor birds sit and peck at the ice. So, this morning, I took a bucket of water out and slowly poured it into the big ground level birdbath. I was not 5 feet away until the robins were all over the edge of it drinking as fast as they could.

Didja ever notice, they space themselves as evenly as possible when they are drinking? The other robins were waiting a proper distance and seemed to know who was next in line when one left. Manners, I’ve always said robins have manners.

Then, in the not so welcome department… I know, they have to eat, too… I have had this visitor 2 days in a row. So far I have not seen him catch anybody. At the peak for the feeding frenzy out front, I might have 30-40 various birds at one time. When they do the Christmas Bird Count (since I don’t do it anymore) a couple people come and sit in my driveway and count my birds. Well, there are 7 feeders and 1 hanging water dish right outside my window, and in another week, there will be more.  Meanwhile, they hide in the camellias or deep in the holly while this guy keeps watch. And my little hawk sits and waits. And then he leaves and tries hunting else where.

HO HO HO!

HO, HO, HO!

Yesterday was Santa Train Day here in the town of Onley. Once again, the Onley Train Station hosted the stop. It was an exciting moment for many… a rough estimate was 62 kids. There may have been more, the kids did not hold still for a body count, and more may have come after the unofficial count. One thing I know for sure, I made 3 gallons of hot chocolate and went thru a container of whipped cream! This is double the number of kids from last year, probably because last year we had a torrential rain falling and some pretty high winds. This year it was a bit windy, but the sun was shining. The temps were in the low 40s, wind chill in the mid 30s, but at least it was not raining INSIDE the building this year!!!!!!

Once again we set up the tents in the building (Thanks, Pat!) After all, the weather around here is very changeable and more unpredictable than in most other places, and even though the weather graphics on TV showed a mixture of sun and a few clouds for the entire week-end, few folks believed we would get what I found outside this morning when I got up – SNOW! So, given we have a popcorn machine still standing in the corner, I thought it best we put the tents up, just in case. As I type this, it is dripping a bit of rain interspersed with the occasional snowflake, though the road still looks dry, sort of, almost. But, 5 minutes from now the sun might be shining! We just never know!

Also, the tent in the freight room is a good way to maintain crowd control so Santa doesn’t get mobbed. And this year I bought a string of LED colored lights to put around the Santa tent to make it a bit more festive. I was amazed that LED lights don’t give off any heat! Perfect for putting on a plastic tent!

We had a good crew helping to keep things working… cleaning up, making popcorn (thanks Shore Bank), passing out cookies (thanks PNC Bank), crowd control, putting up the plastic door that helped keep a tiny bit of heat in. Our only real glitch was with the circuit breaker – not enough juice to have a heater on, popcorn popper, and a 30 cup pot of water heating all at once. So, Susan and I took turns heating water for hot chocolate and popping corn.

A word of thanks to George for helping me put the plastic up at the door and running up and down the steps for me. It was a less than perfect day for my back and knee. I so hate being semi-helpless.

The families were lined up all the way down the tracks…

Waiting for that moment when the train came in sight.

Santa and Mrs. Claus and their entourage of helpers being escorted into the station…

The line went all the way from the Santa tent, thru the freight office, down the steps, and on out into the yard.

The kids politely took their turn carefully spelling out their wish lists.

I am not sure if the puppy took a turn or not, but the grandkids did.

I did mention to Santa that we’d asked for a new roof last year, and I pointed to our sad and sorry ceiling… “But it didn’t happen,” I said. Had he known me better I am sure he would have made some comment about being naughty or nice – you know, the kind of comment one makes with a lifted eyebrow and THAT LOOK that speaks volumes, but he was diplomatic and told me not to give up hope… sigh.

There were so many kids at the stops this year that the train was over an hour behind schedule when it finally pulled out of the station headed for Parksley. 

Thanks to all the kind folks who donated their time, money and energy to this project. It took a lot of all of that. But the look on those kid’s faces……….. priceless.

