Sunday, June 19th – Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers reading our Blog! Today’s early weather report is cold and breezy with some rain expected a little later. Before the rain, I went down and picked up some more tumbled red ‘bricks’ to place them as cairns to mark the shape of original lighthouse as well as some small rock / sand mixture to put in a gap in the sidewalk outside the kitchen door where I have removed the weeds. Here are some pics of the cairns. Kind of a dreary day but you can still see them.
I thought it might be fun to share a few facts about the island / lighthouse in the blog. Here is a picture from the museum that describes the original lighthouse and a few facts about that lighthouse.
William Lithgow of Massachusetts headed a list of 55 signers on a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts in June of 1786 asking for a lighthouse due to the significant trade of the Kennebec River. “If there was a Light upon this Island many Vessels would be saved from Shipwreck, and many Persons preserved from immature Deaths…”
It was almost a decade later when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed an act of cessation of 10 acres of Sequin Island to the United States for a lighthouse.
It was built in 1795 at a cost of $6000. The structure was built of wood on a foundation of rubble stone.
The lantern was a fixed white light shining toward the ocean, with the land side being dark. Going forward I will try to include a few facts about various aspects of the island.
I headed down to the whistle house to pick up the pieces and parts of the towel rack that I painted yesterday and we put it up today! It works great!
Gave my mom a quick call and her cousin Linda was visiting. We chatted for quite a while and she had all sorts of questions about being here on Seguin, when we go ashore, what are our jobs, etc. Last time Diane (my sister) was at Mom’s, she shared the blog with her so she could see what we do, our pictures, etc. She’ll be 95 in October; she’s doing great!
Gary and Colin did call Scuba to wish him Happy Father’s Day – one last photo. Another picture of a Mount Washington sunset. Are you sick of these yet?
Monday, June 20th – Another day to do some work on the Blog. But let’s talk about what we did today. I mowed this morning, which is the area around the tower. Steve did the under the Tram, the Welcome area, the Cove and Cobblestone trails. Another big day of clearing. We continue to keep the trails wide and not have anything growing into the trail. No pictures here – figure you’ve already seen enough of the trails.
In the afternoon, I sat down and started to clean out the weeds in the rock area near the side entrance to the tower. It was easier to take out the rocks, clear the weeds, then replace the rocks. It’s like a puzzle trying to get the rocks to fit. I was planning to do just this area, then Steve sat down with me and we continued to clear the rock walkway to that side entrance. I keep forgetting to take a ‘before’ picture. I always remember the ‘after’ one! Here is a pic of an adjacent area that was similar.
Early afternoon, we decided to row out to get the crabs in our lobster cage. We think we have 8 of them. Then we cooked them and put them in the fridge to clean them tomorrow. I think it is easier to do it once they have been chilled.
Late afternoon we had two visitors – Ian and Donna. They are from Australia and Ian just retired so they are taking 5 months to sail up the coast. Their family is from Ridgefield, CT. I gave them a tour and then walked them around the museum and the gift shop. They later joined us for 5:00 Cove Time!
Pretty chilly tonight, so we decided to eat dinner in the kitchen. It’s the warmest room as we do all the cooking there and most meals require the oven to be on!! Just the other day with Wendell, they were telling me how they take rocks and put them on the grates on the stove burner to heat them up and then put them on the floor so you can put your stocking feet on them. Sounded like a good idea, so we heated up several rocks on the exhaust of the oven and while we ate dinner, we had them on the floor and put our stocking feet on them. Ooo-weee, did that feel good!
Here is a picture of dinner (I remembered). Homemade spaghetti sauce with fake pasta and chicken meatballs. Accompanied by toasted homemade rosemary sourdough bread from yours truly!
Last part of the evening was a step outside to look at the stars. Another Milky Way night (and we can actually see the Milky Way too)! It’s just amazing to see all these stars. Of course, it’s too hard to capture it on the camera, so you’ll just have to imagine the perfect National Geographic picture and that’s what it looks like!
Tuesday, June 21st – Happy 1st Day of Summer – the Longest Day of the Year. Steve and I worked with this gentleman, Jack Quinn, who was an engineering supervisor and every year he would make reference to this day and point out how the days were going to get shorter from here on in. Of course, in December, he would mention that now the days were getting longer by a minute every day. Crazy what you remember! Ok, back to Seguin.
