We’ve had a couple of days to settle in and meander about the island. It stirs so many memories. We learned so much our first summer as caretakers and got to share it with friends and family and those memories abound: Kristi’s lighthouse door, sanded, steel woolen, painted and painted; Andre working the rider mower ( which is presently disassembled in the whistle house) and his panoramic photo with labels; the Mount brothers’ glass block window in the lighthouse; our first Aldo Leopold bench. Now we rip and saw, carefully, but without hesitation.

The trails are in great shape and the keeper’s quarters are homier than they have ever been. We even have the resident, annual, abandoned, juvenile seagull.

I’ve knit a pair of socks each time I have been here and this trip will produce a new pair. In the meantime, I am wearing the old ones.