by Judy Handley | Jul 19, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 271, Year 11: Moving Right Along
Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Weather: Fog Early, Clearing to a Sunny Day; High Temp 87 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
The grandkids had another great day at the beach, Mark’s cold is a bit better, and Windbird’s bottom survey was completed. The temperature today was almost the same as yesterday, but the humidity level was lower today and it felt a little cooler—fantastic summer weather. Tomorrow Mark and I head to Boston for Mark’s weekly infusion. We will also get the results of last week’s CT scan. Then on Thursday (or maybe Friday) Mark’s sister Mary Ellen and her husband Lee arrive with for a visit. So things are moving right along.
by Judy Handley | Jul 18, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 270, Year 11: Fun with Grandkids; Challenge on the Home Front
Date: Monday, July 18, 2016
Weather: Fog Early, Then Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 88 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
Camp Oma was in full swing today. I had lots of fun with the grandkids, but there was a challenge on the home front. Mark woke up this morning with a very bad cold. It was a total surprise attack and it hit hard. When the boys and I returned from the beach for lunch, Mark was still in bed and even our noise didn’t wake him up. But before we left, he did get up to acknowledge that the cold was no better. When I returned at the end of the day, he did seem to have rallied a bit, but he had only moved from the bed to his lounge chair. Hopefully he can recover quickly as his sister Mary Ellen and her husband Lee arrive this Thursday or Friday. But for now, this ‘doctor’ prescribes lounge chair rest. We had planned to attend a talk tonight by a family that sailed around the world. The focus of their talk was to be their experience with Muslims while sailing through Indonesia. We didn’t get to attend the talk, but I can’t imagine that their experiences in Indonesia were anything but positive. Ours certainly were. We had planned to attend the talk with Bruce and Jane Woodin, so hopefully they will be able to share with us what the speakers had to say.
This morning Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I had a lot of fun at the beach. While Sam, and then Jonah, had their swim lessons, Ollie transformed himself into Luke Skywalker and sculpted quite a nice X-wing fighter plane in the sand. After Jonah’s swim lesson, he joined Ollie and sculpted his own fighter plane. Magically, Jonah become Luke Skywalker and Ollie turned into Hans Solo. While all of this was going on, Sam played with a friend from his swim class, Shane. Shane’s father, Matt, came over and introduced himself. The family is from Dover, New Hampshire, but have a summer home here in Falmouth. Shane and Sam built a formidable fort down by the water and spent a lot of time swimming and diving. At one point Sam came running to tell me that he had seen a big fish on one of his dives and he swore it looked like a parrot fish without teeth. Not sure what he saw, but he was very excited. After the beach, we had a late lunch at the apartment, played with Legos, and then I took the boys home to play outside. But instead, they decided that they wanted to drag the big Legos, Duplo, out of the basement and play with those. We spent the rest of afternoon building a Duplo village.
Tomorrow is another Camp Oma day and it will probably be a repeat of today. I hope the only exception to that is Mark’s condition. Hopefully he will be feeling much better tomorrow. And tomorrow is the second scheduled haul-out of Windbird for a bottom survey. Last week’s attempt was thwarted as the haul-out location was too shallow. Here’s hoping tomorrow goes smoothly. Once the bottom survey is completed, the prospective buyers, Sam and Dawn, will make a final decision about purchase. Stay tuned.
by Judy Handley | Jul 17, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 269, Year 11: Quiet Sunday
Date: Sunday, July 17, 2016
Weather: Foggy AM and PM, Partly Sunny In Between; High Temp upper 70’s F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
It was a quiet Sunday here. The Goldpebbles spent the night, but they were particularly quiet and low-key this morning. Sam got up with the sun as usual, but he read until Ollie got up just before 7:30. I got up right after Ollie and found him in bed with Sam and Jonah—but Jonah was still fast asleep. So I got Sam and Jonah into the livingroom while Jonah slept-in. Sam played MineCraft on my phone while Ollie worked on an intricate plastic bead craft activity. This craft kit belonged to my nieces Janet and Jennifer when they were little girls, so it is probably at least 45 years old. My sister Patsy kept the kit and gave it to me to let the boys use. You have to place these tiny little plastic beads on a template and then use a hot iron to weld the beads together. I was amazed at Ollie’s diligence and his intricate pattern. Sam gave it a try for a couple of minutes and then announced that he just didn’t have the patience for this kind of activity, but Jonah decided to join in once he got up. We then had breakfast on the deck and finished off the morning watching a Wild Kratts episode on TV and then playing with Legos. By noon, it was still foggy, so the boys decided to skip a beach trip today and just go home.
In the afternoon, Mark and I went out to a couple of local hardware stores to look for the parts to put a couple of bracketed wall shelves on the wall in our bedroom. We are desperately trying to figure out a place to unpack the boxes of books that we have so we will have room to store more boxes of books when the next trailer load of things come from Windbird next weekend. The solution would be new bookcases, but they are expensive. So we are searching for cheaper alternatives.
by Judy Handley | Jul 16, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 268, Year 11: Special Overnight ‘Guests’
Date: Saturday, July 16, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Hot; High Temp mid-80’s F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
Our special overnight guests are Sam, Jonah, and Oliver. Heather and Jed wanted to go out for the night with friends, so we offered to keep the boys. They often stayed with us on Windbird but have been reluctant to stay with us in our new land home. So I went to pick them up instead of having Heather and Jed drop them off and that seemed to do the trick. Granddad cooked ribs on the grill for dinner and then we watched Finding Nemo. Actually we started watching the movie before dinner and put it on pause while we went out on the deck for dinner. After the movie we read bedtime stories and everyone went to sleep quickly. So all is quiet here at The Studio at this hour.
