The loggers were at it early and loud, which meant another early start to the day. I debated whether we should haul the roofing piled by the cabin to the dump, but since the plan was to leave Saturday morning and drive as far as we could, a dump run would have set us back with a late start.
Plans shifted when we learned that Mike and Lori—our former Pennsylvania neighbors—were in Maine for a few days. We arranged to meet them Sunday morning in Kittery Maine, near the ME/NH border. That meant instead of driving straight through, we’d stop again at Jen and Austin’s Saturday night, then head south from there. With the extra time, Saturday morning could now be used for the dump run.
To prepare, we brought the rowboat and barge back from Neighbor Joe’s, where they’d been left the night before, and loaded up the barge with the remaining roofing. By the time we finished, it was lunch. When we came back out afterward, we discovered the rowboat had drifted 30 yards offshore. At first Trudy volunteered to swim for it, but the wind was pushing it farther away by the second, and it quickly became clear that wasn’t safe.
We tried inflating an old raft left behind by the previous owners, only to find it was just an air mattress with a hole. By then, the rowboat was much farther out—nearly to the point of vanishing from sight. I finally inflated another inflatable 4’ x 16’ dock section (like the one used as the barge) we hadn’t yet used, grabbed a piece of plywood for a paddle, and set off. The wind was pushing in the same direction as the boat, which helped, but the farther I got, the stronger the wind grew.
Eventually, I reached the far end of the pond but couldn’t see the boat anywhere. With no shoes, no phone, and no plan B, I started to worry. At last, I spotted it off to my right, not where I expected, and paddled over. I climbed aboard, hooked up the barge, and towed it all back. What should have been a simple task turned into the day’s big, time-consuming adventure—but no harm, no foul.
We took the loaded barge back to Joe’s, unloaded the roofing and trash into the truck for Saturday’s dump run, and called it good. The rest of the evening was calmer. Trudy had everything organized and mostly packed for the trip home. We’ll need to use the gorilla cart to haul supplies over the marsh to the truck. I am not looking forward to that… particularly the whole house batteries. However, I can’t leave them in the cabin or they will be permanently damaged by the freezing winter Maine temperatures.
I also worked more on leveling out the marsh bog to make wagon travel easier. Progress has been good. I finally figured out what the strange spongy material was—living peat- as in peat moss. It feels like walking on a foam mattress, and when cut with the chainsaw, it comes out in dense, springy blocks. Interesting stuff once I understood it.
We finished the evening with a nice dinner of leftovers and salad and wrapped up preparations for tomorrow’s departure.