Ah, the mountains

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

photo courtesy of Bethany

Back in the wilderness with hiking options galore.  Yesterday was Wednesday, hiking day with a wonderful group of women.  They hike, snowshoe and ski  through all weather, with the exception of pouring rain or flooded trails.  We hiked to Indian Head, a trip I had taken with Tim in the winter and posted about here. It was much more fun this time and I can hardly believe I did it on showshoes.  We walked the road to the Gill Brook trail and followed the river with several waterfalls.  Then we made a right and headed uphill.  As a general rule, I don’t like hikes with ladders.  This one had at least five.  I don’t think we ever saw them when we did it in the snow.  The view of Lower Ausable Lake, flanked by the mountains, was stupendous.  We met a group of revelers at the top enjoying lunch and libations.  I don’t think I would have like the ladders after that.

I finished my socks made from possum  and wool yarn that I bought in New Zealand last year and am very happy with them. Now it’s onto a scarf made from beautiful kettle dyed yarn that Ramblinroo brought to Seguin for me from Nezinscot Farm Yarns and Woolens . Maybe Chelsea will like it.Possum sox

So much for endless summer

/ one2travelfar / 1 Comment

Frosty bbq
So much for endless summer. My winter clothes are packed away and there’s frost on the ground. It’s friggin’ freezin’ here. Time to get out more long johns. There’s about a 20 degree daily swing in the temperature.

We just received information about our Tasmania trip from the present caretakers and from a cookbook published by the Friends of Deal Island, which Cooper’s girlfriend, Elizabeth, sent us. It is full of information about the island and even includes a suggested shopping list if you find yourself without a store for three months!

I have to start thinking celsius. High summer temperature is 20.5° C and low is 12.6°. I guess that decimal point adds heat. It wouldn’t make much of a difference in fahrenheit and will make my rounded off conversions a little complicated. Ah but I just found a way to estimate. Double the C, subtract 10% and add 32. Simple, eh? So 55° f to 69° f. Why do we have different systems anyway.

Celsius, meters and kilos make much more sense. I have to think of clothes for 12.6° C, plant a 10 meter square garden and buy 10 kg of 50 kg of flour. Will that fit in a shopping cart. I’ve been working out our food needs in lbs. I knew this was going to get complicated.

Resting places

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Final resting place
This is a pretty nice final resting place. I only need an interim resting place. Today we opened three months of mail, which led to endless phone calls to insurance, satellite companies and the kindle support team.

I knew I was in trouble when the first person I spoke to at Dish satellite company didn’t know what a World Series was. 

Mail’s been sorted, house is clean; onto laundry and a hike in the morning. 

Home Sweet Home

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

It’s great to visit our home.

.DSCN0003.JPG

We’ll be here for 4 weeks and I’ve already scheduled trips to visit Chelsea and Cooper. The mountains are red, gold and yellow. We cleaned indoors yesterday and today, Tim stacked a cord of wood from our neighbor, felled a couple of dead trees, weeded, got rid of cluster flies, filled the hot tub and rowed. I was less ambitious but stocked the kitchen, ran and plan to soak in the hot tub. We marvel  at our views

DSCN0009.JPG

Boat to boat

/ one2travelfar / 2 Comments

 Dinghies to the Leeward
Today’s journey began and ended on a boat. Capt. Ethan arrived with the Leeward at 0800 and, with the help of Dee and her family, we loaded our stuff and the cats. They had two dogs and we picked up a bucket of lobsters along the way. All in all it was a peaceful ride.

Shirley inadvertantly got tossed around like luggage a few times but she did fine. 
Leaving Seguin
Then everything was offloaded onto the pier with a gaff hook, including the cats and the rowing machine, and we loaded up the car and headed home.

Lake Champlain Ferry
We took the ferry across Lake Champlain, along with four tractors and a boat full of cars. Drive on, drive off. How simple. We got back to the mountains and then we cleaned again. It’s great to be home.
Shirley and Loki en route

Is moving ever fun?

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Seguin
 Today started mellow enough. I had a visitor via Ravelry, who has friends in common with me. I posted for Maine knitters to visit and the only taker was from Long Island, NY. We had a whirlwind fast tour before she and her daughter had to leave with Capt. Ethan. We have an extended  family visiting with the cutest daughters, 8 and 11 years old, and are having fun with them. 

