Our Sunset Evenings

One of the things Trish and I do many evenings is drive down to the National Park parking lot and join all the other people who have gathered there to watch the sunset.  We put the top down on the convertible and join a mass of cars and golf carts who make the same journey each evening.While we are there we often notice the license plates on cars...Texas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, West Virginia, New York...and reaffirm our thankfulness that we are fortunate to live here all the time and that we only travel to the back of the island to behold this beauty.

Every evening is different and the seasons have their own characteristics as well.  For the past three nights the sunsets have been distinctly unique.  We never tire of studying those unique individuality especially.

Night before last the sun was dropping toward the water when it slipped behind a bank of clouds.  We thought that it was gone when, just over the water, it dropped into sight once again only to be split by a horizontal cloud that visually marked its descent.

This one two days ago had a cloud splitting it.

Last night we saw no sun at all, but the clouds above where it must have been hiding gave us a panorama of color that looked like pink marble.

Even when the sun hides it is beautiful.

This morning it rained until past noon.  This afternoon the sun came out, but the sky still held clouds. When we rode down tonight we were not sure what we would find.  At first it looked like we would again see no sun but would get some brilliant red clouds.  Then...the sun burned its way out of the bottom of the clouds just before sinking into the water and we got a beautiful expanse of opalescent color.

Tonight’s fiery show.

Another reason we live here!

Figs are Coming!

We have four gigantic fig trees around our house on the island and we have been watching the figs as they move from setting toward maturing.  In the past days the first signs of ripe figs have started with their beginning to turn from green to bronze.

Trish and I both love figs and as their time comes we begin to look for more ways to use them depending on the mass of the crop.

There are fig preserves, sometimes made with a bit or orange or even Grand Marnier.  There will be figs wrapped in bacon,  There might be figs with blue cheese.  There could be fig smoothies.  Their are possibilities of fig ice cream. And, when we make the preserves in the summer there will be fig cake using them in the winter.

Yesterday we picked the very first ones...for about five or six as a promise sample of things to come.

The first bite of the season!

They tasted wonderful...sweet and with a texture that is just right!  Another reason to live where we do!

Home Again

After the week-long workshop in LaGrange, Georgia, we are glad to be back home on our island.

Several things changed while we were gone.

First of all, the gourds have grown greatly as have the banana trees.  The gourds are now at least thirty feet up into the trees in the yard and more of them have set.  The early ones are showing remarkable growth and are really getting to be very pretty.  We are wondering how big they will get by the end of the season.

Gourds abounding.

Secondly, Armando, our wonderful carpenter, has nearly finished the new raised walkway connecting our main house with our garage/guest house.  The old walkway washed away in Hurricane Dorian.  It was down steps and then back up more steps.  This new walkway is elevated to the level of the two houses and goes straight across from one to the other.  There is also Armando’s wonderful creative artistry to make it more than just functional.

Armando framed the steps and they highlight our paper lantern lighted screen porch.

Each day we walk around the house and think of how fortunate we are to live here, especially at this extended time of being at home.

LaGrange

This week we are in LaGrange, Georgia, doing the first work since early March.

Each July Azalea Storytelling sponsors a week long storytelling workshop which I come to conduct.  Usually we have about twenty people in the workshop.  We meet at the historic Calloway home, Hills and Dales.

This year there were questions about whether we could have this workshop at all.  Joyce Morgan Young, the Azalea chair, and her committee worked through all the problems and all the possibilities and here we are.

Learning to maintain distance.

Instead of twenty people in the workshop we have only twelve.  Instead of meeting indoors at the visitor center, we are meeting outdoors in the estate pecan grove. Instead of going out for meals, we are having either catered meals or are having take-out food delivered to us.  Instead of staying in LaGrange College dorms, we are staying in private home guest spaces apart from each other. Instead of indoor public performances, we are having one outdoor performance and one drive-in performance. We are wearing masks when close together and practicing good distancing in our work times.

Our only problem comes when the afternoon temperatures go up in Georgia July heat!

