by Judy Handley | Mar 31, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 90: Gardening Day at the Goldstones
Date: Sunday, March 31, 2019
Weather: Sunshine Early, Then Overcast with Light Rain; High 57, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was gardening day at the Goldstones and everyone pitched in.
We cleaned out the last of debris that built up over the winter, cleaned out growing boxes full of good compost and put that on the garden, disassembled those growing boxes as they never really worked, and then started planting. I had grown red kale, curly kale, and collard green seedlings to plant early and we planted peas, spinach, and arugula seeds. We worked for four hours and we were all pleased with the results.
It was like an instant garden and a breath of spring. This week I’ll work on my deep beds here and plant the remainder of the seedlings I have grown in my front window ‘greenhouse’. And I’ll plant new seeds indoors for planting in late May. I came home mid-afternoon to rest my knee and then returned to Heather and Jed’s for dinner. Heather leaves for a conference in California on Tuesday and I head to New Hampshire for a couple of days on Thursday. As always, busy, busy here.
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 89: Lynne Heads Back to Nyack
Date: Saturday, March 30, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 62, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Visits with good friends and family that live afar are so special. But they always feel too short. It was wonderful to have Lynne here, but she needed to get back to Nyack to continue the transformation of her life without Ed. She just returned from five weeks in New Zealand with her friends there. Lynne lived in New Zealand from the mid-1970’s to 1990, so many of her friends from her adult life are there. In addition to living there, she and Ed spent a great deal of time in New Zealand during the 17 years that they spent sailing around the world. So it is very much home to Lynne and she hopes to return there for a few months each year during North American winters and New Zealand summers. She will become a New Zealand snowbird. But now she needs to figure out the rest of her year. Her family lives in Michigan, so she is going to start there. It is time to pack up her belongings in New York and head to Michigan. So off she went and I got a text saying she got home just fine. Tomorrow she will begin the readying for the move to Michigan. It will be harder for us to see each other as Michigan is not just a four-hour drive, but we talked about doing some travel together. That will be exciting to plan and to do.
Before her departure, we had a great morning together. We went to visit with Heather, Jed, and boys as she hadn’t seen them since Mark’s memorial. Then we came home to have breakfast with Karen Baranowski as I wanted two of my good friends to meet each other. After Karen left, we walked my daily mile together, and then off Lynne went. It felt very lonely here, but I did my exercises, iced my knee, worked on that puzzle, and did some indoor gardening. I put the little plants I have been growing outside to harden them up a bit before transplanting and planned what I will plant next. Tomorrow Heather is planning to plant some things in her garden, so I will head over to see if I can be helpful. I also need to prune the raspberry plants. I should have done this during the winter, but somehow never got around to it. Tomorrow is the day. Rain is expected in the afternoon, so hopefully we’ll get an early morning start.
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 88: A Day with Lynne
Date: Friday, March 29, 2019
Weather: Overcast and Windy; High 59, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Lynne and I had a great day together. I started my day with another PT visit while Lynne stayed at home. We (well, really mostly Lynne) worked on the 1,000 piece puzzle any time we were not engaged in some other activity. After getting our day started, it was time for a walk.
We wanted to walk along the ocean, but it was overcast and windy, with winds from the SW, so I drove to the bike path in West Falmouth for our walk as the bike path is somewhat protected. 
We had a mile and half walk with views of the marsh–not green and beautiful like it is in the summer, but still a lovely view. 
Then we drove to Falmouth Heights Beach to see just how windy it was there and walked a little more. It was windier, but okay for a short distance. It is always great to walk along the ocean, no matter what the weather. We came home, had lunch, worked on the puzzle, and I elevated by leg and had a little nap. We had an early dinner of wild caught Alaskan salmon with a salad and then headed to Woods Hole for an evening Falmouth Forum talk. We picked up Olivia on the way and found that Terry is doing great after his back surgery yesterday. Good news. The Forum speaker was John Holdren, a well-known scientist here on the Cape as he was once the Director of the Woods Hole Research Center and calls Falmouth home. His expertise is climate-change and he was President Obama’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology. Currently he is a professor of Environmental Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His talk pointed out “the options available to society for reducing the pace and ultimate magnitude of future changes in climate (mitigation) and for reducing the damages to human well-being resulting from the changes that nonetheless occur (adaptation).” In his opinion, we need the full backing of the national government behind the effort to make substantial changes in policy as soon as possible. Yes, climate change is real. It is here. And each of us has to do what we can, most importantly pushing for our elected officials to make major policy changes. After the talk, we came home and watched a town hall meeting in the Bronx with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressing the Green New Deal that was introduced by her and Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey. This has spawned all sorts of controversy, but after last night’s Falmouth Forum, I have decided my first action is to actually read the document to see what it says. If you are interested, here’s the link to the resolution.https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih.pdf
by Judy Handley | Mar 28, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 87: Lynne Arrived
Date: Thursday, March 28, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 48, Low 28 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Lynne arrived from Nyack at 1:00 this afternoon. Yea, yea, yea! It is wonderful to have her here for a couple of days. I put her right to work on my latest puzzle
and I’ll bet she finishes it before she leaves on Saturday. We spent the entire afternoon and evening just catching up and will probably continue to do the same tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Mar 27, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 86: C & C
Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Weather: Sunny; High 43, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
All I got done today was C & C–cooking and cleaning. I wanted to make a casserole to take to my friends Olivia and Terry White as Terry is having a surgical procedure done on his back tomorrow. And as long as I was in the kitchen doing that, I decided to make soup as well. Nothing exciting, but between that, walking and exercising, and doing a bit of house cleaning, the day was over. I did have a nice visit with Olivia and Terry when I delivered the casserole and then I spent my whole evening trying to get the border of a new 1,000 piece puzzle done. I’m almost there, but I’ve decided to stop and let my friend Lynne complete the job when she gets here tomorrow. Looking forward to her visit!
by Judy Handley | Mar 26, 2019 | 2019 Life Logs |
2019 Life Logs, Day 85: Maintenance Required
Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 43, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This is my week to deal with the results of filters that have not been maintained properly. On Saturday I noticed that the filter in the fish aquarium needed to be changed, but I ignored it. Sunday night when I got home from Heather and Jed’s there was a flood of water between the dining area and the living room seeping into the living room area rug. I saw that the water was coming from the aquarium and I immediately surmised that the aquarium had sprung a leak. But on closer inspection, I saw that the filter was backed up with water that was spilling over the top of the aquarium. It took three big towels to soak up the water and a lot of time to unplug the filter to take it out of the aquarium to clean it properly. On Monday, the kitchen faucet starting squirting water out of a small pinhole in the top of the faucet. That only happens when the filter inside the faucet needs cleaning. Then I started having trouble with the polar ice machine that I have been using to ice my knee. It was just not staying cold. It was not until this evening that I finally read some small print that said that there is a tiny filter that has to be routinely cleaned. Of course! I found the little piece of foam, about the size of the tip of my little finger, removed it, and found that it was totally covered in slime. Yuck. I cleaned it and put it back in and instantly, I had a cold pack again. So, lesson learned. Filters require maintenance and I need to be more proactive. Other than dealing with filters, I did make some progress on my To Do list and I made a first stab at doing my taxes. I have more questions than answers and need to find someone that can help me. But I’ll get there. Then I picked Ollie up from school and did a lot of walking while he rode his new bicycle. It was partly sunny today, but it felt really chilly. I am hoping warmer days are coming in the near future.
