by Judy Handley | Apr 7, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy 14th Birthday to Ziggy
Date: Friday, April 7, 2023
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 57, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Fourteen years ago today, Ziggy Milo Handley entered this world in Sante Fe, New Mexico,
02 Oma Holds Ten Day Old Ziggy
I feel so blessed to be able to be able to watch as my grandchildren grow up.
And tonight, I was invited to a Seder with my Cape Cod grandchildren.
Wednesday night was Passover, but having a Seder on a school night was more than could be handled this year with everyone’s busy schedules. Tonight was perfect and now we launch into a busy weekend.
by Judy Handley | Apr 6, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 96: A Pink Full Moon
Date: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Weather: Rain early, then Mostly Cloudy; High 53, Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The full moon in April is called the Pink Moon, not because of its color, but because April is the month when pink creeping phlox blooms—not in New England, but a little further south. The moon was full early this morning, which meant we should have been able to see the full moon last night. But it was too cloudy. Tonight, the clouds have disappeared for a bit and the Pink Moon is bright and beautiful.
Late this morning when I went to the boat to continue the removal of old varnish, I was surprised to see a big truck in the driveway in front of the boat and then I saw that the removal of layers of old bottom paint were being removed by soda blasting.
I thought that was happening tomorrow, but I was wrong. The young man doing the ‘blasting’ was almost finished with the port side of the bottom, so I am assuming he finished today, and I can return tomorrow. Jed and I took the chance to look at the mast which also needs old paint removed. The hardest part of that job is removing the lines and hardware from the mast … a job for another day.
This afternoon I met with Lynda Onthank whose home I will be renting beginning in July. The new roofing is on the house and the landscaping in front of the house is completed with new grass planted and beginning to grow. This time we met about gardening. I have decided to move the three raised beds I have here to there. She just had three pine trees removed from the area where the fenced garden will be located. She had the stumps of those trees chipped and mixed in with the soil. Eventually those pine chips will degrade, but this year we are going to move aside some of that soil and use the raised beds and organic soil from here for this year. Her landscaper was there this afternoon and that was his recommendation. Bucket by bucket, I’ll move the garden soil.
by Judy Handley | Apr 5, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 95: Attainable Housing in Falmouth
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Sprinkles; High 49, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My day got off on the wrong foot. I forgot I had a follow-up appointment with my pain management doctor about my recent spinal epidural, so I was relaxing a little before going to remove more varnish from Eider. When my phone reminded me that I had 15 minutes to get to my appointment, I had to scramble to get to North Falmouth on time. If I had remembered I had that appointment and planned right, I could have stopped at the boat on my way home. But because I had to leave so quickly, I didn’t have everything I needed to do the boat work. And by the time I got home and remembered other things I needed to do, it was too late to go to the boat and get back home in time to get ready for my Public Policy meeting this afternoon. So the boat work was put off until tomorrow morning.
The good thing about today was that the Public Policy meeting about affordable or attainable housing that I was chairing was a success. I had reached out to friends who are not in the Public Policy group to come this afternoon because so many of our members couldn’t come. The friends came through and our invited speaker, Michael Kasparian of the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce, gave a great presentation. I’ve written previously about how difficult it is find a rental in this town and I learned why this afternoon. The rule of thumb is that 30 percent of housing in a community should be rentals. Falmouth has 6 percent. And according to Michael, increasing the number of rentals is the first goal that needs to be reached. Right now we have a shortage of workers in all areas from service workers to scientists to surgeons because no one other than retirees can afford to move here. And at the current rate, by 2030, 65 percent of the people in Falmouth will be over 70. It is a huge problem to tackle that is going to take the cooperation and creative ideas of everyone in the community. In order to get cooperation, everyone needs to be informed. Hopefully our little meeting today was a tiny baby step in informing a few community members of the problem.
by Judy Handley | Apr 4, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 94: Happy 16th Anniversary to Justin and Jo
Date: Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 57, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Justin and Jo were married atop Eagle Rock near Los Angeles on this day sixteen years ago. Happy Anniversary!