Hopefully we will have a new roof on for the Santa Train next year, and a few other new parts on the building. If you would like to contribute to our very worthy cause, we gratefully accept donations. Our mailing address is Onley Train Station, POB 144, Onley, VA, 23418. And I thank ya mightily! SO does Santa Claus! Honest!

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

I got an email the other day, well, I have had many of them over the years, on “the good old days.” I did not remember a few of the things, occasionally it predated me – imagine that! Anyway, this email had pictures of the cars from the 50s – remember the years of the FINS? And the old dial phones – I have one still in working condition… Often the emails talk about how much better things were in those days back before all this technology took over the world and our kids. How much simpler things were does not always mean better…  Because, if it were not for today's technology, you would not be reading this, would you?

I guess it always seemed better back when - I remember Grammy saying how much better things were... But, OH MY how she enjoyed a washing machine she did not have to fill and empty and did not have a wringer! And a dryer on rainy days.

I still have only a few channels on TV - who needs to pay all that $$ to watch filth, lies, and violence? With my antenna I can get 4 PBS channels, CBS and usually NBC and ABC, sometimes a few of the “extra channels”. What more do I need? We get 110 channels on the TV at my house in PA, and more often than not, we turn it off because there is nothing we want to watch.

I do love my lawn tractor. I do remember seeing the old push mower in the barn, but my Grandfather was the first in the neighborhood to get a power mower. You did walk behind it, the sit down version came many years later, so I don’t remember the lawn being cut with the quieter push mower.

My Toyota looks like any other year and like any other van, but I don't care. No style, but today one needs a van to carry all the stuff and as many people as we used to get in an ordinary sedan. I can still name the car and even the year for cars in the 50s and 60s. After that, they all kind of look alike, smaller and smaller, more alike than different.

The emails mention old timey food and ways of cooking. I still cook like Grandma - fresh food - organic... almost never any packaged crap. I am sorry I never learned how to can stuff. I remember bushels of peaches, tomatoes, string beans. All I ever got to do was shell peas and baby limas, or cut the tips off the wax and string beans. But I don’t have all those electric gadgets, electric knives, coffee bean grinders, espresso machines… nope, not in my kitchen.              

I do have an electric can opener. I use it to sharpen knives. I open cans with the can opener on the wall. You’d be surprised how many cans I opened for my neighbor when the power went out last year.  I still do not own a microwave. I do not want anything in my house with radiation warnings or that would make a hamster explode. Trust me.

My dishwasher is located at the end of my wrists… 

Telephones... geez. Having spent time in a wheel chair, I have PHONES... in this little house I have 9 working phones (landlines) and a cell phone usually left in the van. One of the phones is "hardwired" to an old jack and you have to DIAL it. Wow, huh? It was in the house when I moved in. But, it still works better and the sound is clearer than all these new things I can stick in my pocket and carry outside or put on speaker while I peel potatoes so I can talk and keep working at the same time. Didja ever have a conversation with someone and you can hear the computer keys clicking away in the background? That is not just multi-tasking, that is just plain rude.

The email mentioned how kids today cannot count. How true! In high school I worked as a waitress on week-ends and cashier during the week... I can count frontwards and backwards. I can add bills up in my head and the change in my hand without even looking at it. Grammie used to make me add up a column in the Wall Street Journal – in my head… and usually my answer was the same as hers. She always beat me. Kids today do not know how to make change if the bill is $4.12 and you give them a 5 dollar bill, a dime, and 2 pennies and they already rang up that your change will be 88 cents while you were fishing out those 2 pennies. They are completely baffled. They may be able to text message 54 people in a half an hour to tell them they just saw the dumbest old woman come into the store, but that $5.12 will blow their feeble education out the window. No wonder we are now ranked 25th in the World in Math.

I really don’t remember all the rest of the stuff in the email… but, having lived in parts of the world where so many things we take for granted in this country, no matter how poor we might be, I really do appreciate what we consider the basics, running water, hot water, central heat, a roof that does not leak. I still think my washer and dryer are luxury items, but I still prefer to hang my clothes out on the line. However, I recognize the joy of not fighting with king sized sheets on a clothesline.