Today I worked in the area next to the kitchen and there is a bunch of mint, chives and something else which I think is a weed. So today I ripped out a bunch of the mint. I don’t eat mint; I don’t like mint and I don’t even like Girl Scout thin mints! I wanted to move the basil so I thought I would clear out this area as it doesn’t get sun all day, just in the afternoon. The garden for the most part gets sun all day.
Beautiful day for being outside to clean crabs. Here I am in my full glory, slowly and meticulously cleaning the crabs. Of course, we picked the legs and the claws, but I told Steve that there is a lot of meat in the body, you just need to know where to look. I used one crab as an experiment and then figured out how to get this meat out. By the way, it is right by the joint where the legs attach to the body. Then if you pull that part away from the crab, you’ll find a lot of meat in this area, separated by some thin cartilage type material. We weighed our meat when we were all done – 14 oz! Yikes that’s a lot! We decided the best way to eat it was Steve’s homemade crabcakes. Yowzah – can’t wait!
We have been monitoring the tides to watch for a super low tide so we can have a ‘burn.’ The Town of Georgetown requires you obtain a ‘Burn Permit.’ You have to log in after 9:00 a.m. on the day you want to have the burn, fill out the information and you’ll get a permit emailed to you. So we got one for today as our burn pile in the house is getting quite large. We walked down to the beach and you are required to have it at low tide and you have to remain near it until the tide comes up and over it to extinguish it. We had a lot of stuff to burn (a lot of empty Cheez-it boxes)! It was amazing how quick we ‘burned’ through everything. Here is Steve at the burn pile!
When we arrived at the beach, we noticed a bird by the dinghy. He / she didn’t move even when Steve walked close. We couldn’t tell if it was hurt or injured or if it was a 1st year bird. Many of the birds change their appearances during the first couple of years until they are a mature adult. I’m pretty sure it was a 1st year seagull.
As we were standing by the burn pile making sure nothing flew away, a small Boston Whaler pulled up in the Cove. Then a little while later as larger boat pulled up with 6 or so people on it. He had a dinghy and went to the other boat to pick them up and bring them onto the shore. However, as they got close to the shore, the boat turned and a wave came right over the side soaking everyone! They all took it in stride. Turns out they were a group of college graduates that get together every year in Southport and take a trip – this time to Seguin. Here’s a couple of pics of them coming in and a team photo.
Their plan is to take a hike down to Cobblestone and back around to the Cove, then came up to the Tower for some tours. Steve finished up the burn, really didn’t take that long and then came back up to the house. By then the group was ready for their tours. We split them into two groups as about 5 people at once is a good number for a tour. He led the land tour and showed them the gift shop. They all had a great time but it was time to start heading back to Southport.
Oh and earlier in the day, he worked on my kitchen drawer project (picture coming when it’s all done) and I moved the basil to the little spot out of the full sun.
Wednesday, June 22nd – Well normally our on-shore day, but there was a call yesterday to let us know it was being moved to Friday. Winds are supposed to pick up this afternoon making our return trip a little dicey. That’s why we have food for 10 days just in case.
We noticed a large catamaran leaving the Cove. They must have come in last evening just to spend the night.
Took care of some business with some of our Marriott Vacation Club points today and made some reservations for Savannah in November. It’s going to be a busy fall. I headed out back to rip out some more mint and clean up around the rocks along that edge. I also walked around the property picking a few wild flowers to put in a vase in the vestibule between the two front doors. Adds a little homey touch!
Steve mixed up the crab cakes as we wanted them to sit a bit in the fridge before we cook them tonight. We headed off to do the North Trail. Then I headed down to do some whipper snipping under the solar panels. The grass had been getting tall under there and I wasn’t sure whether they just let it go or they cut it. Last week the volunteers made a pass with the whipper snipper and I took it down a little further this time. This afternoon a visitor named John that came with a friend a few weeks ago (I remembered his friends name finally – it was Alex). Anyway, he stopped here on his way back from the Rockland race and this time he had his girlfriend and their two dogs. I gave her a tour and she was very excited to hear all about Seguin. They are planning to stay in the Cove tonight.
