Salt of the earth

The view looking south from the front steps early morning, Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

A mountain range of salt emerged from the hold of a gigantic self-unloader bulk carrier at Eastern Salt across the street yesterday. See last year's post on our first visit by a self-unloader for more on the "awesome choreographed ballet of the working waterfront." Self-unloaders are the wave of the future, saving "the enormous costs associated with having to construct and maintain shore-side unloading facilities," notes the Upper Lakes Group website, which explains:

The self-unloaders operate with hydraulically actuated gates beneath the cargo holds which permit cargo to flow onto conveyor belts, and eventually onto a 76m-long unloading boom that can be swung out over a dock. This configuration allows cargo to be discharged at rates of up to 6,000 tons per hour and placed into piles on a dock up to 25m high.

With its extensive existing shore facilities, Eastern has one foot in the old and one in the new world of getting salt from the mines to the market.

Did you say market? Don't forget the cat food. Tiny on full alert Labor Day Weekend at the foot of Goomp's front steps, Camelot-by-the-Sea.

Back home, Baby monitors squirrel activity in the treetops above the terrace. We've seen a frolicsome pair -- or maybe two different frolicsome pairs -- of late chasing each other up and down the trunk of the Silver Maple, jumping onto the roof of the little house, doing backflips on the lawn and joyously mating with Sciurian abandon. Baby, of course, was not amused.

One more of Tiny down Goomp's because her fans DEMAND it. Gayle Miller of And you thought YOU were cranky says it best:

Tiny is THE MOST beautiful feline girl in the world - of that I'm convinced. I just made her my background so I could enjoy her gorgeous face every few minutes!

We couldn't agree more.

Comments

[goomp]

It is wonderful to see mountains of salt handled so as to be beauty in an unexpected place rather than as an industrial nuisance. The Chelsea Grays still at their photogenic best as usual.

[Teresa]

They look like large mountains of snow - it's so amazing. Do Tiny and Baby take an avid interest in the unloading?