And then there is this contraption, as G-ma would say, in front of me. I can hear from my friend in Japan in a second, and “talk” to my friends and family all over the world all at one time. And even though my house looks like a branch of the library, I am glad I can do research sitting here in my slippers and jammies if I want to. Technology. Its not such a bad thing.

AN ITSEY BITSEY TEENEY WEENIE LITTLE GREEN NEW ZUCCHINI

Here it is, almost Thanksgiving and the temps are in the 60s again today. I know it cannot last and I remember how we were caught so off guard last year – when the cold hit, it hit with a vengeance and leaving many of us with chores undone. It has always been a challenge to keep a fresh tomato from the garden for Thanksgiving dinner, but this year I will have a fresh pepper, a small cucumber, several tomatoes… but I doubt this zucchini will be big enough by then. Can you see it on the pink paper?

Yep, I resisted the urge to yank this little plant out and, bless its little heart, it has been blooming away. So, when I walked out to do a few chores this morning, I saw this nice big bloom and thought I just might take a picture of it. So, camera in hand, I looked around for a good shot – and what did I see? Back in the house for a piece of paper and the date – I mean who ever heard of a zucchini this late in November HERE?  Check out the tomatoes? The red ones were for lunch yesterday. No pictures of them! But I will pick these before the cold weather hits in a few days.

We have had several frosts. One zapped the coleus just a bit, so I cut them down but left the strobilanthes. The frost has not hurt it one bit. Can you see St Fwankie down under the leaves? This plant is over 4 feet tall. 

The fall azaleas are still blooming nicely and the camellias are earlier than usual. Everything is loaded with blooms.

One amazing little plant has been blooming ever since my friend Bobbie gave it to me – ages ago. Gosh, I don’t even remember when. It is a type of Bleeding Heart – the wild version? It is dripping with dew, we had a heavy fog this morning. 

The red camellias that usually bloom just in time for Christmas have started – 2 blooms today. Most of the leaves are down now and I  never posted the pretty colors. Oh well, guess that happens when you get too busy. I hope it is pretty at your house and you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

GORGES SEALS

No, I did not misspell that… these seals are on the rocks next to Fort Gorges, an old fort in Casco Bay, not very far off shore between Peaks Island and Portland. And , yes, it is pronounced, gorgeous.

Gorges is a strange looking thing sitting out there in the middle of the water on what was a small island – there are lots of them in the Bay… small islands, that is.

Can you see it sitting out there in the Bay? This is from the webcam at Portland Head Light.

Gorges is the only military structure on its own private island, but there are lots of ‘fort” type structures – military bunkers, spotting towers and fascinating tunnels and other military “stuff” on most of the islands. I say fascinating, tho I don’t really mean it anymore. They were fascinating when we were kids because they were forbidden territory. Small wonder, they were and are even today, dangerous, especially for small kids. We, of course, visited them more than once, climbing around and exploring most of them, swearing an oath to each other to never ever tell Aunt Kathryn. Funny, I don’t remember her ever hitting any of us, but I do remember her picking up a ping pong paddle and LOOKING at us. I memorized the LOOK, and it came in handy when I became a teacher. Stop ya in your tracks! LOL!

Anyway, I only remember being on Fort Gorges once when my boy-friend of the month “borrowed” his dad’s boat and we went exploring in the old fort. The fort was not as interesting to me as the seals that flopped around on the rocks. They did not like visitors.

The seals are easy to miss to the casual tourist – they seem to blend into the rocks. These shots aren’t the greatest, they were scanned from a couple of shots my sister took on our trip in 2003.

