2020 Life Logs, Day 136: Kayaking, Marsh Mucking, and Car Wash
Date: Saturday, May 16, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 64, Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Another busy day here. When you wind up a music box, it plays really fast at first and then gets slower and slower. My last two days have been the opposite. I have started both days by going on a walk with Shadow and then sitting outside having my morning smoothie in the bright sunshine and playing ball with Shadow. Slow and easy and delightful. Then this morning I sped up a little and transplanted tomato seedlings to larger containers. Slow and easy. I called the Feed and Garden Center that is nearby and paid for eight bags of compost to put around the raspberries and a 50-foot soaker hose to wind between them. I then went to pick those things up. Then I realized it was past noon and that Sam and friends would be coming to kayak soon. Time to speed up. I talked to Heather to get the updated plan. One friend hurt him arm in a biking accident and was not coming, but Sam’s friend Robert would be arriving at 2 pm. I hurried over to pick up the Goldpebbles, went over the rules for social distancing that Heather and Jed had already gone over. I just wanted to make sure the boys were clear that Sam and Robert would be using the dock to launch their kayaks and the rest of us would be engaged in other activities. Robert and his mother arrived, and Grace seemed interested in staying to watch the kayaking. Fantastic. That would relieve me of that oversight and I could engage in activities with Jonah and Ollie. Grace explained that other than a trip to the grocery store in the past two months, she has basically not been off their property and the thought of sitting on a dock in the sunshine sound like a real treat. This was Robert’s first trip out in two months and he and Sam were so happy to see each other.
I went down to the dock with Grace to explain the lay of the land. The dock is on my landlady Shirley’s property, so I wanted to make sure Grace was comfortable there before I headed back to my yard to go find the marsh muckers.

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Jonah and Ollie had gotten out onto island that you can get to by going through the woods on the water side of my house. They both had on their new chest high waders and had already discovered fiddler craps and found a dead fish by the time I got there. Shadow was with me and when he saw the boys out on the island, he went flying through the marsh, jumping over hummocks of cord grass and then falling into muddy sections to get to them. Cute. But, oh my. His underside was caked in marsh mud. I didn’t realize the extent at the time and thought spraying him off a bit with the hose would do the trick. But as I found out this evening, it took two different 30-minute baths to get rid of the caked mud and he still smells a bit like a marsh. So, one smelly dog and the fact that Jonah managed to sit down in the water and fill his waders with water were the casualties of the day, but otherwise, it was a totally delightful afternoon. Sam and Robert were out for about two hours, so Ollie, Jonah, and I had time to wash my car. And after Robert left, Sam even had time to get the eight bags of compost out of the back of my car. Work and play and a lot of fun.

At 4:30 I had to really speed up to get the Goldpebbles home and get back in time for my 5 pm Zoom call with my dining-in group. I tried, but I’m afraid I was 15 minutes late for the Zoom check in. We are either going to have to start our Zoom gatherings a little later, or I am going to have to start shutting down my activities earlier. This reverse wind-up music box is just getting into high gear by 5 pm when others are winding down.