Chincoteague Fall

While upstate New York is already in winter, we are trapped in a rainy, cold fall down in Chincoteague. The rain has been almost constant for the last few days, and will continue for at least a day more. Glad we finished cleaning and treating the decks.

More interestingly, we are afloat from a really high fall tide at the same time. We are fourth in from the right and we can usually see marsh grass right in front. Today it's under water.

There is also marsh grass looking out to Assateague (where the little ponies live). Yesterday a couple of 'Teaguers were out in a skiff right here, motoring around and shooting clapper rails in the water with shotguns. It was really loud and way the hell too close to us. Apparently they are that tasty (the clapper rails, not the Chincoteaguers).

When the water gets to the bottom of the dock beams we start to get water in the bottom level of our place. So far that has not happened.

Even the little causeway out to Piney Island was inundated.

The beach had problems with over-wash, thanks to a strong North wind. Icky!

The best laid plans of the US Park Service laid to waste. Yesterday they had equipment in the same place pushing back the sand from the over-wash. Today the sand is back. For years they spent their fall seasons building up the dunes to about 15 feet, after the Nor'easters came through and flattened them. The Park Service IS capable of learning, because no one does that anymore.

The Google Maps My Location Scam - continued

You may remember the Google Maps My Location scam post earlier this year. Google Maps had implemented a new feature that purportedly showed your current location on a map. It used wireless routers and other items to help locate you on a map. It just plain did not work for me at the time. It put me in Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago and moved around among them. It finally settled on Austin, Texas.

Well, we just sold our house in New Jersey (and brought along our wireless router to use down here in Chincoteague, Va.) I just set the router up last night on a new cable modem. This morning I decided to try My Location again. It put me smack dab in our old house in New Jersey. I just love it when raw HUMAN assumptions screw up the use of technology. Someone clearly decided that wireless routers do not move, so why use their IP addresses EACH TIME to find their location. And so it goes...

Found these today

Normally we see little jellies, 1" or 2" in diameter. They aren't there all the time.

These guys were all over today. Some of them approached 1 1/2 feet across. Some had short tentacles, too. The tentacles were maybe 1 foot long. In 20-odd years at Chincoteague, this is the first time we've seen any this big.

North today

We walked to the North today after our morning chores. The day was beautiful - around 70, breezy, sunny enough to get a burn. We even saw people swimming. They told us the water was about the same as late June/early July.

The beach was just loaded with these little guys. They are beautifully camouflaged, but always give themselves away by scurrying off sideways. This guy was about 1/2 inch across the body. He was lucky not to share the fate of the blue crab seen below.

This blue crab was gobbled up in a matter of seconds by a gull. Snip, snip, off with the legs until only the center remained. Then a few pecks to get at the meat.

The fall is a beautiful time down here. It mixes the dry, sere grasses and dead pines with a glorious blue sky.

Even the reeds and grasses look good as they fade to brown.

Unfairly accused of wasting my retirement on men's butts yesterday, today I choose to show Esther''s butt as she wings away down the beach. No caber here!

Snow Hill Celtic Festival

A fine fall Sunday afternoon it was. We drove about 1/2 hour up north to Snow Hill, then onward to Furnace Town. Furnace Town is a historical site with an old iron smelting furnace. This weekend it hosted the annual Celtic Festival. Apparently there are many local folk descended from Irish, Welsh, and Scots immigrants.

We were greeted by this fellow piping a greeting to all comers.

There was a set of craft booths displaying jewelry and Celtic gifts. They were accompanied by this booth making available kilts, sporrans, and kilt pins (at $150, they were moving a bit slowly).

A variety of Gaelic edibles were there. This was kind of homespun fare.

We tried a meat pie, a pastie, and a bit of colcannon. Colcannon is basically mashed potatoes with a bit of green stuff in it. Our had cabbage. Lunch was accompanied by a heather ale and a draft Harp.

The day was really about the exhibits and activities, though. The historical site is about iron and the surrounding activities. It is located where water power could add value by helping to blast air through the furnace. The furnace is a huge brick structure with a ramp to take visitors up to the top.

At the top you can see tubes used to blast in air. There is a mirror to show the center of the furnace. Not much there but cinders, though.

Next to the furnace was an exhibit of how the site prepared charcoal. A central green trunk was surrounded by a stack of small wood to form a chimney. Then more wood was packed in all around before piling on dirt and leaves. The dirt and leaves sealed off the wood after it was successfully lit. (Charcoal is made in an air-poor environment.)

The festival activities were continuous on several small stages and areas. They included a little that was not very Celtic in origin and a lot that was. A group of medieval martial artists was demonstrating how to brawl in armor. Nobody got hurt.

Apparently some guys get two sticks, while others get a shield and one stick. This guys liked to fight from the ground for some reason. Go figure...

There was a full complement of junior high school girls dancing Irish jigs and step dances. Can't get too excited about toe dancing or dancing with heavy shoes, though.

The music was pretty good. These guys were from the Ocean City Pipers. We enjoyed them quite a bit.

This little girl (12) sang Amazing Grace in Scots Gaelic. Then she sang some other ditties, forgetting the words to several of them. Maybe she forgot some of the first song, too, but we couldn't tell (it was in Gaelic; are you paying attention here?)

Some of the more unusual activities were more interesting to me. This guy in the skirt was showing off his smart sheep dog (Border Collie, I guess). The dog was really obedient and moved the sheep around effortlessly. It was fun to watch.

Did I mention this was Southern Baptist country? As we were walking around we were talking to a dude just by chance. As we got done he handed me this. Just in case I was forgetting one of them, I guess. Hmmmm, which one?

For me, the best was the last. There was a display of Scottish "heavy" events. I hated to crop this down. It doesn't do justice to how low he was squatting with that giant rock.

