Happy Mother's Day

First, Kate and I would both like to say Happy Mother's Day to both our moms.  We love and miss you.  We picked these for you.

Now I'll tell you about our day - it has been a draining one.  We are both ready for sleep and it's only 7:30.

We woke at 5AM to get an early start again.  We ate a quick cereal breakfast, put on warm clothes, and started putting all the gear we would need into the Mule.  We planned on taking a few extra turtle screens with us to stash in different places on the beaches (when we do see our first turtle crawl, and verify that there is a nest, we will use these screens to cover the nest cavity, protecting it from potential predators such as ghost crabs and raccoons - we worry about the feral hogs too, but these screens are no match for them).  So onto the Mule went the screens, the orange watertight box we carry that contains our data sheets, GPS, camera, and various other tools of the trade, a few posts we use to mark the nests, and our personal stuff like snacks, binoculars, sunscreen etc.  Then I tried to start the Mule - it wouldn't start.  We knew right away what the problem was: a dead battery.  We had this same problem Thursday.  I tried both the jump packs we had in the house, but one is apparently broken, and the other just wasn't charged enough.  So, we headed down to the shop where the dead battery from Thursday was sitting after spending a day on the shop's charger.  We walked back and swapped the batteries.  The Mule then fired up just fine and we set off.  Not 50 yards down the road we realized we had a flat.  We drove the crippled Mule to shop to assess the tire.  As soon as I looked at it, the problem was obvious, there was a brown object stuck in the tire.  I got out the plug kit, then Kate volunteered to do the repair.  With a pair of pliers she pulled out what I had thought was a stick, but proved to be some kind of claw, presumably from a hog, though we don't know for certain, it could have been an alligator claw.  Kate did a bang up job repairing the tire, we put air in it and it's held up all day.  Finally, an hour behind schedule, we were headed down the main road toward Bradley (North) beach.

Last night Kate and I developed a plan to split the work load and save some time.  We went to the north end together but then split up.  Kate paddled across the tidal creek in the single person kayak, taking a few of the screens to stash on the other side.  She then walked North Middle Beach, while I drove North Beach.  Neither of us found any crawls.  The timing worked out perfectly, and we met back an hour later with two beaches done in half the time it has taken us before.  We also took a pair of walkie-talkies with us to test them out, but they proved useless - I think they are from 1995 and one has a broken antenna.  After we logged our survey times in our books, we took the Mule south to the kayak landing.  There I took the remaining screens and paddled down to the ATV.  Kate took the Mule to patrol South Beach.  I stashed one screen by the ATV and took the others up to the north end of South Middle as I patrolled.  This time we tested out our state issued cell phones.  They have the push-to-talk feature, and it seemed to work, though not perfectly.  We still didn't find any turtle crawls, but we did get some good pictures of us in the kayaks.  We were off the beach by 10AM, shaving two whole hours off our routine.

With the extra time we saved, we took a leisurely ride back home.  We stopped to pick all kinds of wild flowers and plants along the way.  We also drive to Middle Place, which is in the middle of the island (go figure).  Some of the buildings there are left over from one of the three original plantations that were on the island.  The rest of the structures were built by a colony of artists that lived here in the 70's.  When we got home, we ate lunch, and after fighting the urge to nap, started some much needed yard work.  The ticks have been very bad in the grass behind our house, so we got the lawn mover, rake and loppers out and went to work.  It took quite awhile, and a lot of effort, but the yard looks much improved.  When we finished, we went over to Ms. Wests house to feed the horses, but they weren't there.  Paul Mitchell, a very old and gross looking pig, was there, so we fed him - and Christmas Goose (a funny looking goose).  We also saw a peacock roaming around the property.  We knocked Ms. West's door in attempt to meet her, and deliver the Mother's Day arrangement Kate made from our earlier flower picking.  She wasn't home - probably on the mainland with her children being celebrated.  On the way back to our house, we found the horses in the main field.  They wouldn't follow us, so they didn't get any food from us, but seemed happy just grazing.

Finally we were home and able to relax.  Dinner, showers, and comfy clothes ease the soreness.  Days of driving bumpy roads are starting to take their toll on my back.