A Broken Hip, a “Bird” in a Pipe and a very nice Walk-about

A very beautiful blue sky and bright sun were tempting enough to get up and find out what this day had in store for us. When I found out that our Norwegian friends were online with Skype I made the call. What I got to know was not good. Our best man had been bicycling and been speeding through a bend in the road when his bicycle slipped sideways under him. He fell off the bicycle and broke his hip. It is about 4 weeks until they are scheduled to come and visit us and now the whole visit is up in the air. Even if they can make it happen he will be hampered with his walking, so walk-alongs the beaches will most likely not be possible. When the clock showed 9am EDT, we went over to Lubec for shopping some good stuff to fill our fridge with. We got home again shortly before noon and I spend most of the rest of the day by painting a hitherto unfinished part of the wall under the porch. I like doing that on a fine day like today. Makes my thoughts travel far beyond the island. Painted a couple of other things too. Bea had been filling the second planter I made for her with soil. After 7 wheelbarrows she felt exhausted and I had just finished my paintings for the day. So we settled with a cup of coffee in the sun, until I suggested we take a trip to the “Upper Duck Pond”. The area makes up the southern part of the Roosevelt Park. First we went down a narrow path through the forest to a point where considerate souls had placed a bench. But the wind was coming straight from the south and it was a tad too cool to sit down there. From the bench one can look over to two rocky islands with a bunch of windblown firs and pines on top. They can be reached by low tide. When we got out there the time to reach those islands was just right. View Full Album The tide was running out and over a rocky gravel bar we made our way out until we were standing on pretty slick rocks, now looking towards the bench opposite from us. With the bare eye it was just a little white spot among the green of the surroundings, but the 200mm-lens caught a much more detailed image of it.   A red circle marks the bench across    with the 200mm lens   Salt marsh along Upper Duck Pond We were just out of the main wind direction  and sat down on the warm rocks taking in the scenic view. What a great place this is. Upper Duck Pond is pretty shallow and surrounded by a salt marsh. But when the high tide is in, one would have to wade through water to get to the islands.       Lighthouse –“The Spark Plug” Home again, and after supper we were still sitting in our entryway, when we heard a strange sound. Frrrrrrrrrrr---frrrrrrr----frrrrrrr. It was on and off and sure sounded like a bird trapped somewhere in a hollow. Investigating Bea climbed on chair. The sound was coming from somewhere near the roof edge. As we couldn’t find out from the inside I made for the ladder and put it against the outside wall. I was close to the downspout and was sure the sound was coming from within. Could there be a bird trapped in the plastic pipe, maybe somewhere in the elbow? To be sure, we had to take the pipe apart. I got a wrench set and removed two screws. When we finally got the lower part removed from the elbow, there was ----- NOTHING! No bird, no squirrel. We looked at each other, couldn’t understand a thing. The sound was gone, but no poor animal was trapped. View Full Album Then the solution came to me: With the fresh wind the lower part of the pipe, angling out about 2 feet from the house had started to vibrate. The sound had been amplified through the pipe frrrrrrr---frrrrrrr  and there it was, our “trapped bird”.  We laughed and put the pipe back together. Stranger things than this have happened! Thanks for hanging in here!