June/July 2021 Island Trip – Day 8

We set the alarm for 6AM in order to get my DH to the ferry without rushing. It’s a good thing he took the boat he did because word around the neighborhood is a ferry went down, causing chaos for the exiting 4th of July crowd for the rest of the day. Evidently town was overflowing with tourists in emotional crisis.

I lingered in town in order to get a load of laundry done at the laundry mat, for a staggering $11! Thank heavens there’s enough clothes line and sunshine to dry clothes here at the property. I don’t want to know what it costs to use the driers at the laundry mat 😳.

Yesterday our AN moved a large pile of prunings and rotten fence wood to the burn pile (To this stack of stuff, my DH had been able to kick over the remaining upright fence, minus one fence post). It wasn’t the neatest procedure, and I set about to clean it up once I returned from town. I was wearing my favorite rayon sun dress (bought used almost 20-years ago) and a light long-sleeved shirt. There were thistles and hawthorn in the mix, and despite gloves, I kept getting pricked. While bending over to pickup a raked pile, I got pricked in the butt. I spun around to look for another piece of hidden wire, which I keep finding. It wasn’t there. Then I got ‘pricked’ on the hip. At this point I knew I was being bit. I tried to make sure my attacker was no longer onboard, abandoned the project, and ran for Stella.

Stella’s wardrobe has mirrored doors, and it was easy to see that something had taken a chunk out of me at both sites. The culprit is Black Fly. I have blessedly missed their three week life span in the past. Welts were forming. I deployed ice, which helped with the not insignificant pain. After cowering for 45-minutes, I changed into my US Army issue camo-pants, a thicker shirt, and sturdier shoes. By this time the welts had subsided, but the red circles surrounding the bites were 3” around (bum, and yes they attack through your clothes!) and 1.5” (hip). There are few creatures that I consider not to be sentient beings… Black flies have joined that short list.

There were no more winged interruptions to my day. The cleanup was completed. The mower made a brief appearance to clean up where I’d been working, where I left a red poppy to bloom, and then mow the former garden so it’d be easier to pick up disintegrating blue tarp piece, buried nursery pots and flats, broken glass, and miscellaneous plastic. At some point my mom thought styrofoam meat trays were compostable (and wine bottle neck foils, produce stickers, produce twist-tie labels for things like cilantro or carrots etc), and I spent time picking up thin pieces of styrofoam. Lots of it had grass/weed roots hanging on to it. Such an odd slip for someone who’d been composting for as long as I can recall.

As I was about to call it a work-day, another piece of corrugated metal revealed itself as I walked over it. The sound of my footfall changed. I managed to get it free. Not easy with a two inch covering of soil. There’s Another piece of metal under the first! I called it a day after realizing the second piece of metal is much larger, and my stamina was waning, fast. I know my mom and dad didn’t just leave the metal there, unlike the piece I found behind the barns. It’s one thing to leave things to be subsumed by nature where you can’t see them. These pieces I discovered today are too close to the house, and now I’m sure my folks didn’t leave the first piece of metal I found behind the barns. There had better be a box of money under the second sheet of metal!!

A shower and a nap restored, at least, my humor. The right side of my mid-back is grumpy when in just the perfect position. No more kiln and washing machine moving this trip!

A week ago Stella was sitting in the high 80’s-low 90’s about this time (8ish PM). She’s 66 degrees now. I have my heavy socks and a sweatshirt on! Zero complaints!!