Hilton Head Island: frozen not chopped; leaves

 

On Monday I biked five miles to my regular six month skin cancer appointment.  The marsh is having a period of perfect weather and the ride mostly along bike trails through woods was a pleasure in 64F/18C going and a bit more on my return.  I have seen enough skin cancers to know when I have one and I didn’t think I did this time.  The doctor confirmed that I didn’t and only froze a few spots on my face.  I am now good for another six months.  Maybe.

As you can see from the photo leaves are falling.  I am having to sweep our deck almost daily.  Above is two day’s collection.  Most of the trees on the island remain green year round, though a bit duller in winter than summer, and this is spring, not fall.  So I googled and AI informs me:  Live oaks (Quercus virginiana) shed their old leaves in early spring as part of a natural ‘molting process’ to make way for new, fresh growth and blooming.  Although considered evergreens, they do not hold leaves forever; instead they replace last year’s foliage simultaneously, allowing them to remain green year-round.

Thank you AI.

This is also the start of pollen season so what is not knee deep in oak leaves is covered with yellow dust.

Still it is paradise.

Now I have to go sweep.

Hilton Head Island: martini with heron; and three poems

 

Some people have their martinis with olives or a bit of lemon peel, the last few evenings we have had ours with a Great Blue Heron who sits on a limb of one of the Live Oaks just beyond our deck and porch, preening himself and contemplating the meaning of life or perhaps the presence of fish in Skull Creek.  In the above photo, which really does not fully portray the beauty of the evening, he is hidden behind the corner porch column.

The marsh has been perfect in all but one respect for several days and is forecast to continue to be.  The one lack has been wind.  3 knots today.  2-7 knots forecast for tomorrow.  3-7 Saturday.  And that is at the airport which is more exposed than iSkull Creek.  I would like to take a break from writing and go sailing.  I will know better when that might happen after being seen by the skin cancer doctor for my six month visit Monday morning.  It would be nice if I need only to be frozen and not chopped.

From William Blake, 1757-1827.

And two Japanese death poems.

This from Raizan who died in 1716 at the age of 63 I know I have posted here before.

  

Hilton Head Island: prescient

Sixty-five years ago a brilliant nineteen year old college sophomore wrote a paper with the deliberately provocative title, ‘The Peasant Class”, in which he postulated that during the history of the mis-named Homo Sapiens species the vast majority of its members had provided muscle power and a gene pool and that neither was any longer needed. This was long before genetic engineering, robots, drones, or AI.

Perhaps a few others had reached a similar conclusion, but he had figured this out for himself, as he had that we are Home Insipiens, not Homo Sapiens, and as he grew older perhaps Homo Narcissus.  For more than a thousand years we thought we were the center of the universe.  

He had a rarely original intelligence as well as time would reveal a rare body and will.  

All gifts.

How can one take pride in gifts, but most of us do.  He tried not to, but sometimes gave himself credit for persevering on his own, which was probably a gift too.

He got an A on the paper. 

If you read the news you know that the present has caught up with his hypothesis.

Here is a recent example

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/

That prescient student has unexpectedly survived a life of calculated risk and is now an old man.  He does not know how this will play out, but he does not see a pleasant outcome.

Hilton Head Island: sunset at Mallory Square

 

While looking for a particular photo of GANNET for GANNET 6 I came across the above.  I liked it but for a while I couldn’t figure out what it is.  Finally I did.  The silhouetted man is a sunset street performer at Key West’s Mallory Square.  Carol  and I were married in Key West and returned for our 25th wedding anniversary in August of 2019, four months after the completion of the GANNET circumnavigation. 

Hilton Head Island: a beautiful bird; drinks on deck; three poems

 

I thank Roger for permission to share the excellent photo of my favorite bird, which he captured during a recent trip he and his wife took to New Zealand and kindly sent to me.  Unsurprisingly they like the country and the people.

The past few days have been delightful in the marsh.  Highs in the 70sF, low 20sC.  Shorts and t-shirts.  And drinks on the deck for the first time this year which was a great pleasure.  Unfortunately a front passed last night with some rain, rapidly decreasing temperature, and a gale warning.  As usual we do not have the full force of the wind on this side of the island, but there are white-caps on Skull Creek and the Spanish moss is in a frenzy.  

My morning poetry presently comes from JAPANESE DEATH POEMS.  Not as grim as that sounds.  Most are calm and accepting.  Some, such as this one by Moriya Sen’an, who died in 1838, hopeful.

My Western poetry is drudgery.  It is in the PENGUIN BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE which is so long that I am forcing my way through twenty pages a day instead of the usual ten.  

The book includes blurbs of lavish praise from many presumably reputable reviewers, but I have found the first 340 pages hard work.  I persist in hope perhaps similar to Mr. Sen’an’s, that it will get better.  It has even has selections from Shakespeare that are dull.

Here are two I like.

And, perhaps apropos as I work each day rewriting GANNET 6–I am about halfway through and pleased to be making only minor changes—from Robert Herrick, 1591-1674.

Hilton Head Island: Steve Earley’s two favorite boats

Mine too. GANNET and SPARTINA.  GANNET is the big one.

Photographs by Steve Earley.

