Saturday was spent running the beaches, with 5 false crawls and two nests. All of that activity was on Bradley beach, and on my patrol. I hit the beach a bit late that morning. Kate and I had slept in a little, trying to catch up on the sleep we lost tossing and turning in bed stressing about our household situation. When I did pull on to the beach, I found a crawl right away. It looked like a nest, but I couldn't find any eggs after lots of probing, and finally digging up the entire area. Frustrated, I moved on. I saw another crawl that I couldn't decipher right away and moved on again. Then I decided to drive all the way to NB4, which we were expecting would hatch. I thought if it did, it might brighten my spirits. But, it hadn't hatched, and I continued north to the end of the beach. I had counted 7 crawls in total at that point. Of course I was glad the turtles were active, but I was tired, and stressed, and my mind was all over, so I was not in the best of spirits about working all these crawls. I radioed Kate to tell her it was a busy day up on Bradley, and I could use her help if things were slow to the South. IT took some time to get her on the phone, but when I did, I learned she had zilch, and wasn't excited about going home, so she'd come help me.
I worked my way back South, checking nests and stopping at the crawls. In the end, it was only 2 nests, both that needed to be relocated. Neither was an easy nest to find, or relocated. Both were up in the dead myrtles and the nearest good dune was a good drive down the beach. One of the two was extremely shallow, only 1/2 to 1 inch below the surface. I broke 3 eggs probing that one and was very upset. I haven't broken an egg by accident in a long time. Two of the false crawls I had looked like nests and had to be completely dug up, 2 feet down, 6 feet around, to make sure there were no eggs. It was a lot of work. Kate showed up and helped a little, but by that point I was just about done anyway. After my bike ride of North Middle, I could finally call my beach day done and head home.
Back at the compound, we showered, ate, put away our work stuff, and did our data entry. Then it was time to go feed all the animals on the island. At Andy's we fed the cats, had a lunch of clam chowder (made from the local bi-valves) and took naps on his couches. Later we went to Eric's, watered the garden, fed the pigs & chickens, let Bug, Nikki & Sarah Palin run around, fed the 3 hunt dogs, gave everyone new water, convinced Big, Nikki and Sarah to go back in their cages, fed them, and then left. We finished at Mrs. West's, feeding the horses, pigs and goose. We got home around 6, ate some dinner, and tried to go to bed.
The boys came home around 8pm or so, and decided to cook up some burgers on the stove. Soon the smoke alarm was buzzing and we were still awake in bed. We took a peak our of the room to see the entire house filled with white smoke, the boys just sitting in it eating. Kate was smart enough to open some windows to vent it all out, but the A/C had already sucked it in and was pumping it into our bedroom. With burning eyes, windows open to the heat and humidity, we tried to fall asleep. Eventually we must have... because we awoke Sunday morning, unrested, and ready to patrol again.
Sunday was much the same. I had two nests on the south end and Kate had one up north. When we finished up, we came home, got cleaned up, and split up to feed animals. Kate did the horses while I took care of Eric's farm. We met back at Andy's to escape and relax, watching LOST on his big TV and cooking up some frozen pizza. We went home in time for an early sleep, but still didn't sleep well. Then we woke early enough to meet our boss Mark, who was coming to hang out and help us run the beaches for a day.
Mark arrived this morning around 6:30am. Kate and I were ready to go to the beach by then. I drove over to Andy's to give the cats their AM feeding while Kate picked up Mark at the dock. Then I went south and ran those beaches. I had three nests, and learned, sadly, that the least tern nest had been washed away by the high tide. The Oystercatchers are still there, and will hopefully have better luck.
When we were all done with the beaches, we came back to the house, hosed off the Mule, showered and headed down to the dock. We found a care package waiting for us from Jim, whose dogs we watched all week. He gave us beer, wine, a gift card to the grocery store, some Ossabaw note cards (stationary), and an awesome Ossabaw poster. I'm sure his dogs are happy to have him back, but Bo is still putting his tennis ball on our front stoop.
Mark ran us into shore for some shopping, while he came back to the island to have a chat with the Hog Boys. He returned for us after an hour and a half, and brought us home. Hopefully some progress was made on improving our domestic situation. We really can't take any more problems. The work here is hard enough without stress at the house. When we were done putting away our groceries, we headed out once again to feed everyone's pets. Storms were brewing, and after a brief respite at Andy's, we had to rush to feed everyone without getting poured on.
Finally home, we cooked a dinner of whatever had to get out of the fridge, did our data entry, and caught up on the blog.
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