Yeah, this shot is back at BaHaba… the last pic taken of Luanne before we headed for home. Just had to post it before I pack up all the old shots and put them away again… 

OK… I have packed the pictures up… they will go up on a shelf, probably never to come down again. Some things are just too hard to do. Maybe I will get back to Maine… maybe…

The MECHANIC and the CARDIOLOGIST

A mechanic was removing a cylinder-head from the motor of a Harley
motorcycle when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop.
The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take
a look at his bike when the mechanic shouted across the Garage, 'Hey Doc,
want to take a look at this?'
The cardiologist, a bit surprised, walked over to where the mechanic was
working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on
a rag and asked, 'So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take the
valves out, repair any damage, and then put them back in, and when I finish,
it works just like new. So how come I make $39,675 a year and you get the
really big bucks ($1,695,759) when you and I are doing basically the same
work?'
The cardiologist paused, smiled and leaned over, then whispered to the
mechanic...  'Try doing it with the engine running'

A MOMENT IN A HECTIC SCHEDULE…

Life has been exceedingly busy lately… phew! you just wouldn’t believe! But there is always time for a good story. My 80 year old Uncle sent me this… I remembered it was one of my old favorites… maybe you will remember it, too, and smile.

An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading an old tired mule.

The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to clear his parched throat.

He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule to the hitch rail.

As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes,

a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, have you ever danced?"

The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No, I never did dance ... never really wanted to."

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger  grinned and said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna dance now,"

and started shooting at the old man's feet.

The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet.

Everybody was laughing, fit to be tied. When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger,

still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun,

and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air.

The crowd stopped laughing immediately. The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly.

The silence was almost deafening.

The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin 10 gauge barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said, "Son, have you ever kissed a mule's ass?"

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir ... but... I've always wanted to."

There are a few lessons for us all here:

Never be arrogant.

Don't waste ammunition.

Whiskey makes you think you're smarter than you are.

Always, always make sure you know who has the power.

Don't mess with old folks, they didn't get old by being stupid.

MORE MAINE

I had to do it… it was very, very hard. I just needed to see a few places again. I meant looking at pictures from 2003. Can it be? 7 years ago? I have not looked at these pictures since then. They were taken with a Mickey Mouse camera – one with FILM – and the film was made cloudy when the camera was x-rayed going thru airport security in Portland. THAT was an experience I won’t soon forget – but that is another story for another day. Or not.

Bear with me – I am still trying to figure out live writer… apparently the preview is not always what you get…

Anyway, trying to maintain my composure here… I just feel the need to share a few pictures, most include my sister, Luanne, who left us in January of 2004. This was her last trip anywhere, and she did so well… she out walked me, for crying out loud. The wheelchair I rented for her was used mostly by me! What can I say. Lets start in Bar Harbor…

Acadia -     

Maybe… again… one day…

"WE'RE ON PEAKS ISLAND!" OMG

OMG!

I just got a phone call about a half an hour ago... my dear friends, who go by Grenville and Beatrice on their blog, are sitting as I type this at the Peaks Cafe' - hopefully enjoying some nice hot coffee and a cinnamon bun... ah, yes, life can be good.

Unfortunately, they have about frozen their butts off - tis a bit chilly up there this time of year - BUT, it hasn't snowed on them yet... however the wind is high and probably made for a fun trip across the Bay.

It is a short trip, however, under normal conditions. 20 minutes, usually, if I remember correctly - unless there is ice. Yep, I have gone to school with ice swirling around the boat.

In the old days, as I may have mentioned before, (I'm an old lady, indulge me) if you went to high school, you had to go to the Mainland. As there were very few cars on the Island, one walked sometimes several miles on snow packed roads VERY early in the morning to catch the ferry. Once in Portland, it was a good hike up the hill into center city to Portland High School. We traveled cobblestone streets. I swear, we did for the first few blocks.

I don't know what time school gets out today, but it was out shortly after 1 pm back then, probably because of the long trip home for the islanders. It usually took about 20 min to get to the wharf, don't know how long we had to wait - when you are a kid you don't notice those things - the ferry ride was a minimum of 20 minutes, and then, for some, a walk home of about an hour. Walking on snow and ice is not quite as speedy as in better weather. So for many kids, they did not get home until about 3 PM. It is almost dark by then in mid winter. Maine is an hour ahead of the Eastern Shore, sunwise, not clock wise. But then, it is light earlier in the morning...
Living year round on Peaks is not for wimps. In my old age, I have figured out living year round in Maine is not for wimps. Oh, I am so spoiled. (Its gonna be 74 tomorrow here...)