Hilton Head Island: fire

Indian Springs, our condo development, consists of four identical three story buildings constructed on a slight incline.  D Building in which we live is lowest and closest to Skull Creek.  Each building above us is higher and farther back from the water.  A Building has thirty or forty yards of grass in front of it.  The building in the center above is B.

The marsh is having a drought.  Most grass is brown and dry.  Not green.

Yesterday afternoon at around 2:30 I went for a bike ride.  I found a fire truck and another piece of Fire Department equipment in front of B building.  No one was around.  I assumed it was a call, as most are on HIlton Head, due to someone having a health issue.  But when I returned a half hour later, the fire truck was still there and a stream of water was running down the driveway.  

I parked my bike and walked back up.  Three firemen were feeding a hose back onto the truck.  I asked what had happened and was told there was a small fire between buildings, started it was thought by a window in one unit reflecting and focusing sunlight into a hot spot.

As you can see the burned area came close to Buildings B and A.  Only grass was burned.  I doubt the flames were high.  But all these buildings are wood.

A little excitement in the lives of the elderly.

 

Hilton Head Island: unimaginable and inescapable

I thank James for a link to a short video about the unimaginable size of the universe from which I believe inescapable conclusions must be drawn about some of the myths our species have created.

I know that I am repeating myself when I observe that for more than a thousand years we believed that we were the center of the universe, that everything revolved around this planet.  What egotism.  

When Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, got us beyond that, most scientists still believed that our galaxy was the entire universe until just over one hundred years ago when Edwin Hubble saw  a smudge on an image taken by the telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory that he marked ‘Var’ for variable that resulted in proof that there are other galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Now we have videos like this one.  Unimaginable and inescapable.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KIWG6_dAeg0?si=1L2Yuz1YL6pJwDYn

Hilton Head Island: here and there

When I returned to Evanston from Opua in late 2014 I wrote:

                Here a mix of rain and snow.  Temperature 32° and falling.

There 70° and sunny.

Here for breakfast I have uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, fresh blueberries, powdered milk and water and good coffee.

There for breakfast I have uncooked oatmeal, trail mix, dried fruit, powdered milk, and instant coffee.

Here, on weekends, the food is better.  Even during the winter, Carol usually grills something on the small gas grill on our balcony.

During the week the food is about equal.

     Here microwaved Lean Cuisines.

     There freeze dry.

Here there are ice cubes and drinks that should be cold are.  Martinis are sipped.  Wine comes from  bottles and is better.  I drink Laphroaig from a crystal glass.

There gin and tonics are air temperature.  Martinis are unknown.  Wine comes from boxes and isl       lessor.  I drink Laphroaig from a crystal glass.

There Laphroaig costs at least $85 U.S. a bottle and replenishment is four miles distant.

Here Laphroaig costs $45 a bottle and replenishment is a ten minute walk away.

Here I watch sports and movies on television and stream music to five excellent speakers.

There I listen to New Zealand Concert, the national classical music radio station, and stream music to quite acceptable bluetooth speakers.

Here I sit facing a fireplace.

     There I sit facing a companionway.

    Here I live indoors.

     There I live outdoors.

Here I vacuum rugs.

     There I scrub decks.

     Here I am mostly alone and silent.

     There I am mostly alone and silent.

     Here I walk down the hall to shower.

     There I row a couple of hundred yards and walk a hundred more to shower.

Here hot water in the shower is free and untimed.

     There I have to insert a $2 coin in a box to obtain five minutes of hot water.

Here the room does not move.

                There The Great Cabin constantly moves.

                 Here there is constant background noise.

                There is often complete silence.

Here I am surrounded by land and ten million people.

                There I am surrounded by water and a few hundred people.

Here is flat.

        There is all hills.

                Here I walk down and look at empty Lake Michigan.

                There I climb the Opua hill and look down on boats moving about the bay.

                Here are Canadian geese.

                There once were gannets and now are terns, gulls, cormorants—shags to New Zealanders—and a   few ducks.

                Here the Internet is fast.

                There the Internet is not fast and more expensive.

                Here I can buy things with a click and have them delivered promptly.

                There I can’t.

                Here I look out windows at snow, undistinguished buildings, and a cemetery.

                There I stand in the companionway and am surrounded by beauty.

                There I sleep in a sleeping bag beside waterproof duffle bags and a sail bag.

                Here I sleep between sheets beside Carol.  Here has its compensations.

There is good.

                Here is good.

Hilton Head Island: a lamentable trend

 

We were on the southern edge of the storm and only got a little over an inch/3cm of snow.  Flakes began falling slowly late yesterday afternoon and continued until after dark.  This was a storm that moved in from the ocean, not down from Canada as most winter storms do.  

When I woke this morning at 6:30 the temperature was 21F/-6C and the wind chill 5F/-15C.  Now at almost noon it is just below freezing and as you can see the snow has already melted off streets and sidewalks.

However this is the third snowfall since we bought the condo eight years ago.  It snowed that month and it snowed in January of 2025 as well as this year.  That makes three snowfalls in eight years.  The snowfall prior to 2018 was twenty-nine years earlier in 1989.  And according to a local TV station this is the first time since 1917-1918 that Hilton Head has had snow in successive years.

We will be back in the 50sF/low teens C on Tuesday, but I don’t like the trend.