Spaced out in the pecan grove.

And so, we are having a wonderful workshop and a fine week.  All of us realized when we got here that we needed conversation and presence with one another. The week has been a model example of a way we can have what we need in a time of care and crisis.

The Yard is in Bloom

Most years summer travel prevents us from caring for what is growing around the house.  This year is different.  Our being at home has given Trish and me the ability to pamper and care for all that is growing around the house.

In the past couple of weeks, all of this care has started coming to fruition.

The Angel Trumpet is in its second round of blooming.

Each morning we walk around the house to see what has happened during the night.  It is amazing how much the gourds and banana plants grow in a single day.

Bees love the lace cap hydrangea and we love the bees!

But right now it is the blooms that fill us with happiness and joy.  Colors are everywhere and growth continues.

Hollyhocks just keep on blooming.

On days when it does not rain, a lot of watering has to happen.  If we were not here, this would not happen.

A giant hibiscus that came from a tiny sprout a friend gave to us last year.

So, in spite of COVID-19, the world continues to bloom.

Modelling

A number of years ago I used to enjoy building model ships.  However, as the travel schedule increased, I had not done that for quite some time.

With this wonderful stay-at-home time, Trish and I have both been able to undertake projects we could not have otherwise had time to do.  And, we have even had CHOICES about how to spend some of our time.

So...I put my model shipyard back together and started on the first wooden model for quite some time.

The keel is laid and the rubs and internal structural work is done.

This first new model is of the H.M.S. Bounty’s Jolly Boat.  In fact, the boat was misidentified as the Jolly Boat for quite some time as the ship’s log listed the Jolly Boat as the craft into which Captain Bligh and the loyal crew members were set adrift by Fletcher Christian and the mutineers.  It was later discovered that the first-loaded Jolly Boat had severe leaks and the loyalists were reloaded into the Bounty’s launch and the log was not corrected. This is that second boat.

One strake  at a time with soaking and  tiny nails, all the planking is finished.

The launch was 23 feet long and normally used for short ship-to-shore trips.  Into it were loaded Captain Bligh and eighteen of his followers.  There was added 150 pounds of hardtack, 25 gallons of water, 30 pounds of pork, six quarts of rum, and three bottles of wine. When all was loaded, there was only seven inches of clearance before water would have flooded the boat.

The finished model...about  12 inches long.

The remarkable thing is that the boat and its passengers survived a 3,700 mile voyage to reach Timor Island.  Bligh was later returned to service.

In spite of his mutiny history, William Bligh was apparently a remarkable sailor to have captained this tiny boat and its 19 passengers to safety when it seemed they had been given a death sentence.

Our Gourd Farm

I have always loved to grow gourds.  Even when I was a little boy gourd growing was filled with surprises and always enjoyable results.  On our normal travel routine I have often planted gourd seeds and then had to leave them on their own to produce or not for the season.  This year, though, with extended time at home, Trish and I have been able to not only plant but nurture and pet the gourds  as they make their productive way through the season.

Part of our gourd farm.

We have eleven hills of plants growing at various places around the house.  Most of them are where they can go up trees and some vines have already reached about twenty feet. They are now blooming like mad and there are about twenty-five small gourds, some up to about four inches long.

Can you find four little gourds on this vine so far?

The gourds bloom at night beginning to open up after the sun goes down.  They have both male and female blooms and it is quite easy to tell the difference.  The female bloom structure is visible different from the male and the females also have what looks like tiny gourds at the base of the bloom.

It is easy to pollinate them by hand as we have few bees on the island and don’t trust the night insects.  At the edge of darkness we go out each evening on our pollination trip.  We locate a waiting female blossom, then pluck of a male blossom nearby and touch them together.  This almost always results in success and you can tell by morning if it has worked.

Caught in the act of pollination!

We are growing four different kinds of gourds this year and hope to have a bumper crop.

Why do we grow gourds? You ask.  One reason...it is fun!

Peachy Treat!