But moving isn’t fun even when it is in an idyllic setting. We were too busy today. We finished closing chores: cleaned the main outhouse, emptied one of the cisterns, tacked up the last couple of boards on the house, applied linseed to the gutters, jacked up the deck and shored it up with rocks, winterized the rider mower, cleaned the house, refrigerator, moved picnic tables and benches into safety and found a dead woodcock in the gutters. Then we packed and sent our stuff down on the tram.  Whew! Now I am on the couch with a Shipyard Ale.
Tower window
Yesterday was bittersweet. Rose a caretaker in 2006, brought a bench to memoralize her husband, Jack, who passed away earlier this year. He loved Seguin and has a bench here to honor him. 

Could be the last oil house photo

Clear skies

/ one2travelfar / 2 Comments

The cove
It’s getting colder and windy weather is here to stay. I am glad our last few days here will be sunny and hope for calm seas when we leave.

Shirley waiting to hike
The cats enjoyed the chance to get outside and took several hikes with me. I am feeling a little bit of a traitor because as much as I love Seguin, I am getting excited about going home, seeing family and our next caretaking gig on Deal Island, Tasmania. My three month shopping list is in progress; can’t forget anything.

Hold onto your hat

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Yesterday’s weather was exciting. Top wind speed was 48 knots (55 mph), which classifies it as a Storm on the Beaufort Scale. I couldn’t walk against it. The weather station recorded it as the highest for the year and gave a wind warning and told us to hold onto our hats. It was so loud we couldn’t hear the foghorn.

The rider mower and the weather station are my two favorite gadgets here. The jury is still deciding if the mower is going to remain on island but I think I may have fixed the temperature sensor on the weather station by connecting a wire, which was loose.
48 knots
We had already boarded up the house and put outdoor furniture, grills and planters away. Our only casualty was a broken oar on the dinghy. We checked the boat during the strong winds and it was secure but there was a new moon and very high tide and it must have been tossed around.

The dinghy was fine, except for sand and seaweed washed into it
 but the working end of paddle broke off and rendered it useless. We had a few extra oars in the boat house and I drilled a hole in one for the oarlock and it looks fine. It’s too rough to test it today because it’still very windy but we should get a chance tomorrow.

Low ceiling

Batten down the hatches

/ one2travelfar / 1 Comment

Seguin conifer

The third nor’easter of our stay is passing by today.  A gale with wind and rain. It’s not raining yet but there’s a fresh breeze from the north.

We took advantage of fair weather yesterday to board up the keeper’s house and other buildngs in preparation for our departure this weekend. Now we look though grates in the first floor windows. Nice jail. 

Last night, Tim thought he heard voices, no music, on a couple of occasions and I heard footsteps. Hmmm. Maybe someone’s happy we are getting ready to leave.

Down to the coveBeaufort Wind Scale

 Seguin history and ghosts 

Rest stop for passing birds

/ one2travelfar / Leave a comment

Fly by
The island is a rest stop for many migrating birds. The species have changed during the month. We’ve had common flickers, american kestrels, some from the warbler family and others (unidentified by me).

They dart into open doorways, windows and people. We’ve had birds in the whistle house, donkey engine house and the lighthouse. I hear my children’s ancestors having premonitions because of three birds in the house! Tim and I have managed to get them all out unharmed. One was still in the lighthouse when the USCG chopper arrived. Luckily they were only looking for a toilet and never ventured into the tower.
Touch down
 Really.  A very cute, young USCG, with an English accent, hopped off and asked to use the bathroom. They are all closed up here, so after a brief walk,  he reboarded and they took off. THEY LOVED THE NEW HELIPAD. He said it looked brand new (Ethan uncovered the old triangle of bricks and I mowed it when the rider mower ran). They will be back this week because they plan some work on the light.

I was just getting ready to incubate a batch of yogurt in the lighthouse before they arrived. It turned out to be too cool so I used a combination of a warm water bath in the crock pot and a slightly warm oven. We had homemade yogurt and english muffins for breakfast. Now I am going to try to use the rest of this batch as a starter for the next. And so on and so on…

Yogurt