by Judy Handley | Apr 15, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 105: Boat Work
Date: Saturday, April 15, 2023
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High 66, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
It was a boat work day. I met Heather, Jonah, and Sam at the boat this morning and we all worked together on the varnish stripping process. It was so much fun to have all of us working and the boys seemed to really enjoy it. Ollie and Jed were off to Nantucket today for a soccer game, so they missed the boat fun! Heather, Sam, and Jonah had to leave at 1 pm as Heather had to take Sam to Rhode Island for a late afternoon soccer game. I went home for a mid-day break and returned mid-afternoon to do a little more work.
Tomorrow is an early one. I am picking Sam up at 7 am to take him to Cranston, Rhode Island for 9 am soccer game. Heather and gang will meet us after the game and the Goldstones will travel on to Washington, DC, to visit with Grammy Marti for school vacation week. I will return home and after lunch, I will go to the boat to work for 2-3 hours. Three hours at a time is about my limit.
by Judy Handley | Apr 14, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 104: Trip to Yarmouth, Boat Varnish Removal
Date: Friday, April 14, 2023
Weather: Sunny and Hot; High 78, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Last week I was still wearing my winter coat and today a short-sleeved shirt was too hot. But I love hot, so no complaints.
My morning included a trip to Yarmouth to the RMV to apply for my REAL ID. The deadline for applying for this has been extended to 2025 in Massachusetts, but I figured I should go ahead and get one now. I made a stop at Trader Joe’s in Hyannis and then came home to play with Shadow and have lunch. This afternoon I went to the boat to remove a little more varnish. To do this on a sailboat, you basically have to be a contortionist. Not my forte, but I continue to make progress. Then it was home to fix dinner and relax a bit before starting again tomorrow morning. I’ll get all of that varnish removed, one day at a time.
by Judy Handley | Apr 13, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 103: Another Productive Day
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2023
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 74, Low 53 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
A miracle happened this afternoon. I arrived at the boat to try one more to see if I could get power to the boat to run the heat gun. I went straight to the barn where the extensions cords are plugged in, and everything looked good. I climbed up into the cockpit, plugged in the heat gun, and presto. It was working. I know the old heat gun only runs for about 15 minutes before it needs to cool down, so I set my phone alarm. When the alarm went off, I switched to the new heat gun I bought today at Lowe’s. An hour and a half later, it was still going strong. I cannot tell you how excited I was. After days of frustration, it felt like a miracle. I have no idea why things worked today and not last week, but I’ll take it. I still have about two more days of work to get the cockpit coaming stripped of the old varnish, inside and outside of the cockpit, but tomorrow if the power is still working, I can at least finish the inside.
This morning, after I took Shadow out for a walk. When we came back inside, I got in the shower and Shadow started barking and barking. I could not figure out why he was barking, but when I got out of the shower, I looked out the window and saw three men walking in the backyard. It was the landscapers whose job it was to get both properties ready to show. Before I left for a Newcomers monthly general meeting, they had accomplished a lot. So, I took off for the meeting as the slate of officers for next year was being presented. I was on the nominating committee and wanted to be there to support the new slate. I left before the program started, however, to stop at the house on Lakeview to drop off another carload of buckets and bags of garden soil. I then drove home to have an early lunch and take Shadow for another walk before driving north to Wareham to drop off my Honda generator to be serviced. And since Lowe’s was in the neighborhood, I stopped to buy another heat gun. I bought one the other day, but I am going to return it as the one at Lowe’s had a much better review. It was after 2:30 when I got to the boat, and I worked for the next three hours removing old varnish.
It was a productive day and I’m hoping for another one tomorrow. I have to drive to Yarmouth early tomorrow to apply for my Real ID. I’ll probably come home to have lunch and then head to the boat for the afternoon. I sure hope the ‘power’ is with me tomorrow as it was today.
Congratulations to Tom and Detta Porat and the parents of a brand new baby girl. Sarah had a 7-pound 3 ounce baby girl today. Her name is Alanis Lee. The middle name is after Tom’s mother who passed away a few weeks ago. Alanis is Irish and means harmony. In Hawaiian it means precious and cheerful. From the photos Detta sent, I could see that she is definitely precious and making everyone cheerful. And our country could certainly use some harmony right now. Welcome, Alanis Lee Jefferson. I can’t wait to meet you.
by Judy Handley | Apr 12, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 102: Undoing Five Years of Garden Building
Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High 72, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The weather today was incredible. I started the morning in a polar fleece and had to quickly come back inside and put on a cotton shirt. Now that I see that the temperature got into the low 70’s today, I understand why I was hot!
Today was all about undoing the five years of garden building I have done here at the cottage. My plan was to disassemble all three raised beds and move them to the garden area at the house where I will be moving on July 1.
