by Judy Handley | Sep 1, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 245: Tomatoes and Elephants
Date: Sunday, September 1, 2024
Weather: Overcast, Rainy Day; High Temp 71, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
It was overcast today with periods of misty rain. Heather and family persisted and arrived at a mooring in the pond at Cuttyhunk this afternoon. We had a couple of hours with no rain mid-afternoon, so hopefully they did, too. It was probably not a banner day for sailing, but the weather was perfect for staying inside in processing tomatoes. So, that is what I did. Until about an hour ago, my plan was to can those tomatoes tomorrow, but while watching some of the Sunday morning programs I record to watch later, I saw something that caught my eye. On CBS’s Sunday Morning I watched a piece on Ketanji Brown Jackson. Then I fast forwarded to see if anything else looked interesting. That’s when I saw the elephants. I reversed to the beginning of that piece and watched. There has been a display of life-sized elephants in Newport since the beginning of July. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it before, but each of the elephants on display was modelled after a real life elephant and made using dried Lantana Camara vines. Lantana is beautiful, but it is an invasive weed that threatens protected areas in India. I did some more research and found that the elephants were created in the mountains of eastern Kerala and western Tamil Nadu in southern India. Mark and I, along with our friends Lynne and Ed, traveled into those mountains while we were there. Unfortunately, the display in Newport ends tomorrow as it is moving on to New York City. And nothing says it will still be there tomorrow. What I can find says they will be there “to September 2”. Does not mean through September 2 or ending September 1? Getting into those mountains in India was quite an adventure. So, I am thinking, “If I could do that, why not take a chance and drive to Newport early tomorrow morning in the hope of seeing the elephants?” But if they have already been taken away, the drive will be for naught. The other option is to visit them in New York City. One way or the other, I have to see those elephants.
I am copying part of my log from February 2010 on the day we traveled from Kerala to Tamil Nadu (the state to the east of Kerala). Driving to Newport ought to be a piece of cake after the adventure we had traveling on a public bus in India!
“I’m so glad we decided to go ahead with our weekend trip to Periyar Wildlife Reserve. The mountains here are so beautiful and the high tea plantations are just spectacular. But our morning started off a little shaky. Dave of Freebird took Ed and Lynne of Constance and us to shore at 7:15 am. So far so good. But our troubles began when we arrived at the bus station and everyone we talked to gave us a different location for finding the bus to Kumily. The station master’s office sent us to the side of the station. People there sent us to the front. And two different people in front gave us two entirely different locations. We went back to where we started and Mark went from bus to bus asking. Finally, someone from the station master’s office came up to us and pointed to a white bus. We bolted in that direction and tried to confirm with the bus driver that he was indeed going to Kumily, but it was just not clear. Then we saw a sign on the front of the bus indicating that it was headed to Madurai in Tamil Nadu (the state to the east of Kerala) and I had read that the bus to Kumily goes on to Madurai, so we were getting closer. We finally boarded and hoped for the best. I had decided that I was going wherever that bus was headed and once we paid for our tickets, it was confirmed that we were going to Kumily. So that whole experience was a little more confusing than we had hoped for, but otherwise the bus trip went fine. It took seven hours instead of five as advertised, and we traveled 180 kilometers from Cochin through crowded towns for the first half of the ride and then climbing higher and higher on the switchback roads for the second half. We actually had to cross into the state of Tamil Nadu before getting off the bus.”
by Judy Handley | Aug 31, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 244: Tomatoes and Dinner Aboard Ardenna
Date: Saturday, August 31, 2024
Weather: Sunny, Warmer; High Temp 75, Low 67 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
More than a week earlier than last year, I got the email from Carrie at Peach Tree Farm letting me know that she had organic sauce tomatoes for me to come pick up. So, I am spending my Labor Day weekend processing tomatoes. I have to do the processing in shifts as my back doesn’t love bending over the kitchen sink processing tomatoes for long periods of time. I blanched the first batch, took a rest, and then peeled and deseeded 10-15 minutes at a time with rests in between. That process will continue tomorrow.
At the end of this gorgeous, sunny, warm day, Heather invited me to come have dinner aboard Ardenna in Quissett Harbor. They had planned to leave Quissett this afternoon and sail down to an anchorage off Naushon Island for the night and then head to Cuttyhunk tomorrow. But Sam and Jonah didn’t get back from their soccer tournament until after 4 pm, so they decided to just spend the night on the boat in Quissett Harbor and head to Cuttyhunk tomorrow. I headed to the boat around 6 pm and Ollie picked me up at the dinghy dock and took me out to Ardenna
.
