Please sing the title to this post in tune. Fall foliage is fabulous and fantastic.
This morning.
Lunch yesterday with the women’s hiking cooperative on the ledge on Rooster Comb.
Clouds viewed during my walk at home.
Impromptu helipads
I manage to live and work very close to helipads. They aren’t used often but when they are it’s an event.
On Seguin Island, the bricks marking the helipad, which is still used, were unearthed a couple of years ago. We keep the are cleared and mowed.
The pad is very close to the lighthouse and after a warning buzz, no phone calls here, it sets down on the pad.
It’s a different story at work, where I have participated in helicopter landings twice. By “participate” I mean move my car from the parking lot, which also serves as the helipad.
An announcement comes over the intercom that a helicopter is landing and immediately, the workforce and visitors grab their keys and head out the doors to move their cars. At least here we get a phone call so its not really a scramble.
I just have to remember where I parked my car at the end of the day.
My knitwear is on CNN!
The real focus is Seguin Island Lighthouse and Life as a Remote Island Lighthouse Caretaker. There was a video filmed on that hectic day when the work party came to work on windows and help close up. You can see the video here.
However during the video I managed to wear threefour of my handknit items. It was very cold and damp on the day of the taping, so I wore a handspun headband made with yarn spun by a friend of mine who took care of my wheel when I was living in Australia for five months.
The project information is here.
There’s a very brief glimpse of my fingerless gloves when we haul the dinghy up the beach.
Their project info is here. They are very special because the fiber was gifted to me by a new friend in Tasmania and I spun (on a turkish drop spindle) and knit them during my 3 months on Deal Island, Tasmania in 2010/2011.
At the end (and the beginning but it’s hidden under another layer) is my first sweater, an Aran pullover made, too small, for Tim, so it is mine.
Pattern info is here.
What you can’t see are my hand knit socks. I think I actually wore two pair because my feet got wet in the morning. At least one pair were these, knit on Seguin Island in 2008.
So there’s a hidden story to life on remote islands as well.
Home, cooking
Or home cooking?
First a batch of bagels.
Then two loaves of uneven, leavened, bread.
With an apple pie for dessert!
Snug as a bug
We closed the keeper’s quarters and pulled the plug. Although the temperature dipped into the 30’s and we didn’t have central heat, we were snug as a bug in a rug. We put up grates and plywood on the windows.
I scared this timberdoodle (American woodcock) in the alley by the tower. It took cover on a windowsill and I ran inside to get its picture.
I went up the tower for the last time to look around, take some pics and secure the inside door.
Then sent our stuff down the tram to the cove.
Our intrepid crew arrived in shorts! The first mate, Pepper, kept a sharp lookout on the bow. They arrived to drain the plumbing and finish the task.
I presented her with a leash I wove with my tablets and copper loom for being so cute.
We locked up, boarded the boat and headed home.
We still saw a beautiful sunset, just a little differently.
Sunrise, Seguin
Parting shots
We’re finishing our projects as we prepare to close up. Tim painted the picnic table he repaired (we seem to repair and paint at least one a season), applied Linseed oil to the wood gutters on three buildings while I did what I am best at.
That’s Tim above. What you don’t see is me standing on the bottom of the ladder serving as ballast in the gusty breeze. Very important work.
The resident seagull is up to its usual shenanigans. It helped me clean the garden yesterday.
The sun keeps rising and setting.
Rainbows form and the lighthouse and quarters remain cozy. I hope so because the temperature is expected to drop tonight.
All in a day
Monday was a blur. The weather was perfect, monarch butterflies were swarming the island and we had a work party of window warriors and more arrive with a journalist documenting Seguin as unique home.
They traveled by boat and dinghy with windows, lumber and lots of camera gear. Amazingly, only our feet got wet.
They installed two complete windows in the foyer; finished, caulked and painted a window in the museum; blasted and pointed brick mortar; stowed benches; installed window grates; packed up the store and museum; and greased the tram’s cable.
While at the same time, butterflies swarmed and a Coopers hawk and several sharp shinned hawks circled the island.
Reflecting
Why be a lighthouse caretaker?
I had an epiphany while mowing for several hours yesterday. I ran into the typical problems: mower hard to start until I got the nack; wheel fell off and I had to hunt the fresh mown grass for it; and the shooter kept falling off.
The morning was glorious and we had lovely visitors, they arrived and left early because the weather was predicted to change.
And it did. The wind picked up while I finished the lawn and I had my aha moment. My hair was whipping in my eyes and mouth, the fog horn was blowing and the flag was flying straight off the pole.
I love offshore lighthouse caretaking for the extremes of weather I get to experience. Strong wind and gales, pea soup fog, crashing waves, rainbows and amazing sky. I explained this to Tim in the afternoon and then, as if to prove my point, a front blew by last night.
Here’s the real time Radar imagery.
Island and North Country Life 