Sitting on the bay, watching the Gulf waving in and out, Laughing Gulls, Pelicans, and Great Blue Herons soaring overhead playing with the wind gusts and breezes, I’m wondering how on earth I’m going to cook dinner with no electric or gas burners, no fire pit, and 30 miles an hour wind gusts. It’s going to be a charcoal thing, but keeping them lit until they’re hot might be a trick.
We left caterpillar heaven (or was it hell), but not until the day after a torrential rain carried by an enormous thunderstorm hit us overnight. The tent pulled in a little water, but it wasn’t too bad considering the river that was running through the campsite. When I stepped on the tent floor, it was like walking on a water bed; the tarp had a few pools of water that eventually leaked into the tent, and anything we had on the ground got washed into the woods.
The next day, waking up to a little lakefront property, we took everything to the laundry to dry out and packed it up. I had no idea that caterpillars had started cocoons all over the place…..everywhere they found a fold in some fabric, or the tubular end of a tent post, any little hidey-hole, we found cocoons.
Cleaning them out was not a pleasant task and we were shocked to discover that cocoons on tent nylon meant holes. Tiny little holes I don’t know if the caterpillar chewed on the tent or if the cocoon somehow damaged it, but there we are. So beware of those evil little furry things.
So back to the coals and the wind on the bay I put a pile way in the back of the grill and they did well. Buried potatoes filled with slices of elephant garlic and a veggie mix of onion, bell paper, carrot and tomatoes from the produce stand. Over a new pile of coals, even though the fire on them wouldn’t go out, I seared and grilled pork chops with Cajun seasoning — sort of a blackened thing. It worked out.
Last night, the wind stopped at about midnight and we looked at each other in awe at the stillness, the silence. About 15 minutes later, it came in from the opposite direction at twice the speed and blew down my kitchen tent while I was wrestling to get it taken apart before it was destroyed. So, I’ll be cooking out in the open for a couple of weeks here.
That’s not all bad. It’s fun to watch the gulls. They seem to know when food prep is going on and several come and hang out, fight over territory, yell at me for scraps, creeping up from behind. As soon as everything’s on the grill, though, they are gone to better hunting grounds, as if they were trained. Then I was laughing at them, as they laugh at the world.
Tonight dinner’s a cinch. We went to a movie in town (Robin Hood. It was okay) to escape the wind for a while (you know, the wind can make you crazy) and brought back popcorn. No grilling, no setting up a kitchen in the wind, no fighting charcoals or laughing Gulls.
Maybe I’ll sit in the tent, listening to the poles grind, the tarp flap, the waves beating against the retaining wall, the saltwater spray hitting the front of the tent, and read a book by rope light, munching on movie theater popcorn. Life is good.