Time for the crabcakes, Steve cooked them up and I mixed up some of my favorite garlic aioli. I was going to include a pic of the recipe but it was easier to list all the ingredients here:
Garlic Aioli – 3 cloves of garlic, ½ c low-fat mayo, 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tsp of lemon zest, 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, ½ tsp fresh ground pepper – put all in a little food processor and process till well mixed. Store in fridge until you need it.
Ok back to the crabcakes. That bowl of crab made 6 good size cakes. We each had two with our edamame – delicious and she remembered to take a photo (actually Steve did)
I went down to the whistle house to work on the blog. Spent a while on the internet posting and loading pictures. I forgot when I left the whistle house how dark it would be – it was pitch dark as there is no other light! I had the flashlight on my phone on, but it really didn’t do much. Thought for sure I was going to walk into the historical sign we have down there, but luckily, I didn’t! I did take a pic though of the house and Tower as I approached. Kind of a cool pic. As I was walking up, I was also checking out the stars. So after I dropped off the computer in the house, we both went out to star gaze. Just breath-taking.
Thursday, June 23rd – Gorgeous morning. I took a walk over to the white bench by the weather station and decided to take a pic of the house and tower from this perspective. Today is Kevin’s Birthday (my sister Judy and Bill’s son). He turns 50 today!!!! We called him first thing this morning to sing him happy birthday. I’m sure that made his day! He’s working from home and had a few minutes to catch up. He’s the one with 17-year-old triplets. They are in the throes of looking at colleges for Matthew, Jessica and Jacob! Eeeee -yikes, right?
This morning we needed to do the South Trail. We both loaded up with gas, extra whipper snipper pieces, safety glasses, gloves, clippers, etc. and off we went. I started at the beginning; Steve started at the end. As we were walking back to the beginning of the trail, we met some visitors. When we leave the house like that, we place a sign on the door as to where we are. These folks were glad we did. They found us! They continued on the South Trail and said they would love a tour. When I meet people, I like to come up with a way to remember their names. Today’s group was GMP, kind of like GNP except I changed the National to Max. Their names are Gale, Max and Pete. Gale and Max are father and son, Pete was a local friend. As I walked back up to the house and looked North, it was a pretty view and there were a bunch of different clouds – so I took a pic. GMP returned and I gave them a tour. They were very interested, asked a lot of questions and really enjoyed the Tower and the museum.
By now it was time for some lunch. We sat at the picnic table on the west side. It was a beautiful day and just right for eating outside. We spent a little time catching up with Gary. Then I went off to whipper snip the ‘cradle’ area (there use to be oil tanks resting in these cement cradles – the oil was used to power the compressed air diaphone, a fog signal technology – topic of another blog). Next, I started pulling the weeds in the seams of the sidewalk and along the sides around the west side of the house. The sidewalk goes from the museum to the kitchen door on our side. Here is a picture of my progress. While I was doing this, I gave Steve’s cousin Cathy a call. She was driving up to Mass to see her mom, Marie. Marie is Steve’s Aunt (Joan’s sister). Marie just turned 89 the end of May, but she is not doing well so Cathy wants to head up and see what’s going on.
Up the trail comes another couple – Lance & Shawna. They were interested in a tour, so I put on my ‘tour’ hat (figuratively) and gave them a tour. They were going to do a hike but we said we’d be down in the Cove around 5ish. She said maybe you’ll want to come out to the boat – well heck ya!
We went down to the Cove and sat down in our spot by the boat house. It was a pretty calm evening. She yelled in from her boat and asked it we wanted to join them. Sure, we said! She came in using her dinghy which was very cool as it is a fold-up boat that lays flat next to her paddle board! How cool is that. We went out there and sat for quite a while chatting and learning about them. Lance just recently retired, but she still has her business as a bookkeeper, as she can do that remotely. They used to live in Napa, CA. But now they live on their boat full-time as that was always their dream – to sail. Great time listening to their story, seeing their boat and we had Dark & Stormy to drink – how yummy. They have done a lot of work on the boat to maximize their storage. Very nice people. And yes, I have their contact information so who knows! Here’s the pic of her and I in the dinghy coming back in.
We walked back up to the house, it was a little later than usual, but again another unique picture of the house and Tower.