Anyway, THANK YOU Grenville for the phone call. As soon as we hung up, I called my Aunt Kathryn and we oooooooooooo-ed and aaaaaaaaahhhhed for a while wishing we were back on the Island, just one more time... how wonderful our life was on the island, and all that great stuff. Couldn't remember one single bad moment. (Isn't memory wonderful?)

So, while talking to Grenville, I pulled up the Peaks webcam...

This image is from Larry's webcam, PI, 9:50 AM, Oct 22, 2010

PEAKS ISLAND II

This is from August 5, 2006… in honor of my friends who hopefully will be visiting Peaks on Friday.

THE LAST SUMMER OF CHILDHOOD

PEAKS ISLAND, MAINE
I wonder how often we experience “the perfect life” – if only briefly – and are totally unaware of the miracle while it is happening. Or, maybe it is just in looking back thru the half closed eyes of time that all seems so perfect. I am not sure. So often we remember scenes from our past, especially periods of time from our childhood as being far more wonderful than they really were – then. Our brains have the wonderful ability to forget so much of the bad stuff and just keep the better moments for us… well, for most of us, anyway. Or maybe those of us who remember horrible childhood experiences just didn’t have that much good to remember.
My memories of childhood are mixed, probably like most folks, some was good, some was bad, most just was. Know what I mean? Many kids who lived in serious poverty were totally unaware of it. They were loved, they were happy. Just as many kids who are born to great wealth just assume that is how life is and do not realize their advantages, if indeed wealth is an advantage and I am not sure it is. I think a bit of, well, maybe not serious poverty, not starvation type poverty, you know, but not having everything you want the moment you want it might be better than growing up in a house that looks like the annex from Toys-R-Us. I think having chores to do and learning responsibility is a good thing – it gives kids a sense of self-worth and an appreciation of life and other people.
I will not use this venue to discuss the miserable part of my early life, the shame of wearing second hand clothes from a cousin who was several years older than I and not at all the same size. To this day I despise green jackets or coats. It must have been Jean’s favorite color. But, I digress. Sigh. My favorite sport. They should have an Olympic event for being able to digress more than anyone else in a 5 minute period… see? I have done it again.
What I really wanted to put on here today are some pictures and a bit about one of the best summers of my life – the summer I spent living with my Aunt Kathryn and her family on Peaks Island in Maine a gazillion years ago. Maybe it was because it was my last summer as a child, my last time being carefree probably forever. I was 10. It was the mid 1950s.
I had been an only child for all of those 10 years. Spoiled, no doubt, by loving grandparents with whom I was blessed to live for the first 9 years. My father was in God-knows-what-country in the early stages of his Foreign Service career when my mother divorced him and moved on with her life which really didn’t include me much. She remarried in ‘52 and, unfortunately, I had to go and live with them. Grandma always said if you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all. So I won’t even mention my stepfather’s name. All I will say is he was jobless again in ‘54 so we migrated to Maine and more or less moved in with my Aunt Kathryn, her husband, his uncle, and 4 cousins on an island just off the coast of Maine and stayed there until he found a job.
As much as I missed spending the summer with my grandparents back in Pennsylvania, I was excited to be with my cousins. It was almost like having brothers and sisters, I thought, as if I knew what that would really be like. And to this day, I feel closer to these cousins than I do to the people with whom I share a parent’s name on my birth certificate.
And then there was the ocean. For the first time in my life I got to experience the ocean. Waves. Starfish. Seaweed. Sand dollars. The magic kingdoms of tidal pools. Wild strawberries. Wild blackberries. Not wearing shoes for a month or two. The freedom of an island, an island where kids were safe to come and go… well, at least safe from human predators and traffic. There were few cars on the island.
We left the house in the morning and headed out, usually to the beach, a few hundred feet from our door. We never wore shoes, I doubt any of us owned bathing suits. We just jumped in the frigid water in our shorts and shirts and eventually dried off, more or less. We made it look like so much fun! Tourists would see us in and out of the water like sea lion pups and assume they could do the same thing. Ha! You could hear them scream on the other end of the island when their pampered little feet hit the cold water. So we had the water all to ourselves. “A bunch a wild Indians!” they said. Well, yeah, that works. Musta been the braids. Ya think?