Whenever we are in our way home from a trip, Trish and I love to stop at the Farmers’ Market  in Raleigh.  Right now the market is very spread out to allow good spacing and social distancing and still remain open during COVID-19.

We got cucumbers, green beans, okra, field peas, heirloom tomatoes, honey, corn, squash, melons, flowers, Brussels sprouts, blueberries, and peaches.

It’s hard not to over do it with all this fresh stuff.

In the winter time we eat a lot of yogurt in the season when there is a shortage of fresh fruit.  So, we love a kind of peach purée that Trish puts up when the peaches are fresh right now.  Our half bushel of beautiful peaches were turned into this lovely stuff in no time when we got back home.

Smiling because it is all finished.

Now we have 22 pints of peach purée sauce to enliven our yogurt (and maybe ice cream) when fresh peach season is long past.

We will remember fresh peaches when we enjoy this good stuff.

A Surprise Guest.

Trish and I were in Florida in February camping at Walt Disney World in our Airstream.  When we left Florida, we needed to have a little bit of warranty work done on the Airstream so we came home by Out of Doors Mart in Greensboro where we left the trailer for the work to be done.  We thought we would be picking it up in a couple of weeks.

Well, COVID-19 put an extended end to our pickup plans and the trailer sat there on their back lot for  a little more than four months after the repair was made. We really wanted to get it home, and, the car that pulls it needed service also.  So, early this week we made our first trip off the island since early March.

We left in the first ferry on Tuesday and got to the Mercedes dealer in Durham at 1:00 where we waited while the service was done.  We then drove to Greensboro and spent the night with our dear friends, Brucie and David Shook before leaving early the next morning to get the trailer and head for home.

Everything went as planned.  We even got to stop at the Farmers’ Market in Durham and load up on fresh vegetables and fruits.  We got home that evening and fell into bed.

Our camper back at home.

The next morning we went out and backed the Airstream into its normal parking place and unhooked the car.  Then we noticed something unusual.  Our bikes had been on the back of the camper this entire time and a bird had built a significant nest between the two bikes on the back of the camper.

Our bird nest hitchhiker.

Fortunately for the bird, the eggs were hatched and the babies had fledged.  We got home with only the empty nest.

If we remove the bikes with care, I think it will come out in one piece and make for us a story relic by which to remember.

Let’s Make Cookies!

My favorite thing to do is cooking.  Since we have had this wonderful long time at home, I have been free to cook to my heart’s (and stomach’s) content.

About every three or four days I make a certain kind of cookies that Trish and I have in bed with coffee and hot chocolate each morning.  They are based of the ANZAC biscuits from WW II with significant personal modifications.

The ANZAC biscuits, named for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps of WW II, were made of simple available ingredients that would not spoil so that they could be send to soldiers fighting around the world.  The original ingredients were: flour, rolled oats, cocoanut, sugar, sweet syrup and butter.  While this makes a very stable and dependable cookie to start with, I pop up the texture and flavor with my version.  Here we go!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl mix together:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats (I use Bob’s Red Mill Thick Rolled Oats)
1 cup coconut (Baker’s Sweetened is the best)
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt (coarse grains give you little bursts of saltiness)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
8 dried figs chopped into about 8 pieces inch
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

Putting the dry ingredients all together.  All you need is a spoon...no mixer!

Put a stick of butter and 1/4 cup corn syrup in a container and heat until melted (I do one minute in the microwave).

Heat a tablespoon of water to near boiling, then add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda all at once and immediately stir into the butter-syrup mixture.

Stir the butter-syrup-soda water into the dry ingredients until totally mixed.  At this time add a teaspoon of vanilla.

Scoop tablespoon sized cookies onto the cookie sheets.  About a dozen to each cookie sheet, or 24 in all.  Bake the sheets separately for about twelve minutes each,  let them cool in the pan to finish cooking.

I cut the parchment sheets in half after baking and store then in a Tupperware container.

Since they have so many ingredients we enjoy in the morning, they are our staple breakfast and coffee cookies.  Try the and enjoy!