Day 345, Year 10: Sunday Fun Day
Date: Sunday, September 20, 2015
Weather: Cooling Down
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
We had another great day just hanging out with Heather and the boys. I’m calling this day Sunday Fun Day. It wasn’t until the end of the day that I remembered that we had thought about going to the boat show in Newport. We were having way too much fun to think about that. Sam was the first one up this morning, then me, and then Jonah. While they quietly played MineCraft on our phones, I started getting breakfast. About that time Heather got up and Sam rowed her to shore so she could do an early morning run. When he returned he told us that an osprey was sitting on the top of our mast. I love osprey and I love to see them sitting on the top of masts on other boats—just not mine. It is not the sitting that I object to. It is the little ‘presents’ they drop on the deck that drive me crazy.
Ollie (Ollie had a good night with very little coughing) and Mark got up while Heather was out running and we were all finished eating breakfast when she returned. She swam out to the boat from the beach, had breakfast, and then headed back to the beach with the boys. Sam rowed the dinghy, Mark and Ollie went for a kayak ride and then Mark dropped Ollie off on the beach, and Heather and Jonah swam over. Jonah had to wear his ‘swimmies’ (floatation device), but he loved swimming in the deep water with mama. He has always been very tentative about swimming, so this is a true break-through. And besides, he was interested in swimming with the huge schools of fish we saw yesterday and today. In last night’s log I didn’t mention schools of little fish that we watched in the water yesterday afternoon, but I must mention them now. Sam discovered the fish yesterday as he was out exploring in the dinghy. He was amazed by the huge number of fish swimming around the dinghy and he came back to the beach to take us out to see the phenomenon. We’re talking thousands and thousands and thousands of little fish. I saw a fishing boat putting out a net and I sent Heather and Sam over in the dinghy to ask them what they were catching. They told us they were netting peanut bunkers and catching larger bunkers. When they returned with their report we all looked at each other and asked, “What’s a bunker?” Ollie found one on the beach minus his back half, but it was enough for us to use as positive identification. After a little internet research we found out that they are actually Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus). They are also called pogies. The ‘peanut’ version is about 3-5 inches long and the fully mature fish are about a foot to 15 inches in length. These fish are silvery and are in the herring family. The word Menhaden comes from the Native American word munnwhatteaug which translates as “that which manures” or fertilizer. The Native Americans used the menhaden to fertilize their crops. Pogy also has a Native American origin coming from the words pauhagen or pookagan and these words mean the same as munnawhatteaug. So where does the term ‘bunker’ come from? Evidently it can be traced to a similar looking fish found in the Netherlands, the Marsbanker, changed to Mossbunker in this country, and then shortened to ‘bunker.’ Whatever you might call them, they have totally taken over Quissett Harbor. If you are sitting on the beach, it sounds like raindrops as they jump up out of the water. And the osprey, cormorants, and seagulls are here in abundance catching these little guys. It is quite a show and we all really enjoyed watching it up close.
Jonah was on a crab catching mission this morning and caught calico crabs and hermit crabs while Sam just frolicked in the water. Ollie did a little of both, but it was a cloudy morning and soon everyone was a little chilly. So Heather, Jonah, and Ollie on this boogie board, swam back to Windbird while Sam and I rowed. We all headed to Heather’s to play and to work in the yard and garden. Garden work was definitely on the agenda for today and we got a lot done. Heather did most of the weeding and clean-up and Jonah and I worked together using the push plow to get the garden ready for planting cool weather crops like lettuce, arugula, spinach, Swiss chard, and kale. We should have planted a couple of weeks ago, but there just wasn’t time. So we’ll hope it stays warm enough, long enough, to harvest the fruits of our labor. Jonah and I also emptied one of the compost bins in the garden and Jonah collected masses of earth worms from the compost to repopulate the worm box in the basement. The whole time he worked with me, he kept saying over and over how much fun he was having. So I kept working so he could continue having so much fun. While we did this, Sam kept himself busy with neighborhood friends, and Granddad and Ollie read and took a little nap. Heather and I were both exhausted at the end of the day, so we had Thai take-out for dinner. We did nothing grand this weekend, but Mark and I both enjoyed every minute of it.
Tomorrow starts another busy week. I’ll take Mark back to Boston tomorrow and return in time to pick the boys up from school. I’ll stay here on Tuesday and Wednesday and then return to Boston on Thursday and stay with Mark until we come home on Friday afternoon. Saturday is Heather’s 40th birthday party. Lordy, Lordy, Heather’s gonna be 40! Can’t believe my baby girl is going to be celebrating her 40th.
 |
| 150920 Day 345 Cape Cod, USA–Sunday Fun |
