by Judy Handley | Aug 28, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 240—Time for Tomatoes
Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Weather: Still Sunny and Hot; High 91, Low 71 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
When I got up this morning and checked my phone for overnight emails, there was one from Carrie Richter at Peachtree Farm letting me know that she had 60 pounds of tomatoes waiting for me if I wanted them. Carrie knows that I usually can marinara sauce at this time each year so she always contacts me when the tomatoes are ready. So the tomatoes were ready, but I was not really ready for the tomatoes. Regardless, Jonah, Ollie, and I went to the farm and came home with 30 pounds. If I get those processed, I’ll go back for more, but I know from past experience that it takes me a full day to do 60 pounds and a half day to do 30 pounds. And all the time I have is a couple of hours in the evenings. Tonight I blanched, peeled, and deseeded 15 pounds and I’ll do the other 15 pounds tomorrow night, cook the sauce on Thursday night, and can it on Friday night. At least that’s the plan.
Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and I are really savoring this last week of summer vacation. The boys are spending their mornings playing together at home, doing a few chores, working on summer book reports, and then mid-afternoon we head to the beach to meet up with Heather and Jed. This morning Sam stayed home to work on the book report project while Jonah, Ollie, and I picked up the tomatoes, went to the nursery to pick up some more milk weed plants, and stopped by my house to drop off the tomatoes before heading back home. The high temperature today was 91, so our mid-afternoon trip to the beach was truly refreshing.
And Heather and Jed are really enjoying meeting us and getting in a little summer beach time and the boys always enjoy it. Today we got our annual silly beach photo.
Tomorrow I think we are planning to meet at Woodneck Beach.
by Judy Handley | Aug 27, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 239—Long Day
Date: Monday, August 27, 2018
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 86, Low 70 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This was a long day for me. I had a 7:45 am appointment with my doctor for my annual physical. The doctor’s office is 30 minutes from here, so it was up early and out of here. The doctor’s assessment was that I am healthy and should just continue what I am doing. He was particularly pleased that I have continued to lose weight over the past two years and hopes that downward trend in weight will continue. All this was good news. And even with the morning appointment, I made it to Heather and Jed’s just after 9 am, only a few minutes later than usual. The boys really wanted to spend the day at home just playing and doing their daily chores. So, we did just that until mid-afternoon when we headed to the beach to meet up with Jed. The weather this last week of summer before school starts is perfect for celebrating summer, so Heather and Jed are trying to take turns leaving work early and meeting up with the boys at the beach. The boys have had lots of summer beach time, but Heather and Jed have not. So, they are trying to pack in as much beach time as possible while the weather is hot and the water is still warm. Today Jed rode his bike from Woods Hole to meet us at Menauhant, our neighborhood beach. Once he arrived, I had to leave as I had a late afternoon appointment. But Heather was going to come join them at some point and provide the transportation home. I didn’t get home until after 6:30 pm and I immediately launched into garden watering. The sunny, hot days dry things out very quickly in our sandy soil. So daily watering is a necessity. But water or not, I have to face that it is the end of the summer gardening season. Sadness doeth prevail.
by Judy Handley | Aug 26, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 238–Great Evening with Friends
Date: Sunday, August 26, 2018
Weather: Perfect Summer Day; High 83, Low 67 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I spent a bit of a lazy day . . . very enjoyable. I even went to the beach to soak in the beautiful weather and take an afternoon nap on sand. That’s not my normal style, but I sure enjoyed it. Then I went to Bruce and Jane Woodin’s for an early dinner before we drove to Hyannis to see Peter Sagal of National Public Radio’s ‘Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me’. If you are not familiar with the show, it is an hour each week dedicated to news junkies around the country, treating the news with a humorous approach. Bruce is a huge fan and had bought a ticket for tonight’s presentation for himself as a birthday present. I didn’t know any of that, but I was given two tickets from another friend and offered them to Bruce and Jane. They replied that they would take one ticket and that left the other for me. So, we all got to go. Sagal has been the host of ‘Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me’ for twenty years and he gave a funny and fascinating talk tonight about bringing humor to the news through the Clinton, ‘W’ Bush, Obama, and now Trump administrations. Afterwards we met other friends of Bruce and Jane’s at Four Seas Ice Cream, serving Cape Cod since 1934. We take our ice cream seriously here on the Cape!
by Judy Handley | Aug 25, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 237—One Thing Leads to Another
Date: Saturday, August 25, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 78, Low 56 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Days don’t always go as planned, especially if you don’t have a plan! The only thing I had on my agenda for today was to go to the post office to get my mail, to drive into town to do a couple of chores, and to go to a nursery that sells milkweed plants and buy some plants for our future caterpillars. This little nursery sells regular milkweed, swamp milkweed, and tropical milkweed plants, so I bought a few of each and took them to Heather and Jed’s. A couple of Monarch eggs hatched overnight and there were teeny, tiny little caterpillars which was exciting news. When I arrived I also found that Heather and Jed had the house turned upside down. They had come up with a plan for rearranging things in the dining room, the playroom, and the den to make space for a homework workspace for each boy and they were knee deep into that project. So, I stayed to plant the milkweed plants and when that job was completed, one thing led to another. I took on the project in the playroom, with Jed’s help, and that took the rest of the afternoon. At day’s end, the dining room, playroom, and den were rearranged and ready for homework desks, but the living room had become the depository of extra things that will need to be dealt with tomorrow. I’m having a hard time believing that summer is really coming to an end but rearranging the house to accommodate homework desks made it real. I’m hoping I will be able to talk the boys into lots of beach time this week so I can soak in the last of the summer sunshine and warmth.
by Judy Handley | Aug 24, 2018 | 2018 Life Logs |
2018 Life Logs, Day 236—TGIF
Date: Friday, August 24, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 84, Low 59 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Even grandmothers who love spending summer days with grandkids can celebrate the end of the work week. We spent a quiet day at home playing with neighbors. We were the recipients of some Monarch butterfly eggs that we hope will hatch into caterpillars who will spin a chrysalis and then emerge as late summer butterflies. In the afternoon we headed to the beach to meet Heather. She rode her bike home from work in Woods Hole and met us at Menauhant Beach which is just a couple of miles from home. Ollie and Jonah enjoyed playing water football with Heather while Sam rolled himself into a cocoon and read.
The life guards are no longer on duty, so Jonah and Ollie climbed the life guard stand in order to jump off. We all enjoyed the beautiful, sunny afternoon at the beach.
