We are packed and ready to go!
This past week has been spent packing and cleaning and sorting and de-cluttering and organizing over and over again. In many ways it is a wonderful, cathartic thing to do. Clean out everything so you can start anew. I love the grand-menage. The big clean up. Always have even when I was a little girl. As I wander around the house now I am smiling and very happy to see how really nice it looks and to know that I will come back in the fall and with any luck it will still look like it does now. The animals have been quite restless since we started the packing and I know they know that something big is happening but they don’t know what. Wyke won’t leave us alone and has a perpetual look of worry on his face. Even though he had a fabulous day at doggie day care, his first time and it won’t be his last, he still is not sure what exactly is going on. The kittens are into everything and I was afraid that I would zip one or both of them into a suitcase and then not be able to find them. I hope they would make a loud enough noise that I would hear them but neither has a very loud voice.
Our gardens are spectacular this year. Everything seems to have matured nicely after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew. Our new plantings are doing well and things are blooming that I have never seen bloom before, such as the miniature Crepe Myrtles. They are gorgeous. I believe they are blooming earlier because we have way more sun now than we have had in the past and therefore they are giving us quite a show. This is a picture of the one that is under the kitchen window in full bloom. A really beautiful color. John’s roses are blooming and the new climbers are starting to work their way up the trellis. One of the new plants is also blooming. Needless to say it looks beautiful and makes it that much harder to leave. I have to start all over again when I get to Canada. One nice thing to see before we go is the marsh is as green as the golf course and absolutely gorgeous. We live with it more when it is brown and in its silent quiet winter mode than the summer freshness but fun to see it before we go north.
Saying Good-bye is Bitter Sweet
The week has been filled with fun activities and saying good-bye to great friends. We had a really wonderful day in the ACE Basin with good friends, on their boat, and with four other boats full of revelers. The ACE Basin which stands for the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto Basin – an area where these three rivers come together before going out to sea – is a one of the largest protected estuaries on the East Coast of the USA. It is comprised of over 217,000 acres. We have been lucky enough to kayak through some of this area and now we have explored even more via motor boat. It was a perfect day. Sunny and hot but with the breeze generated by the boat we were cool out there on the water. We stopped and had a lunch break right next to the Cherokee Plantation. We saw eagles and alligators and many dolphins as we cruised our way up the river and back again. It truly was a highlight for us both.
The other fun event was a beach party out at Fripp Island. This is a beautiful stretch of white sand beach that is currently rebuilding itself after the hurricane. Mother nature is quite something. Right now Fripp Island’s Turtle Nest Protection program is in full swing. They have 13 nests and the patrols are out every morning checking on the nests and to see if any new ones have shown up. If a nest is built in an unsafe area of the beach, the turtle patrol moves the next. It is rather scientific. They measure the depth of the eggs and remove upwards of 80 eggs putting them back into a nest, in the same order, in a safer part of the beach. Every nest has one egg taken from it which is then analyzed for DNA to see where the mother came from. They have one turtle who has been back three years in a row. This is a real act of love on the part of the patrol as they are up early in the morning and often late at night too. If you want to learn more you can go to their website here: Fripp Island Turtle Nest Protection
We enjoyed a wonderful potluck meal on the beach. Wyke came with us and did he ever enjoy himself. To watch him run with complete abandon, in circles as fast as he could go, and then splash in the ocean with pure joy gave us both a big smile. He behaved very well and loved the attention the others gave him. He was a good guest. It was surprising how cool it was once the sun went down. We watched the sunset and then cleared everything up and headed for home. Another great day.
Wyke said goodbye to most of his friends this week too. He has so many friends on the island but as I noted today, there are some who warrant getting excited about and there are others with whom he is friendly but doesn’t get overly excited when around, and there are others he pretty much just ignores. Hmm, sounds rather like people really. There are two other English Cream Goldens on the island and he is good friends with them. They don’t play much but they love to greet each other and to catch up however dogs catch up. They are enough alike now that Wyke is almost grown, that you could mistake them for triplets. All very pretty and sweet and really quite gentle with each other. He will miss his girlfriend, Abby, the most. They got to spend the day together at doggie day care and played almost the entire day. He did not move when he got home so I know he had fun.
Recipe of the Week
Smoked Salmon on Pumpernickel Bread with Dill Mayo and Capers. Try it, absolutely delicious. Make sure you get some really good Pacific Salmon and fresh dill. I used a shot glass to make the pumpernickel rounds. This was a very easy, healthy hors d’oeuvres that I brought to a gathering early in the week. I just loved the picture.
PS made it to Connecticut