Nihil Obstat

Sunday

This weekend was one of the glorious fall weekends–crisp morning, warm sunshine in the afternoon. We poked through bins of red and wine apples for the most perfect ones; stacks of bright orange pumpkins patiently wait by the side of the road for a day closer to Halloween. The corn mazes were welcoming children.

Saturday morning started as always sitting on our back porch having coffee, but now its sweatshirts and sweat pants – no more shorts and t-shirt. Later we took our Bruce’s muffins to our usual sunny bench on Preston’s dock, and watched the sailboats, Boston Whalers, Zodiacs and Grady-Whites plying back and forth between Greenport and Shelter Island, or heading out to Gardiner’s Bay and beyond.

As I was watching, I noticed a light rippling and splashing as if fish were jumping and left the bench to go over and investigate. It was an enormous school of fish-not large but at least 2-3 pounds each. The splashing came from a fish occasionally breaking the surface. Some of the fish were missing good-sized chunks out of their back-something bit them.

It was like a giant fish kaleidoscope barely underneath the surface of the water as fish swam in different circular patterns-sometimes showing a flash of silver or a yellow fin.

A man who looked like he fished for a living was walking close by, and I asked him if he would please identify the fish for me. “Bunker,” he said, “they’re bunker fish.” I remarked the school was enormous, and I had never seen anything like it-even the salmon runs in Alaska.

“That’s nothing,” he said. “They’re fished out, now. But years ago fishing crews from boats docked over there used to take huge schools of them. We could hardly understand them talk. They were from Tangier Island.” He cocked his head at me, and I saw he was missing most of his front teeth. “Yes, I do,” I said, down in the Chesapeake near Smith Island, they speak an Elizabethan English, very hard to understand.”

“Well,” he smiled and went on, “they would go from the boat to a brothel about eight blocks away from here” (we pointed towards where I live!) and the sheriff’s job was to go round ’em up in the morning and get them back to the boat without bothering anybody.” With that I learned a new piece of Greenport history. He walked off and I looked at the bunker fish for a moment more. Safe for now except from hungry blues.

We did our usual 4 mile weekend hike along the Orient Point Drive. Now that it’s beginning to get colder the blue of the water is changing color. By November it will be the dark blue of our house-the color that was inspired by our walks along the drive and beach.

I spotted a wooly worm, the harbinger of winter weather. It was the first white wooly worm I had ever seen. Usually they’re in the Halloween colors of orange and black.

This little wooly worm wasn’t afraid-it didn’t curl up in a ball when I touched it but started walking up my hand. It was fast-Lori was having a hard time getting its picture before it almost made it to her navy sweater.

“Not on the sweater, Karen!” she doesn’t share my fondness for the fuzzy little catepillars.

Does an all-white wooly worm mean a really snowy winter?