This dude was the announcer. Here he was busy throwing a 50-odd pound weight up in the air, then getting the hell out of the way before it came down. Apparently if you are under 40 years old you throw this weight around. If you are older you get the 42 pound weight to throw. This also showed us that these cheaters wear shorts under their kilts.

This stuff could be construed as farm-oriented. The next one certainly was. A bag weighing 20-30 pounds gets stabbed with a pitchfork. The pitchfork MUST have 3 tines only. The dude then takes a couple swings for momentum and throws the bag way the hell up in the air (like throwing a hay bale into a barn window?)

That left only the caber toss.We hadn't realized this is an accuracy game, not brute force. You have to get the caber's bottom end to go over the top, making it land as close as possible to your 12 o'clock after the toss. There are a bunch of ways to judge misfires and close calls. Come to find out, you can actually throw it in any direction. It just depends on which way you get comfortable with the tree. You have a judge that has to get directly behind you to judge your throw. How in the hell did they get started throwing a 20 foot tree around?

And the other direction

Today we went in the other direction. Not too much to report except miles of sand and water and birds. Now I need to pay attention to some chores, like power-washing the siding and decks. It's not all sweetness and light, you know.

Escape from New Jersey - the ahhhhh moment

Today we walked first thing (not really, we didn't get started until 9:30 or so). We went over to the beach, which was almost entirely deserted, cool and intermittently sunny. The water was still kind of warm!

It was a good morning to walk. There has been a storm, and the beach was a bit littered with the jetsam of the day. There were a ton of spent horseshoe crabs, most were kind of dilapidated. Some like this one, were in good shape but not moving.

The only people around besides us were the fishermen and women. Esther watched the line here so she didn't get caught.

I felt better than I had in days. What a relief to be DONE.

I took a few pictures, but at the time entirely missed the contents of the following one. This poor gull had a buoy attached to it by some kind of line!

Aaaaannnnndddd, we're done

House closed today around 3PM with no problems. We're free! Got our new DLs, got our new plates, tomorrow we'll get our official Chincoteague Island stickers. I asked the inspection guy today "What is the sticker for, maybe parking?" He said the stickers are for letting the Town of Chincoteague extract money from you. If you live here, but you don't buy one, the cops here get to give you a ticket.

Anyway, the place is daily getting less cluttered (mostly due to EB's work). There is a bit left, but we can walk around now. Despite fall coming on, it is still sunny and fairly warm during the days. The view continues to be marvelous. We've been so tied up with the closing and the cleanup that we are really looking forward to a walk on the beach tomorrow.

Chincoteague Waterfront Park

Unbelievably, we got the van unloaded this morning! We rewarded ourselves by visiting a little festival at the Chincoteague Waterfront Park off Main Street. From this park, which is quite new and nice, you can view the bascule bridge now in use to get on/off the island.

Chincoteague is still a working waterman's island. Here is a little tug used around the harbor and waterways.

Here are a couple of working boats tied up near the park. In earlier days they used to stink up the place, but somehow they have been sanitized. Or, maybe the wind was just blowing right today.

There is a bit of a promenade along the channel, with work on the new bridge visible in the distance. It is due to be opened next spring.

Marsh Island is just across the channel. When the bascule is dismantled, an offshoot of the new bridge will connect to it.

The festival had free food and drink served up by volunteers.

There were also lots of activities for kids. There was also a Christian band, and a set of Christian puppets singing gospel to the tune of the Beach Boys.

This is Southern Baptist country, for sure.

Escape from New Jersey - the final chapter

Thursday night at 5:30PM the dude who was to fix the septic distribution box finally showed up, two weeks and a bunch of appointments late. Esther was frantic and stressed. As he and a buddy worked, it grew dark and buggy. At 8:30PM he bonged the front door, took me out in the yard, and explained how he had just broken the new distribution box. They appear to be made of concrete, but are apparently made of cheese! More stress, as we were to leave on Friday! We had already postponed our trip a day to make sure he was on the job. The buddy promised to come back and complete the job on Friday, though.

We packed up the last load Friday morning and motored past Comcast (returning our cable gear), continuing on down the NJ Turnpike toward Chincoteague. The last load proved a bit more than we had expected, underestimation being our watchword so far. It looked like this:

I really don't like driving when I can't see properly out the back, but we were stuck. There was ridiculous amount of crap, and this after we had thrown away, given away, FreeCycled away, and dumpstered away a boatload of other crap. The nooks and crannies of the nooks and crannies all had stuff in them.

Even Esther was packed in. It was so full around her and on the floor that she could only get one foot on the floor of the car. Getting out at the pit stop was even difficult. Every time we fastened seat belts we had to pick up a bag between our seats.

We got some good news on the machine as soon as we landed. Our buyers' house had closed early, and they were in the process of moving. It seems there are no obstacles to our closing, but neither of us is counting chickens until next Wednesday.

Today we got more good news. The hole is closed and the job is done.

Tick, tick

Closing is on 30-Sep-2009. We couldn't be happier. We'll sign papers next week so we won't even need to go to the closing. In the mean time we have 1 (one) more load of crap to transport. We've had dinner with some friends in the last couple of weeks. We'll miss them and others, as well.

This move convinces me that Esther has it right - do not put so much furniture in a room that you get congestion. We have thrown and given away a ton of stuff in the run-up to this point.There is still a pile down here in Chincoteague that we need to give away. Esther is doing quite a bit of wizardry finding places for our crap. She is quite amazing at it. I don't have the patience for that, so I try to supply schlepping power.

We had a great walk on the beach today, maybe a couple of miles in the sunshine. Temperatures are 75 or so down here and the water is still warm enough for swimming. I told Esther that "this is starting to seem like retirement!"

Here is a volunteer in the lawn.