Christine likes sitting out on the deck in the early morning. Today it was pretty foggy.

The four of us have been to the Cape many times, both separately and with each other. That makes for many “favorites” in terms of places visited. Part of what we’ve enjoyed this week is our reminiscences about the Cape. One place we all wanted to visit again was the Fort Hill area. The Fort Hill area is an historic district encompassing two farmsteads with over 200 years of history. One of the things I learned about the history of the Eastham area, where Fort Hill is located, is about the Rev. Samuel Treat who was called as a pastor to the area in 1672. He was a Calvinist, but what struck me about him was his relationship with the local indigenous people. Rather than trying to convert them, or worse, settlers eliminating them, Rev. Treat learned their language, visited their ceremonies, and worked to improve their lives and ensure peaceful, respectful coexistence. I thought that was pretty remarkable.
The Fort Hill area is about 100 acres and is now part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. It has many hiking trails and fabulous views of Nauset Marsh. One of the trails is on a boardwalk through a swamp and red maple forest. When we arrived mid-morning it was still very foggy so the marsh views were enshrouded in mist and fog, but since I had never seen the area in fog, it kind of added to the ambience. We first walked down the hill to the edge of the march. We heard lots of water birds out in the fog and liked watching the mist roll across the water.
We took a wrong turn and had to consult the trail map.

It didn’t really matter where we were because it was beautiful everywhere and we all were enjoying the vegetation, the marsh, the views through the mist and just being outside.
Fort Hill is one of the higher elevations in the Eastham area and from the top there is a beautiful view out across Nauset Marsh. Visibility wasn’t very good, but still good enough to see a large snowy egret standing out in the marsh. We also saw a school group out combing the low tide marsh bottom for things. I learned a new word from a scientist we chatted with. The word is benthic. The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos, e.g. the benthic invertebrate community, including crustaceans and polychaetes. You have to wonder how someone falls in love with mud and the creatures living in it and makes it a career.
Another funny thing I read earlier in the week, over which we’ve laughed a lot at the image, is that salt hay, marsh grass, was a food source for cows in the early days. To keep the cows from sinking in the mud in the marshes, large pads, like snowshoes, were affixed to their hooves. Reva and I just thought that was the funniest thing. So, picture cows with snowshoes walking through the scene below.

Part of the Fort Hill area includes an historic house built in 1868 by a whaler named Edward Penniman. There’s a whale jaw bone at the entrance to the property that’s pretty cool.
Fort Hill is a very picturesque area and as a rural historic district, the farmstead scene gave proof to that.

On the way back to the car, JoAnn spotted a big bird landing in a tree near the farmhouse. As we got closer, we could see a juvenile red-tailed hawk. It sat there unconcerned with a bunch of people coming close to get a photo.

On the way back to the house we stopped at the Bird Watcher’s General Store, always a treat. You can find whatever bird-related item you could possibly want in this store.

Back at the house, we had lunch and then – surprise – we packed up for the beach. We’ve been so lucky with the weather. By the afternoon the fog had cleared and it was a sunny afternoon. Today we went to the Head of the Meadow town beach. This is very near to where Christine and I used to camp and the beach was a short stroll through the scrub pine. The town beach is right next to the National Seashore beach Head of the Meadow. What surprised me was how much the dunes have eroded. The beach is much wider than I remember with the dunes much shorter.
We spotted several seals and were thrilled when we saw 7 or 8 swimming in a row.

We also spotted several dorsal fins of sharks not too far out, which was kind of freaky. I so wanted to get in the water. I got up to my waist, but having read that there was a shark attack on a guy in only 3 feet of water, I was deterred from going in any further.
It was a great beach late afternoon, but the sand flies got the best of us and we had to leave. Back at the house I cooked spiedies (no, they don’t sell packaged spiedies in Massachusetts; I made them) on the grill and we had a nice evening at the house.