Friday, June 24th – Well today is our son Gary’s 30 birthday – boy just how did we get here! A quick walk down memory lane
Today is our on-shore day since it was bumped from Wednesday. It was a beautiful calm ride into Popham. We learned from the last time to check and see if the transfer station was open today and it’s not. So, no stops between Popham and Bath. Oh yes we do, we have a couple of packages at Cyndy’s to pick up. Oooo – wonder what they are! We picked up our packages and headed to Mae’s Café & Bakery for breakfast. Really yummy but too much food! I ordered a veggie bowl of brussel sprouts, sauteed spinach, avocado, 2 eggs and toast. I only wanted 1 egg and 1 piece of toast and it was still too much food. Steve got eggs and real shredded corned beef hash with toast. Steve said his was too much as well. Ok, note to self, next time order 1 breakfast and split it.
Oh, so we opened our ‘mail’ and we had a gift from Challie and Jeff some neoprene bottle holder / carriers with straps. It’s perfect for when we go weed whacking (oops whipper snipping), we can carry our water bottles with us! – Thanks C&J!!! The other package was from Catherine and Melissa (the PA folks). It was a box of locally made products like lemon vinaigrette, dark chocolate raspberry jam, a peach ginger chutney, sour cherry jam and a bottle of Shrub. Yes shrub. It’s like a tart raspberry liquid that you can add to seltzer, champagne or make a drink out of it. I’ve tried the Shrub and the raspberry jam – all yummy. Thanks C&M!
Off to the post office to mail a few cards and then to the laundromat. Made some plane reservations for Savannah, sold some Seguin swag and did our laundry. A fairly productive stop there! Steve went off to get water in our 5-gallon jugs and get the car washed. Since we have some extra time, we decided to go the Maine’s First Ship exhibit in Bath. Just a few weeks ago they had a ‘launch’ of the “Virginia” which was the first boat built in the U.S. It is located in the Bath Freight Shed on Commercial St. downtown. Instead of me trying to accurately recount the story, I’m pulling the following from their website. “The pinnace Virginia was the first ocean-going English ship built in the Americas. She was built in 1607-1608 at the Popham Colony which was founded by the Plymouth Company in August 1607 and abandoned in October 1608. The colony of about 100 men and boys was founded to exploit the wood, animal, and mineral wealth of the area and find the northwest passage. Virginia was built to use in this exploration and to show it was possible to build a ship using local materials in the Americas. When the colony was abandoned, Virginia was sailed to England, and in 1609 sailed to Jamestown, the Popham Colony’s southern sister colony.” It’s a very cool free exhibit and worth the stop. Here are some pictures of the boat (which is not quite yet finished) and some of the close sail work. All being done by volunteers in a very cool building with all tools of the era. Very informative and amazing!! (Check out the internet at https://mfship.org – not sure if this will show up as an active URL)
Then we both did shopping. Seems like every other week it’s a big trip, aka more expensive. We did buy a lot this week and it has been 10 days, so that’s how we justified it. Maybe it was just because Cheez-it’s were on sale! Then a brief stop at the fish store. We checked and they wanted $16 for an 8 oz container of picked crab – yikes! Well, we got a deal there as Ethan gave us those ‘on the boat’ (get it? on the house?) We finally got a chance to talk with Gary and wish him Happy Birthday. He’s not been feeling well the last few days and like me, he never gets sick and has never had Covid. They gave him a Rx to help him as they thought maybe bronchitis. But after listening to him and where he’s been, I think we all agree it was Covid. He just sucked it up… Well, we talked with him until we ran out of service, which happens when we get close to this area of the world. Spotty coverage. I’m glad he finally went to make sure it wasn’t something else.
So now we’re at the dock and it’s very low tide. We stage all our stuff and I said to Steve we better use some rope to lower some of these bags, we just can’t hold them over the ladder and drop them to Ethan! Here’s Steve with our pile of stuff this week followed by a picture looking down the ladder. Ooo- wee that looks like a long way down.
Well just then, Ethan pulls up in his pick-up truck and says, he thought it would be better if we put our stuff in his skiff and we’ll take that out to his boat on his mooring. I like that plan a lot better until I see the skiff! It looks like it was built with leftover porch wood and the engine only goes forward! Always an adventure! Oh, and the last picture is where the Popham Colony (the one we read about at the “Maine’s First Ship” exhibit) was located.
The ride back was awesome, took a couple of pics of the wave splashes next to the boat and Steve took a pic of me. I love a boat ride! Like a kid in an amusement park!
