Work Chores Relax Explore Play

Happy Father's Day Dads.

Neither of us got much sleep last night.  The cause was a combination of late afternoon napping yesterday, and mice making noises in the kitchen most of the night.  I ended up setting out all four of our mouse traps.  We caught and released two, one trap wasn't touched, and the last trap had the bait stolen and the lid off - whoever was inside must have figured out how to escape.  So it was a struggle to get out of bed this morning, and I really thought it be a lazy tired day.  Instead, we hit a good stride on the beaches, and continued it all day.

Kate ran the north beaches, finding five false crawls and two nests, all of which were easy cases.  It appears the lull we've been having is coming to an end.  Maybe tonight those false crawling turtles will be back to nest.  I took the south beaches, finding a nest on South Middle which was easy even though it had to be relocated, and a false crawl I had to dig on for awhile.  On South Beach, I found another easy nest, that I moved quickly just 10 feet up the dune.  We were done our surveys by 9:45.  We hit 98 nests today, tomorrow we expect to find Nest #100!

When we got home, we decided to keep busy and do a few chores around the house.  I started by fixing the vacuum cleaner, by installing the new belt Adam brought when he came to visit.  It's funny how many things out here are "broken", but really only need a little something.  The washer and dryer that we were told needed to replace are a great example.  The washer works fine now with a new hose I installed, and the dryer just needs a drum belt, which we can get for around ten dollars.

With the vacuum fixed, I did the carpets and Kate mopped the floors.  When we were done cleaning, we fixed up our extra room a bit.  All the bi-fold closet doors in the house had been removed when we arrived.  We'd fixed the ones in our bedroom, but these needed new hardware which conveniently, I found still in the packages out in the shed.  I guess someone had planned on fixing them, but never got around to it.  I don't blame them, bi-fold doors are a pain in the butt.  While I was re-installing them, Kate cut up a bed sheet and hung them as curtains.  Hey, we've got to make due with what we have out here...

With the house all cleaned up, the bird feeders topped off, the dishes done and lunch made, we took a TV break.  Then, around 3 o'clock, we packed up the truck with some fishing/crabbing gear and headed off on an exploratory mission.  We drove toward North Beach, but turned south at Willow's Field, past the Shorter Shelter and continued down that road (Map of the Island).  We were looking for the remains of an old Coast Guard house that used to be there when the beach actually came up to that road.  Now there is a large marsh, and a maritime forest, between that road and the beach.

We drove a long way down the road, and onto another secondary road, until we finally ran out of road - the remainder being too grown over to pass.  We turned around and went back slowly, stopping at a few places to look around.  Finally, we stopped at the right place and found the remains of the house.  All that was there was a few bricks, and a couple of pipes sticking out of the ground.  We took a few pictures and headed off.

Afterward, we went out to Bradley beach and baited two raccoon traps with cat food.  Then we went for a swim in the ocean.  The water is very warm, in fact I think it was warmer than the air by the time we got off, but it may have just felt that way due to the strong wind.  We drove home, passing our empty crab trap on the causeway.  Someone had taken our crabs yet again, unless something else is happening, like they are escaping, or eating each other, shells and all.  But I doubt that.

Home again, I think we'll try to get to sleep early, and close the bedroom door to keep out the sounds of the mice banging the cabinet doors.