Leaving Home
I took advantage of the mostly sunny and wonderfully warm day to go to the boat to start the removal of old varnish. It is always the hope that once teak trim on a boat is varnished that the owners will keep up and recoat the varnish before it starts to crack and peel. But Eider is an older boat whose varnish was not kept up. That means the all the remaining varnish needs to be stripped and sanded before varnishing. It is not a easy task, but it is very rewarding and I have always enjoyed doing it. Eider’s cockpit is surrounded in teak, so that is where I started—on the inside only. I got the rear cockpit board and the half of the board on the port side of the cockpit done today.
I will continue to do a little each day using a heat gun and scraper. Once that is done, the teak needs to be sanded and then varnished with many coats. The boat gets launched the end of May, so I will try to keep at it, a little each day.
I took Shadow to spend the afternoon with Jane Woodin while I worked on the boat. Jane is going to spend some time with Shadow in the next week or so to see if she thinks she can handle keeping him for me while I go to North Carolina for five days at the end of the month. Today went well, so next week Shadow will go back for an overnight trial. Bruce is going to be out of town at the same time that I am, so Jane will have to handle Shadow by herself. Brave woman! I truly appreciate her willingness to give this a try.
by Judy Handley | Apr 3, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 93: Side-tracked
Date: Monday, April 3, 2023
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 48, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was supposed to be my day to start removing varnish on Heather and Jed’s Cape Dory. But that didn’t happen. As I was getting ready to go, all of sudden the driveway was full of vehicles. Caroline, Shirley’s niece that is handling the sale of Shirley’s home and the cottage, knocked on my door to explain that the realtor and the landscaping people were here to survey things and that there has been a change. They are contemplating putting the two properties on the market at the same time with the option to sell as one. So, the landscapers will need to tidy-up the cottage yard and gardens as well as Shirley’s. And the realtor will call me when there is a showing. But now I need to get the cottage ready to show. This is not what I expected and it threw me off balance. Many of the things that I planned to do in June, now need to be done immediately. For instance, I have to decide if I am moving my raised beds and, if so, get it done now so he landscapers can plant grass. And the list goes on and on. Just as I was hoping to fully focus on the boat, I have to do double duty. So, I scrapped going to the boat today, tried to regained my balance, did a little garden work to see how long it will take me to remove fencing and metal fence posts, and then changed gears and took a huge load of laundry to the laundromat. While I was waiting for clothes to wash and dry, I made phone calls I needed to make regarding my sister’s medical plans. About that time, Heather called and said she was headed home in the new ID.4 Volkswagen electric mini-van but was stuck in Boston traffic. She was going to get home too late to pick up Ollie after jazz band practice. So, I finished up at the laundromat, picked up Ollie, and then headed home to walk and play with Shadow. I texted Heather once she was home and asked her to send photos of the new ID.4 and she sent photos of “out with the old, in with the new.” Since the exhaust system in the van is completely defunct, they have told Sam he can spend the next two years getting it ready to be in a demolition derby. You can’t drive in a demolition derby until you are 18, so that is the reason for the two years. The boys got started on that project this evening.
And Ollie and Jonah greeted the ID.4.
They love it. Then Jed drove Sam and Jonah to Harwich for soccer in the new mini-van, where it got its first rapid charge while Jed was waiting for the boys.
Heather drove it 90 miles home from Medford, just north of Boston and Jed drove it 35 miles to Harwich and it still had ‘140’ left. Jed said that theoretically, at 80% standard charge, it would get about 250 miles per charge. There is no rapid charge station in Falmouth, but both WHOI and Woodwell have charge stations for employees.
I had hoped to watch more of Ted Lasso tonight, but only got in one episode. I spent time contacting sailing buddies, Kevin and Claire in Mexico and Alan in Dedham, to get some advice for barrier coat and bottom paint. Thanks to both for sharing their wealth of knowledge. But tomorrow at 1 pm I have a date on Eider (whose name will change soon) to start removing the varnish and I’m hoping to not break that date.
Wednesday night was Passover, but having a Seder on a school night was more than could be handled this year with everyone’s busy schedules. Tonight was perfect and now we launch into a busy weekend. 