I got to spend a lovely evening having dinner aboard and after watching the sun set just beyond the Knob, Ollie took me back to the dock. Lovely.
by Judy Handley | Aug 30, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 243: Final Day of Camp Oma 2024
Date: Friday, August 30, 2024
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 69, Low 62 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
Twelve summers ago, in June of 2013, Camp Oma was born. This was our name for Oma and Granddad providing day care for the Goldpebbles in the summer months. That first summer, Mark and I were living aboard Windbird and Mark was working most days at West Marine. We offered to keep Sam and Jonah, who were 5 and 3, every Tuesday and Thursday, and some days in between. Ollie joined us on some days, but he was only one and not yet prepared to keep up with his brothers on a daily basis. On our first Tuesday, Mark and I took Sam and Jonah to Provincetown to go on a whale watch. The next day was Jonah’s 4th birthday. He woke up with a high fever, so Heather took him to see his pediatrician. The doctor declared he had strep throat, so he spent his birthday alternating between sitting on the deck in a big tub of water to help bring down the temperature and napping. By day’s end, he was feeling better and said he wanted to come to Windbird for day two of Camp Oma. A two-year-old Sam had announced he was Windbird’s captain when he visited us in Thailand. We explained to him that he could be co-captain, but Granddad was the captain. Jonah knew that the plan for this second day of Camp Oma was to induct him into co-captain status and he wasn’t going to miss that. Heather brought Ollie as well, and he was declared Captain-in-Training.
Captain Granddad with Three of His Co-Captains
Camp Oma grew from Tuesdays and Thursdays that first year eventually to five days a week for a few years. Now that the boys are older, it is five days a week, but not all day, every day. It is on an ‘as needed’ basis. Today was the final day of Camp Oma 2024 marking 12 summers of fun and all I could think of all day was how much those Goldpebbles have grown! What a lucky grandmother I am to have been given the opportunity to spend so much quality time with the Goldpebbles, watching them grow. On to Camp Oma 2025.
by Judy Handley | Aug 29, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 242: A Morning Meeting, Afternoon at the Goldstones
Date: Thursday, August 29, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 72, Low 55 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
After an Encore meeting this morning, I headed to the Goldstones. It was a little after noon when I arrived, so the first order of business was getting lunch for the boys and then heading home to pick up the ingredients for the beef stew I was making for them for dinner. I knew Heather and Jed were going to the boat after work to either move it from Quissett to Woods Hole or just do some work on the boat, so I wanted to fix dinner for them. I returned to the Goldstones and got to work getting the beef stew ingredients in the Dutch oven so it could burble in the oven until dinner time. Sam and Jonah were off to soccer practice, and I made another trip home to pick some rosemary for the stew. Then Ollie and I ended our day together by driving to Wareham to the remote-control store. This time last year we did the same thing, and today’s trip ended like last year’s. He admired all the remote-controlled vehicles, but decided he wanted to keep looking around before committing about a huge chunk of change on one of these. They start at about $150 for very small ones and go up and up and up from there. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a couple of things we needed to round out our dinner. I then took Ollie home and gave the boys directions for the last-minute meal prep. I then went home to play with Shadow. He had been out a couple of times during the day, but he needed a little TLC and needed to go out and play ball. I got back to Heather and Jed’s just before they arrived. The boys had the rolls in the oven and the mac and cheese warming up in the microwave. It was time for dinner.
Tomorrow will be the last day of Camp Oma for 2024. This is the 12th summer of Camp Oma. Tomorrow night I’ll share a little about that first year. I just looked back at some of the photos of the very first day. What a difference 12 years makes!
by Judy Handley | Aug 28, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 241: The Balancing Act
Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Weather: Partly Sunny, Windy; High Temp 77, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
Today was another of those balancing act days with many scene changes. The ‘scenes; included being on grandkid ‘watch’ and transport duty, dealing with filing another appeal on my sister’s behalf to her Medicare Advantage insurance company, attending a ‘Get to Know the Candidate’ event for Dylan Fernandez, going to hear Heather’s Sip O’ Science presentation at Aquatic Brewery on “What We Get Wrong About Climate Solutions”, and ending the day by going out to dinner with all of the Goldstones to Tiger Ramen. And somewhere in there, Heather was home long enough to help me figure out how to set up Encore’s new sound system. I took it to the Dylan Fernandez event, but it really wasn’t needed. But I am so glad that it is now ready to use. I had never met Dylan. He is a 33-year-old, Falmouth born and bred politician, and I was very impressed. He has been a State Representative and is now running for State Senate. He won my vote.