When we got into the Cove, Ethan pulled up the mooring and there was some kelp / seaweed on the line, bright green. He pulled off a few pieces and said here try this. I thought it tasted pretty good. A little salty of course. Even Steve tried it! As we’re enjoying our seafood delicacy, we’re watching the two volunteers that came out today, pull the dinghy into the water and try to get in. The waves were rolling in and oh no! They ended up turning sideways, then the stern was facing out and a little wave came up and over into the boat!!! The second pic is them having to stand the boat up to get the water out!!!!
So, resting in our boat house spot having another local summer ale! Followed by another Mount Washington sunset. Life is Grand here on Seguin!
Saturday, June 25th – Good Morning everyone. Well, this morning is an example of living without the best internet can be a challenge. Yesterday we made some airline reservations with American Airlines (AA) and put them on hold. We went to pay for them this morning and when you are using a travel credit, you need to call. They said the wait was over three hours! After brainstorming, we decided I would go on line, get a new reservation and see if I can use the travel credit. In the meantime, yesterday I emailed AA to see if they could extend two travel credits we had that had expired at the end of April. They were kind enough to reissue them. This email said you can use them on line or you could call. So, I took the computer down to the whistle house to make the new reservations while Steve continues to sit on hold at the house. Then I go out to make the reservations and pay for them but now I can’t use two travel credits for two passengers. Yikes, I have to cancel that process and start all over again. One reservation for Steve and one reservation for Carol. OMG, what an exercise in frustration but we got there. I remember the good old days when you could call and talk to a real person. What a concept. Ok, I’m done complaining!
I stayed a little longer in the whistle house and worked on the June 5 post. I added the pictures and published it. Yay! I’m trying to catch up and only be a week a behind. I’m typing this on July 2!!!!!
Ok, now on with our regular day. It’s Saturday so I’m sure we’ll have some visitors! Speak of the devil, I come out of the house and here come two people up the tram! Son of a gun! I kind of jumped on them and said “You didn’t come up the tram did you?” Because of where they were standing, maybe they just walked down the little section to look at the aluminum cart sitting on the tram. NO. They had walked up that way and said they didn’t see a sign for the path and if we don’t want people walking up the ramp why is it there?” Our biggest concern is that if someone gets hurt, it’s not our job to help them get back to their boat and it would be a challenge if you were hurt. Honestly, we just don’t want anyone to get hurt on our watch!
I took a breath and all worked out fine. They are local people from Popham, he’s a retired Bath Iron Works employee and she was a school teacher, Scott and Marion. They said it was there first time here and they really did enjoy the tour, etc. Here’s a pic of them in the Tower that I took and emailed it to them. This is my favorite place to take a picture when I have a small crowd because the background behind them is reversed because it is being taken through a prism!! During their tour, I also took a pic of the prism you sometimes get in the Tower when the sunlight is just right.
Another group of two came up Andy and Heidi. They too are local and have never been here before. Forgot to take a pic of them! They were very nice, enjoyed the tour and then went on a hike. In the meantime, “Window” Rich arrived. He is a friend of Cyndy’s and he came to look at the windows in the house. Many of these need to be replaced and Cyndy wanted his input as he has replaced many historical windows in his own home. It’s a challenge to replace things as you have to go through the State Historic Preservation Society so that the integrity of the house/tower is maintained. Steve spent a significant time with Rich walking around and looking at all the windows. Wind started to pick up but I headed to the sidewalk again to keep pecking away at it. It’s nice on the back side of the house even if it’s windy as you’re in the sun. I wrapped up my sidewalk effort for the day and joined them in the museum and we walked around the various rooms and chatted about everything from A-Z including life as a keeper! We also referred several times to Cyndy’s copy of Seguin Island 200th Anniversary book that was printed in 1995 which is full of interesting nuggets!
Well Rich was planning to stay over in the Cove so we asked him to join us for Cove Time! The three of us headed down and today we had a little visitor! It looked like a young seal and he was just playing in the water. We sat there for quite a while. Rich got a call from his daughter and grandson and he was sharing the view of the seal just riding the waves in and out and playing around the rocks. I guess I should have drawn a circle around the seal in the middle pic. Oh well, I’m sure you can see him if you look close!
Well, I took a sunset video which I’m not going to load as I’m not sure that will work. So, I bid you adieu for another week! As always, thanks for reading!
