Day 39, 25 June

2 visitors

Cynthia Blocking her sweater dress

We did not get off the island today due to small craft warnings. We did have 2 morning visitors from two brothers that had spent the night in their boat in our little cove. They had quite a time getting to our cove from Booth Bay. They purchased a ladies T-shirt and I noticed one of them was wearing a Seguin T-shirt. The day was quiet without any more visitors and the day brightened up a bit and was quite humid. Fred went down the North trail to spray for poison ivy. He also repaired some signs, checked/added all the oil in the gas engines and trimmed the low branches in the cove and cobblestone trails.  While upstairs in the bedroom I looked out the window to see two tiny brown birds hopscotching each other and then both jumped in the air with their little legs kicking each other. I watched this activity for a few minutes wondering if it was courtship or fighting or playing. It was fun to watch them. After bird watching I opted to block the knitted pieces of my dress. I decided to pin the pieces to the correct sizing by pinning them onto the braided oval rug in the living room. Then I laid a thin cotton cloth over the pieces and sprayed lightly with water and steam pressed them with an iron that is here. The dress pieces were large and the large rug worked perfectly. I could pin into the carpet with out going through to the floor with pushpins that I found here. The whole process took all afternoon. The other way to block is to soak the pieces in water then pin them to shape and size and allow them to dry. I prefer the steaming method and usually use that way.  After steaming the pieces and letting them dry a bit I removed them and they are lying on the twin beds in our guest room, ready to be hand sewn together with the yarn. Then I can take circular needles and pick up stitches to finish knitting the collar. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow.

Tiny little flowers

The weather does not look good for getting off the island tomorrow either. The weather got increasingly more cloudy throughout the day with the impending storm approaching. Fred mentioned that he saw some teenager gulls that were about half the size of the adults. We still have eggs in nests with some of them. We have seen seagull egg nests for over a month now.  Fred has started taking a log of the birds he has identified.  So far the list includes:  American Goldfinch, American Robin, Bald Eagle, Baltimore Oriole, Barrow’s Goldeneye, Canada Goose, Double-Crested Cormorant, Great Black-Backed Gull, Herring Gull, House Wren, Osprey, Purple Martin, Red Winged Blackbird and Spotted Sandpiper.  He using an app on is iPhone/iPad called iBird.  Fred highly recommends it.

Flower with water beading up on it

At around 6 pm I decided to take a little hike down to the cove even though it was raining very lightly. I got down to the steps of the cove to see the osprey hauling off a fish directly in front of me and flying straight ahead of me. I didn’t find any beach glass on our tiny beach and went back up to hike down the Cove and Cobblestone trails. While on the Cove trail I got a nice shot of some tiny purple and yellow flowers that are just weeds but are pretty. Took a look around at the end of Cove trail and went back up to do Cobblestone. At the end of Cobblestone there is a seagull sitting on a nest off to the left a ways. I watched as she called out and then her mate appeared at his usual place closer to the trail to guard her and keep an eye on me. I told them not to worry and turned and went back up to the house with the rain coming down a bit. I didn’t have any outerwear on since it was warm but did have my waterproof Boggs boots on. It was refreshing to take a walk in the light rain and get a little exercise in.

For dinner I cooked up spinach cheese tortolinis and threw in some apple/chicken sausage in Ragu mine and Fred had Hebrew National hotdogs with pesto in his. We also had a nice salad. Quickly after eating we got very tired and didn’t last long before bedtime. The rain was coming down harder now and that droned us off to sleep.