Well, it became evident early on that the goal was too mighty. It only took 30 minutes to take out all of the drip irrigation system but getting the garden soil out of the first raised bed proved to be a challenge. Peter and Karen Baranowski came over to help me. The top three inches of soil was easy to shovel out, but below that there was a massive root system that was almost impenetrable. By noon we had gotten half of the soil out of one bed, and we had filled all of our five gallon buckets and 10 gallon felt bags, so we delivered the drip irrigation tubing, the two bean towers, the wood from the 4 x 8 raised bed that was still usable, and the garden soil to its new home. I was able to assemble a 4 x 4 bed and fill it with the garden soil.
Peter and Karen headed home and I stayed to water the new grass that was planted after entryway landscaping was done recently. Lynda, the owner of the home I will be renting, is on vacation, and she asked me to water the newly planted grass in the entry area while she is gone. She just had a landscaper ‘remake’ the entry area with stone walking paths and plants, so I am happy to water the area that I will be using every time I walk from the parking area to my new front door. I then went home to have lunch before continuing to hack away at the root system and finally get the area back to grass level.
I took another load of bagged soil to the new garden and called it a day. I don’t mind working hard, but hacking through the root system was back breaking work that I don’t care to continue. Lynda and I will just have to buy new raised beds and organic soil.
Thank you, thank you, to Peter and Karen.
by Judy Handley | Apr 11, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 101: Book Club, Power Issues, and Garden Work
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 62, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My work on Heather and Jed’s boat to remove old varnish has been put on hold while we figure out how to get reliable power to the boat to run a heat gun. I made calls today and found that I can get my Honda 2000i generator serviced, but not until next week at the earliest. I will take it to the dealer where I bought it in Wareham tomorrow afternoon and hope, by some miracle, they can get to it sooner than expected. In the meantime, I am turning my attention to disassembling the raised beds and the drip irrigation system in the front yard. Karen and Peter have offered to come help me do the garden work tomorrow morning, so I did as much prep work for that as I could late this afternoon. My goal is to move the raised bed boards that are not rotten and as much of the organic soil as possible to the house in town where I will be living as of July 1.
My book group met at 11 am this morning. All but one of us met in person. But one member has a very nasty cold and met with us via Zoom. It was the first time all of us have been together for months and we spent more time catching up on life than discussing the book of the month. That was fine with me because I read only half of the book before setting it aside. It was too much like a textbook to be enjoyable, so I made a conscience decision to just stop reading it.
by Judy Handley | Apr 10, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 100: Thrown Off Course, Again
Date: Monday, April 10, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 55, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I’d like to be focusing on removing old varnish from the boat, but I keep getting thrown off course. I had one successful day on the boat, but that day ended early as I lost electricity to run the heat gun. I’m not sure why it worked for a couple of hours and then it just went away. I thought maybe it was my heat gun, so I bought a new one. I went back the next day, but no go. So now we are exploring using my old Honda generator. So that saga will continue.
I was truly thrown off course in early February when I found out that the cottage was going to be sold. Thankfully I was told that I could continue to live here until I could find a new place to rent and that the cottage wouldn’t be put on the market until I moved out. I did find a place that I will move to the first of July, so I started working on getting ready to move. Then last week I was told that landscapers would be coming soon and that I needed to decide what I want to do about the raised beds gardens I put in the front yard. That threw me for another loop. Then today I was told that there will be an open house for realtors on Sunday. And that threw me off course, again. If you have ever lived in a home that has to be shown to interested buyers while you are living in it, you know what a hassle that can be. But I need to quickly get ready for that. Just when I want to be focusing on the boat, I need to be focusing on the yard and the inside of the house and the basement at the same time. It is a lot. Hopefully I do a better job of dealing with all of this tomorrow as today I got almost nothing done.
My day started with the septic tank inspector’s early arrival. I was told to expect him yesterday and that I didn’t need to be home as they knew where the tanks for the cottage and Shirley’s home were located. But this morning the inspector was knocking on my door asking if I knew the location of Shirley’s septic tank. I could direct him to mine, but I had no idea where Shirley’s was. So, then he asked if I had access to Shirley’s house. I do, so you can see where this was heading. I basically spent the first hour and a half of my day dealing with all that, and then I was told about Sunday’s open house.
On Mondays, I now pick Sam up at 3 pm and head to Harwich for his rowing practice. He rows for two hours and during that time I go get dinner for him to eat as we drive to soccer practice. I dropped him off in Dennis for soccer practice and headed home. He was getting a ride home with a friend. I took Shadow with me, and we had a nice long walk while Sam was rowing. By the time Shadow and I got home, it was almost dark, so we headed inside to have dinner and relax before we launch into another day. I’m just hoping there will be no more surprises in my life tomorrow.
