Chincoteague and Assateague Are Barrier Islands

People who do not live on or near water usually don't have a real grasp of what a barrier island is.  During hurricane season, these people watch the flooding and washing away of barrier islands during big storms without much understanding.  Chincoteague and Assateague Islands, in Virginia and Maryland, are barrier islands.  They came about from wind and tide, and probably will be undone by wind and tide.  To understand barrier islands, and how they work, I suggest reading a short, but sweet article, which includes a map of changes to the northern end of Assateague found at:  http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/barrier-island.htm
  People have lived year-round on Chincoteague since 1650, and the island known as Chincoteague today would not be recognized by the sailors of older days.  With each heavy north-easter and hurricane, the sandbars and channels change; there are wash-throughs that break islands up, and there are silt-ins that join smaller islands together.  Chincoteague Island itself is made up of more than one island; the secondary part is Piney Island, and I'm certain that more have merged over the centuries.  Assateague Island has broken into several pieces over the years, reformed, broken and reformed a myriad of times.  It's a part of being a natural barrier island...
   And barrier islands have multiple ecosystems, which make them wonderful places to live and visit - but these ecosystems are very delicate, and all it takes is one large storm or hurricane to wipe all traces of settlement away.  In my grandfather's house on Chincoteague, I always remember the high tide marks on the wall paper.  I always called the specific room I'm remembering "the dining room" - my Mom always hooted with laughter when I called it that and said it was "the big kitchen..."  If you enetered the house via the front porch, the front door was a little to the left of the front left corner...  you walked straight down a hall to the little kitchen, which held the stove, refrigerator and sink, and then stepped up into the big kitchen, where there was a built-in china cabinet.  The wall paper was an Edwardian rose print - a pale blue-gray background, with tiny golden yellow vertical trellises, and gigantic old fashioned pink roses on pale green stems with leaves.   The floor boards in the corner opposite the china cabinet were permanently warped from so many sea water immersions, and my favorite rocking chair which sat there, was normally in a rocked back position....  And then there were the five horizontal high tide marks on the wall paper.  I know the highest mark was from the Ash Wednesday storm in 1962, and the next highest mark was the hurricane of 1938 - but Mom couldn't tell me the dates of the other water marks...
  More tomorrow.

Stuffed

Knowing that Kathy would be very "hurt" if I didn't show up for her anniversary dinner, I made myself go.  Luckily, Anne came down from Sugarloaf, so we sat and talked together, while Kathy and Jim whispered sweet nothings to each other, and the kids and their partners talked across the table.  And, it was lucky, too, that Colterra always has specials that aren't listed on the regular menu.  I think that out of the 8 in our party, only Annie and I had the same meal - pork tenderloin.  Anne had grilled salmon, Sarah had the duck comfy, Mike had the halibut, and I don't remember what Michael, Jim and Kathy ordered.  Then we ordered 4 different desserts and shared them around the table - not to mention the roasted almonds, gnocchi and buffalo carpaccio that were the appetizers...  I ended up completely stuffed.  We were the last patrons in the restaurant, and once we got back to Boulder, I read a couple of chapters and then zonked out.  And I slept in this morning until after 7 a.m. -  I still feel more than half-asleep.

Rosie and Remy were very excited to see me this morning - and we had a very good walk, even though I did reprimand Rosie for pulling so much.  We met several new dogs, and the reds were well behaved.  I had forgotten that today was the first day of school in our District for the kindergartners, first graders, sixth graders and ninth graders.  The Rs and I walked by Centennial Middle School, and it looked like a huge ant-hill had been poked savagely with a stick.  There were new students and parents running around like mad - even double parking on the street.  It was amazing to watch.  ...  Shady and Cloudy are doing well.  We had a thunder and lightning storm about 3 yesterday afternoon, and they both came to me and voiced their complaints about the rain.  ...  My kits are fine - everyone is laying on the patio in the shade at the moment, and I can see all of them through the door and window.  Nedi is engrossed with catching large brown grasshoppers this week - I've had to remove several leg pieces from my keyboard since Saturday.  Not much else is going on - I have another follow-up appointment with Dr. Pohlman about the fistula tomorrow afternoon.  It's not completely healed, but it's getting there.

There is a wildfire in the Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge that was caused by lightning a couple of weeks ago.  The fire has burned over 6,150 acres and is still only 10% contained, it is now burning in both Virginia and North Carolina.  Due to the continuing smoke and ash, they've been having air warnings posted as far away as Baltimore, D.C., and the entire Eastern Shore - Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.  I really love Chincoteague and Assateague, but at the moment, I'm happy I'm not there.  And the US Government is looking for input from users of the Assateague National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge regarding four proposals concerning the future of the barrier island. - the main question is what do they do about global warming, and the rising of the Atlantic from it; how will this affect such a low, sandy, barrier island?  There are meetings open to the public in Ocean City, Berlin, and Wallops Island for your comments.