We also had another special visitor today, but this one was of the bird variety. Mark and I returned from a short shopping trip and when we drove into the parking area I saw new addition on the roof. There has always been a wind vane up there, but today there was a big bird atop. At first we both thought it was a new addition to the wind vane, but then it moved and we realized that it was a big, fat osprey sitting up there enjoying the day.
by Judy Handley | Jul 15, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 267, Year 11: Kevin and Claire Leave
Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
Weather: Beautiful Day; High Temp in the 80’s F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
After spending a lovely morning with Kevin and Claire, they headed to Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island where Claire will make a presentation before heading home to Janelia Farms in Virginia. We really enjoyed having them visit us in our new land base. Previously, we have only seen them while living aboard Windbird. They both loved our new land-based home as much as we do. In addition to the waterfront location, they really loved the fact that we can walk to the beach, to the grocery store, to the drug store, to the Thursday Farmers’ Market, and most everything else in town. It’s nice to have friends validate your decisions.
I left early this morning to go pick up the Goldpebbles. I brought them back to the apartment and then all of us drove to Highfield Hall. The boys led us on a tour of their favorite things there. We first visited the gate decorated with jingle shells (different design than last year) and then walked to the garden. From there we went to the lawn of the main house to see the sea glass house and the boys walked in the labyrinth. We then said our goodbyes to Kevin and Claire and let them get on the road. We then went back to the apartment for lunch. Sam had an afternoon playdate in East Falmouth, so Jonah, Ollie, and I drove him there and then spent our afternoon at the nearby Menauhant Beach where we had a great time playing in the water and on the beach. The boys made lounge chairs in the sand, and just like Granddad’s new chair, theirs had control pads and could be set in a zero gravity position. Then Jonah decided to put on a magic show with rocks and buckets. A rock would be under one bucket, then magically it would be under another. Ollie studied Jonah’s technique and later when Jonah went back in the water, Ollie stayed on shore to practice his bucket magic trick. Very cute.
Mark used his grill to fix dinner again. Tonight we had grass-fed tenderloin steaks, marinated veggies, and corn-on-the-cob. I love this grill!
by Judy Handley | Jul 14, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 266, Year 11: Nice Day with Kevin and Claire
Date: Thursday, July 14, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain Shower in PM; High Temp in the 80’s F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
We had a low-key, but really nice day with Kevin and Claire. We started our morning with a walk down to the beach to say good morning to Heather and the boys. They were there for swim lessons, but no one was in the water today. It was way too windy and rough. But the classes were playing games on the beach and having fun together. When we got back, it was time for Mark’s second breakfast and then we ran some errands. We went to buy a propane tank to use with our new grill and stopped by CVS to pick up a prescription for Mark. One of his big toes is infected, either from an ingrown toe-nail or a split in the skin. His current treatment makes his skin extremely dry, thus the cracks. But unfortunately, there was no prescription to pick up. It took Mark a couple of hours to actually reach someone at Mass General to find out why there was no antibiotic to pick-up. After checking, the nurse practitioner found out that the trial he is on will not allow an additional antibiotic. He is already on an anti-biotic for his skin, and that is going to have to do it. So instead he is using epsom salts soaks and a topical antibiotic.
Mark and I had appointments today to meet our new primary care physician, so Kevin and Claire went with us to Sandwich. That is about a 30 minute drive and while we were in the doctor’s office, they drove around exploring Sandwich and trying to get some work done on their computers. When we got back to Falmouth, Kevin and Claire walked around the harbor to the Farmer’s Market to get some things for dinner and then I went to pick them up and we went to the local fish store to get fish and oysters for dinner. We came home and prepped dinner and then we headed to our storage unit to do another purge. Kevin and Claire really wanted to help and we so much appreciate their efforts. They were actually pleasantly surprised at how little is left in the storage unit. They both think we can probably get it cleaned out by the end of the month. So we’ll continue to work on that goal.
We worked as team to get dinner ready and Mark got to use his new grill. We sat on the deck and listened to the Falmouth Town Band concert across the harbor as long as we could, but it was windy and felt cool, so we moved inside, opened the French doors, and let the sounds filter in to us. After the concert, Kevin and Mark launched into the last activity of the day. We had brought our 1981 Apple II Plus computer home from storage to assemble it and see if it still works. He has been packed up since we moved to New Hampshire in 1990. Everyone but me thinks we need to get rid of it, but after keeping it all these years, I just wanted to see if we could get it running before saying farewell to it. They were only half successful at getting it running. I insisted on leaving it set up until we can try at least one more time before trying to sell the thing on Ebay.
Tomorrow is a Camp Oma day, so we are thinking of starting the day with a walk in woods at Highfield Hall. It is something that Sam, Jonah, and Ollie love to do, as well as Kevin and Claire and ourselves. Then by noon, Kevin and Claire will head to Cold Springs on Long Island where Claire is presenting at a conference. These visits are always too short.
