Persieds Meteor Shower at Sand Point



Sand Point at dusk



This past weekend was the viewing of the Perseids Meteor Shower. I didn’t find out about it until last Tuesday so I didn’t have much time to plan a trip to go out to watch it. My first thought was to go up our local Green Mountain and night hike, but a much better opportunity presented itself!

Stephen & I at the trailhead

 

Boardwalk trail



My friend, Stephen, and I headed out to the coast Saturday morning towards Ozette . We hiked a short 3 miles along the boardwalk down to Sand Point where we camped out for the night. It was a busy weekend, there were day hikers and backpackers everywhere! We didn’t get to the coast until about 1:30, but we still had lots of day left for exploring. We walked all over Sand Point looking for the best spot to set up camp. Most of the good ones were already taken so we walked north up the coast a few hundred yards (or feet…heck my distance references aren’t the best unless I’m actually mapping it!) and found a perfect and secluded site up on the bank.



Looking at camp from the beach



You couldn’t even see that there was a site there from the beach, just a little pathway in the beach grass. Once we set up the tents you still couldn’t see our camp from the beach! Privacy accomplished. We decided to collect water for the weekend first to get that out of the way.





We had to hike back around Sand Point and down to the little stream flowing into the ocean. The water level was WAY down compared to the last time I was here! We collected our jugs full of brown coast water (I’m pretty sure it was at least a little more clear last time!) Got a few floaties in our bottles this time… I’m all for drinking the colored water but picking chucks out of my teeth? Not so much. Honestly it wasn’t that bad, we just happened to snag a couple pine needles in there that were easily strained out through some netting.



Deer on the beach

 

Low tide



 

We walked at least 8 miles up and down the coast, not including the hike in. We went north 2 miles up to Wedding Rock and checked out the Petroglyphs on the rocks out there. I still can’t find the one of the ship, but I’ve seen pictures of it online! The tide was out enough where we didn’t need to climb up the ropes to get over the point…but we did it anyways since it was fun exploring! I was surprised and amazed how clean the beach was. Of course there was trash here and there, but not nearly as much as I expected! I was delighted! We still managed to pick up a bag worth of trash and two big styrafoam buoy/pontoon things.

 

Sunset at Sand Point

After watching the beautiful sunset at Sand Point we walked South down the beach another couple miles waiting for it to get really dark. Once the sky was completely dark and the stars were out we grabbed our sleeping bags and laid out on the sand to wait for the meteors. Thankfully the north side of the beach (where we were camped) was sand flea free compared to the South beach! I have never seen one before, let alone a whole shower of them so I had no idea what to expect. I was looking for little slivers of light like a shooting star, thinking there would just be more of them. I was so wrong. As the first meteor shot through the sky I loudly yelled out! This was no shooting star, it was a giant flaming ball blazing through the night sky, lighting it up!! I was in awe. It’s started fogging over around 11:30 so we didn’t get to stay up too late watching the shower….I had fallen asleep anyways!

 

Bundled up and waiting for meteors!





Foggy morning of departure

 The next morning we made oatmeal for breakfast…as great of a camping meal it is I sure dislike oatmeal. We packed up camp after breakfast and strapped our trash to our packs with found rope. The extra weight and super awkwardness of the giant floats sure made that easy 3 mile hike into a painful, tired, many break taking trudge back to the car. We got a lot of looks and questions like “What are you planning on doing with those things?”, my response ”Throw them in the dumpster!” Some people thought we were hauling them out for a project or something…nope just doing our part to keep the coast clean! I hope people seeing that will influence them to do the same as much as it did when I first participated in the Coastal Cleanup.

Here’s to another great weekend out at the ocean! It has easily become one of my favorite places to hike, pretty flat and oh so rewarding!

 

Heart broken and fowl-less

It is with a very heavy heart I must admit defeat...I lost my entire flock of chickens last weekend. I had gone out to Seattle the night before for a fun night celebrating my friend's bachelorette party and the next morning when I got home I took one look outside towards the coop and my stomach dropped. I don't want to get into and gorey details, but I could see little lumps scattered around the coop from my back porch with feathers everywhere! My parents came over to help me clean up and my dad and I searched high and low to figure out how the monster got in again. There was no way! Nothing was opened, pulled up, loose...looking at how the bodies/feathers were it looks as though the racoon had attacked them from outside of the coop on the wire fencing side. I still don't understand how my chickens could have been so dumb as to not just walk to the other, protected, side of the coop. It's like they walked up to the fence when the racoon came by and said "pick me!".

While we were still out cleaning up the horrific mess, in the tree above us just on the other side of the fence we saw a racoon! We must have JUST missed the attack, which makes me feel even worse that I could have been so close to saving them. I failed my pets by not being there to protect them.



Aftermath



Monster watching us clean up





















Yesterday we set up some live traps in hopes to catch those chicken killing coons. This morning when I checked the traps low and behold one had an opossum in it!! Not quite the vermin I was hoping for, but those little suckers are mean and scary too. They are also a threat, but I dont think as bad as the coons. We will have to relocate him before putting that trap back to work.

I'm still undecided whether or not I will try again. After all this I don't think I could handle another disaster. I miss them not only as a project I was trying so I could get fresh eggs, but also because they were my pets! Raising them from just a couple days old I grew quite attached. The coop is still up and sometimes I catch myself putting aside veggies to give to them, forgetting that they will just rot if I toss food into the empty coop! After a while I might think about trying again, after I make a coop of steel...