Well, the reality is, we were not safe, at least from the danger of the rocks. My “boyfriend” of the summer, David Barren, age 12, was killed diving off the rocks… and hitting his head on one. What is amazing is that none of us ever got hurt as we had no adult supervision once we left the yard. Who could have found us?
We wandered here and there, out on the rocks on the point that was separated from the island at high tide. We dug thru the seaweed to find crabs and starfish. We dried starfish and sand dollars on the birdbath in the backyard stinking up the entire neighborhood. The only time there was water in the birdbath was when it rained.
My cousins and I personally kept our end of the island free from bottles we found where the teenagers had partied the night before. We got 3 - 5¢ per bottle depending on its size. 5¢ in those days bought you a fudgesicle which was more than twice the size of fudgesicles today and ten times as delicious. Once in a while we would stumble on a mother lode of bottles and have a serious snacking day! We were easily pleased.
We walked everywhere we went, almost never on a paved road. We took short cuts thru just about everybody’s yard, as did everyone else. No one seemed to think much about it. There was a playground down near the ferry landing. The path to the playground, the “downtown” area, went thru a field full of wild strawberries. We picked that field clean! They were delicious on our cereal each morning.
There was a big hall back behind the bowling alley (duckpins) where they showed movies on Saturday afternoons. One Saturday we discovered the huge bushes all around the building were filled with the biggest blackberries! Of course, I later discovered they were not all that big, but I hadn’t seen any that big before. So our breakfast got a change from strawberries to blackberries.
We also made money collecting and selling periwinkles, mussels and rock crabs to the tourists. That’s periwinkles the snail, not the plant. Don’tcha love the name Periwinkle? I was going to name Rascal that before we found out he was a Rascal. (I did it again, didn’t it? sigh.) We thought it was the dumbest thing and utterly gross to eat periwinkles or mussels. I still don’t like to eat crab. We will not mention lobster. I am ashamed to admit lobster still makes me drool.
We did lots of things we should not have done and would have surely felt the ping pong paddle if found out. A few years ago I told Aunt Kathryn about exploring the old WWII bunkers and caves on the other side of the island. Her eyes got big. She said, “You didn’t! Why you stinkers! You could have fallen in one of those pits and we never would have found you!” and she went on like that for a moment or two until she realized it was now 40 some years later and we all survived.
I cannot think about the island without thinking about the foghorns at night. How I loved the sound of that foghorn. That is one of my favorite sounds in the world. And we were close enough to the water that we could hear the waves breaking when there was a storm somewhere, though we were not on the seaside of the island. Another favorite sound!
By summer’s end we were brown as we could be with feet as tough as the rocks we ran and climbed over. We climbed over rocks covered with barnacles, edges sharp as razors, and never got a scratch. Our calluses had calluses. My uncle Leigh used to strike matches on the soles of our feet. Tourists just stared at us as if we were little mountain goats happily jumping from one rock to another like no human would ever be able to do. How we ran over those rocky beaches and did not do serious damage to ourselves, I will never know. Tourist kids used to try to keep up with us but it was no contest. They soon gave up and stumbled back to sit on the rocks with their parents whimpering about their now sore feet.
http://outdoors.mainetoday.com/news/060716oceanswim.shtml
Check the water temps and conditions at http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44031. As I write this, they have a warning up for boaters to cut their speed because of the many whales swimming thru today. Is that cool or what?????
I often dream of going back to the island… just to have one more night sleeping with the ocean breezes blowing thru the windows bringing the sound of the fog horn, the lapping of the waves on the rocks. Periodically I look at the house rentals on the island. My sister and I often talked about renting a house up there for a month and inviting our cousins to come and spend some time. As I post this, my Aunt Kathryn is on her way back to Maine with one of her children. I am so filled with envy I can hardly see straight. I know I must go back even though everyone tells me how crowded it is, how built up it is, I would not like it anymore, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, I know all that. But it is a pilgrimage type thing, an honoring a moment of time when I was carefree and a kid