It’s cool this morning and windy, windy enough to whip your pants legs, tumble leaves along the beach, make you keep your hands in your pockets and lean slightly into it on the way back. So going down was easier, but you know it’s going to be worse the other way; we jogged part of the way back just to get it over with. So it’s long sleeved shirt, jacket and knit cap weather.
The wind is blowing parallel to the beach, but the waves are rolling straight in. It’s like the wind changes direction, 90 degrees, as soon as it hits land.
The waves are dirty from churned mud they stir up as they come ashore. The wind has cleared the air, pretty much, and only a few light clouds are up there. Despite the noisy wind and waves you can still hear a boat motor coming over the water.
The leaves make tracks along the sand. It looks like many tiny animals with different types paws have scampered about.
The tide is out and just before the new #2 fancy pier (versus the #1 fancy pier of long standing) it has uncovered the bottom of a small cast iron bathtub. It’s covered with heavy rust and the four feet are just rusty nubs. It’s only about three feet long, which seems a little short for a bathtub and is buried near the remains of a set of steel steps, the type used in factories or on big ships. Both could have been thrown over the bank, been thrown off a ship or been washed out during a hurricane. Just the very bottom is visible.
The #2 fancy pier has two boat lifts as does the #1, but only one has a roof. Both of the #1 lifts have roofs.
Some pier owners have brought in their boats for winter storage. The #1 pier still has one lift occupied. (The lifts are made of two broad slings that can be lowered under the water so the boat can glide into them.) This pier owner also has a freestanding platform nearby in the sand. It’s about ten feet square and mounted on pilings similar to the pier with a set of steps to the platform that’s five feet high. A small flat-bottomed boat with a 2.5hp motor is hoisted by hand under the platform in a homemade trailer made of plastic pipe with two big plastic wheels. The wheels leave crenalated tracks in the sand, tracks with square notches running up each side.
The robin was gone from yesterday’s safe place, but Daisy was with us and just past that point startled one, probably the same, from nearby kudzu. Like yesterday, it flew for the water, but this time it went straight out where a fallen tree trunk was partly submerged. It almost made the tree then went into the water and was gone! Daisy followed it and couldn’t find a trace, but kept looking. This was about a quarter mile from the turnaround point and the dog was still searching around the tree when Izzy and I returned about ten minutes later. I kept looking back to see if she found anything, but nothing happened.
A small flock of Canada Geese, about twenty-five, flew up in tight formation a few hundred yards downstream from the turnaround. They were probably startled by someone because they settled right back into the water.
The dead muskrat, or rat, is face up, now, and you can see its teeth, two long ones up and two down, both in the middle like a rabbit. It’s pretty furry, too. The paws don’t look webbed, if that’s what muskrats have.
