The past two days have been uneventful but productive. Most of my time was spent moving roofing material over to the cabin and hauling the pile of junk lumber and debris I’d pulled from the shed last year — which had been sitting under a tarp ever since — over to the mainland for a future dump run.
Since there’s not much in the way of “action” to report, I’ll take the opportunity to add a bit more perspective on what life is like up here. During the day, there are no human-made sounds — no vehicles, no voices, nothing but the natural sounds of wind, water, and wildlife. It’s an almost eerie kind of quiet. Occasionally at night, I can hear the deep rumble of trucks on U.S. Route 1, about half to three-quarters of a mile away, as they use their engines to slow down going downhill. That’s about the only intrusion from the outside world.
This area is very sparsely populated — maybe seventy people in the entire township, which covers a lot of ground. When I pull out of Old Mill Road onto Route 1, four times out of five there’s no other traffic in sight. And when there is, every fifth vehicle during the week is likely a lumber truck, loaded or empty. Logging is a major part of life here.
When the night sky is clear, the stars are extraordinary — no light pollution, nothing to dim the view. The Milky Way stretches overhead in crisp detail, and millions of stars are easily visible. It’s humbling and awe-inspiring.