So far this has been a quite week on the island. Sunday morning a wicked storm blasted through with strong winds and rain and even a tornado warning. Boy were the live oaks and palms swaying above us. But, down at ground level no problem. We debated about church, but around 9 it seemed to clear some so we drove up to Fernandina. Went through some strong cross winds over the bridges, but by the time we got to church all was calm – and when we came out the sun was shining.
After dinner (roasted chicken from Harris-Teeter) we drove down to the Ribault Club (part of this park system). It was built in the late 20’s as a winter recreational resort, similar too but on a much smaller scale than Jekyll Island. It fell into disrepair for a number of years until the park service took it over in 1989. They worked at restoration and it reopened as a park facility in 2003. It’s the site of weddings and wedding receptions and the beginning of a 4.5 mile trail around Fort George Island. The site of the club building is on top of and late 1800’s hotel that burned and that hotel is over a large midden. A midden is an ancient Indian landfill – a place where the early inhabitants of Florida dumped shells, fish bones and even early pottery.
Monday we went back to work on the trail. We now have a new line head for the trimmer and it made the job much easier. As we progress towards the beginning, the dense areas become fewer, but there are more overhanging limbs and branches. Any large branch or tree that needs a chainsaw to remove, we are marking for a park ranger to cut.
Tuesday we took off as Lilly’s vet appointment was in the early afternoon. We will be glad when the ferry starts to run again as it’s a long way around from here to Mayport! In the morning we went to the Reed House and took care of laundry and gave the truck a good bath.
We’ve passed the one mile marker on the trail and are on the home stretch. Today we started early and were done a little after noon. We are within 50 yards of the half-mile marker and that last half mile will go fast. There are several stretches of just white sand so no trimming to do. As we past the ranger station this morning on the way to the trail, Aaron came out and stopped us. He wanted to know when we though we would finish as they have our next task waiting. It will be back to painting. A couple of volunteers have replaced the four big doors on the tractor barn and they need to be painted so that’s what’s up next.
Notice the palm at the right of the picture. It seemed to grow parallel to the ground out of that sand dune.
After dinner (roasted chicken from Harris-Teeter) we drove down to the Ribault Club (part of this park system). It was built in the late 20’s as a winter recreational resort, similar too but on a much smaller scale than Jekyll Island. It fell into disrepair for a number of years until the park service took it over in 1989. They worked at restoration and it reopened as a park facility in 2003. It’s the site of weddings and wedding receptions and the beginning of a 4.5 mile trail around Fort George Island. The site of the club building is on top of and late 1800’s hotel that burned and that hotel is over a large midden. A midden is an ancient Indian landfill – a place where the early inhabitants of Florida dumped shells, fish bones and even early pottery.
Monday we went back to work on the trail. We now have a new line head for the trimmer and it made the job much easier. As we progress towards the beginning, the dense areas become fewer, but there are more overhanging limbs and branches. Any large branch or tree that needs a chainsaw to remove, we are marking for a park ranger to cut.
Tuesday we took off as Lilly’s vet appointment was in the early afternoon. We will be glad when the ferry starts to run again as it’s a long way around from here to Mayport! In the morning we went to the Reed House and took care of laundry and gave the truck a good bath.
We’ve passed the one mile marker on the trail and are on the home stretch. Today we started early and were done a little after noon. We are within 50 yards of the half-mile marker and that last half mile will go fast. There are several stretches of just white sand so no trimming to do. As we past the ranger station this morning on the way to the trail, Aaron came out and stopped us. He wanted to know when we though we would finish as they have our next task waiting. It will be back to painting. A couple of volunteers have replaced the four big doors on the tractor barn and they need to be painted so that’s what’s up next.
Notice the palm at the right of the picture. It seemed to grow parallel to the ground out of that sand dune.
Here’s a closer picture. It came out so far and then curved up to the sun. If it were totally vertical it would be 25 to 30 feet high.
Well we did it; finished the trail today (Thursday.). It was a little before noon so we decided to celebrate and drove Fernandina for a late lunch and walked the old town…..quite a tourist place. It’s probably quite busy during the summer months.
This is the marker at the start of the trail.
On Friday we went to the shop and got our next tasks. We will paint the newly re-built tractor barn doors and then when we finish that paint small storage building near the park manager’s residence. The doors (there are four are 6x10 T-111 doors) were rebuilt by two other volunteers. We got started and did get the interior portions all done. We had to brush paint them all as this is where all the 2x4 supports are.
Monday we will work on the exteriors and the new over-hang that they had to rebuild too. Will see what we can do for fun this weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment