A day of island life

A thick fog greeted us yesterday morning. During the breakfast hour, the adventures began. Paige and Graham popped into Chip's jeep for a fun ride of dragging the beach. We saw a big piece of machinery roaring across the beach. It hauled back a wrecked small boat that had washed ashore just beyond Steps Beach. Ev was occupied chasing sea gulls who'd brought their breakfast of crabs to the smooth beach; her helium-like voice saying, "I catch it! I catch it" which sounds more like "I kethit kethit" while her little legs marched a bouncy quickstep all over the sand.

Down at the high tide mark, we came across a HUGE horseshoe crab. It was encrusted with all kinds of freeloaders and lay motionless, upside down. Thanks to the Maria Mitchell Aquarium staff, we know a few things about horseshoe crabs: they date back the the Triassic Period some 230 million years ago! Their funky copper-rich blood is used in medicine and even tested for it's antibiotic properties at the International Space Station. So we marveled at this strange creature, I gently picked it up and placed it right-side-up in the water. While it had seemed utterly desperate and on the brink of death belly up on the beach, with one quick kick of it's tail it moved with surprising speed, barreling off into the deep.

Graham is working on a boat made from scraps found around construction sites. We chatted with a guy named Dean who was restoring a 1776 home in town. He had sea-worn skin, bright sparkling blue eyes and a trim gristly red beard. Then we stopped briefly at the oldest operational windmill in the United States and hit the hardware store for his supplies: a level, nails, hammer, wood glue, hard hat and sand paper. Back at home, drizzling rain cooled things off and we all pitched in with hammer and nails. It's going to be a terrific little boat.

Dinner at Straight Wharf was a treat. Watching Ev slurp and hoard her lobster bisque, Paige and Graham divvy up the cheese tray, and a table of bridge playing dames admire it from afar, we shared a nice bottle of Paolo Bea and enjoyed this vista even more than the bobbing boats out the window.

On the ride home, Evelyn was full of the beans. We were all bemused when I took on my serious Mommy voice and said, "Evie! Sit on your bum now. You don't want me to spank that bum, do you?" and she leaned forward, sprang up and popped that precious bum in the air! It took my breath away. What a toot! She cut her eyes at me, giggled, and I forced her little patookie down. We were all incapable of quashing our laughter.