by Judy Handley | Jun 29, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 181: Gardening
Date: Saturday, June 29, 2024
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High Temp 71, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
June has come and is almost gone, and this morning the reality set in that I still hadn’t planted my garden. It is probably too late, but today I gave it my best try anyway. I just can’t handle not having a garden! I am in the process of replanting my elevated raised garden as the arugula and lettuce I planted earlier in the spring have gone to seed. Planting in that garden is easy. But it is the raised gardens on the ground that are a challenge for me. Gardening rightly has the reputation of being back breaking work, and I sure don’t want to do anything to ‘upset’ my back. Having back surgery in mid-January and a knee replacement in mid-May have taken a toll on my old body. I can bend now, but only if I squat down and then bend. Well, squatting and my knee is still a little problematic. Thus, the reason I have procrastinated. I made progress today. I ripped out the old kale and Swiss chard from last year as it had also gone to seed and cleared the leaves out of the raised beds. I got a few seeds planted and all of the plants I have bought in the past couple of weeks are now in the ground. I have more I want to do, but at least I got a good start.
I also spent my rest periods today admiring the June flowers in the yard. The hydrangea that last year had only one or two flower clusters late in August due to the late freeze has made a comeback this year.
And the perennial garden I planted last year by the back deck is doing great.
The feverfew and lemon balm that I have been encouraging are also flourishing. These are both plants that just came up naturally in parts of the yard last year. I transplanted some of the fever few to various areas and now its beautiful little daisy-like flowers are everywhere.
And because the lemon balm now gets more light due to the two trees that were cut down last fall, instead of four or five plants, there is a huge patch that gives off that wonderful lemony aroma. All with no work on my part. They are just Mother Nature’s gift.
Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy so I probably won’t get much gardening done, but I am happy with today’s progress and will finish planting over the next few days.
by Judy Handley | Jun 28, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 180: Fun with Ollie and Friends
Date: Friday, June 28, 2024
Weather: Sunny, Sunny, Cool North Wind; High Temp 70, Low 57 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
I tried hard to not to think about politics today because I had a severe political hangover from last night’s debate. But the Supreme Court decision today overturning Chevron made ignoring politics impossible. This decision announced today is going to haunt us for years to come. But I set that aside and spent my afternoon with Ollie and his friends Simon and Seton which brightened my day.
Simon is Ollie’s friend that shares his birthday. They were born in the same hospital on the same day just a few hours apart. And now they live in the same neighborhood. The other friend, Seton, is Ollie’s look-alike friend. When you see them at a distance on the soccer field, you can easily confuse the two. While Sam went boating and fishing with his friend Ethan and Jonah spent the afternoon at Old Silver Beach with his friend Joey, Ollie, Simon, Seton, and I headed to Cataumet to play mini golf, ride the bumper boats, play in the arcade, and have an ice cream treat.
On our way home, I suggested we stop at Megansett Beach to play late day beach soccer. The boys started out playing soccer, but quickly took over the lifeguard stand as the lifeguard had gone home for the day. They made up a game where one would stand up on the lifeguard stand and throw the ball to the other two who would battle for the ball. I think they had more fun doing this than all the other things combined. And I found such joy in just watching them having such a good time.
Heather had a work commitment tonight, so I offered to get sushi for us for dinner and I hung out with the boys while she went to Woods Hole. All three boys had spent their morning shopping for fishing gear to upgrade their current stock. And after dinner tonight, they continued going through their tackle box and organizing. It was a nice summer day from start to finish … almost. When I got in my car to head home, the car key would not turn. I have been battling this car key issue for a month now and I am going to have to bite the bullet and explore buying a used car. I could not get the key to work, so Heather took me home. But shortly, Sam came knocking on my door beaming from ear to ear. He had Googled the problem and was successful in giggling the key just right to get it to turn. So, I have the car, but I really do have to start the car search.
Every day I read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American. What she wrote after the debate last night helped me make some sense of what I had witnessed. If you have never heard of Gish gallop, read the following from Richardson’s post:
Trump also directly accused Biden of his own failings and claimed Biden’s own strengths, saying, for example, that Biden, who has enacted the most sweeping legislation of any president since at least Lyndon Johnson, couldn’t get anything done while he, who accomplished only tax cuts, was more effective. He responded to the calling out of his own criminal convictions by saying that Biden “could be a convicted felon,” and falsely stating: “This man is a criminal.” And, repeatedly, Trump called America a “failing nation” and described it as a hellscape.
It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
by Judy Handley | Jun 27, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 179: The Debate
Date: Thursday, June 27, 2024
Weather: Rain Early, Then Partly Sunny; High Temp 72, Low 56 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
As many of you, I watched the Presidential debate tonight and I literally have no words to describe my reaction. So, I will leave it at that. No comment.
by Judy Handley | Jun 26, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 178: Happy 15th Birthday to Jonah
Date: Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Weather: Partly Sunny, Turning Foggy Late Afternoon; High Temp 73, Low 67 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
Happy 15th birthday to Jonah Biggs Goldstone. Jonah is right in the middle of my five grandchildren. He and Ziggy are both 15, but Ziggy was born first, putting Jonah in the middle. Heather took two hours off work today to take Jonah out for a shopping trip to purchase his birthday gift, a brand new trail bicycle. He has added so many inches of height this year that he has completely outgrown his current bike.
As I was going through birthday photos through the years, I found a photo of Jonah on his 3rd birthday on his new strider bike. That brought back wonderful memories of the many days that Mark and I would stand guard on a quiet side street while the boys learned to ride their bikes.
Ollie and I worked together on a birthday challenge for Jonah today. We searched my computer for photos of all of Jonah’s birthday cakes through the years and had them printed at CVS. Instead of a birthday card for Jonah, Ollie created a game where Jonah was challenged to put the cakes in birthday order. That ended up to be great fun. When Heather and Jonah got home from their birthday shopping trip, we had Jonah’s favorite lunch that had to include salami. We each had our own version,but Jonah’s ‘rose’ made of salami was the most creative.
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In the afternoon, Ollie and I worked together to wash down the front of the house and I took Jonah to his friend Joey’s so they could trail ride together. We ended the day with a birthday dinner. Happy birthday, Jonah!
by Judy Handley | Jun 25, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 177: A Little Work, A Little Play, and a Super Soccer Goal
Date: Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Weather: Sunny, Warmest Day Yet; High Temp 80, Low 68 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
After taking Shadow to Pampered Paws for his every 7 week ‘beauty’ appointment, Camp Oma started with a little work. Jonah and Ollie’s chore today was to clean up a pile of leaves in the driveway and get them to the leaf dump. We dropped off eight bags of leaves and then took a lunch break. Jonah and Ollie got lunch for themselves, while I ran some errands and had lunch at home before returning to pick them up for a trip to the beach. We went back to Menauhant and again it was really windy. Even though it was the warmest day we have had, the wind felt chilly. But we persisted and stayed for a while. Then I dropped the boys at home and headed back to Pampered Paws to pick up Shadow. After taking him home and playing ball with him for a bit, I went back to pick up Jonah to take him to a Falmouth High School summer soccer game. Because he is junior varsity, he didn’t think he would get to play much. But he did.
He made two of the six goals and one of them was quite the goal. He was over near the sideline, kicked the ball high with an arc so that it went into the goal just barely under the top pole, out of reach of the goalie. It was picture perfect. But I was too caught up in the moment to get a picture, so you just have to imagine it. Tomorrow is his 15th birthday and I think that by making that goal, he gave himself a birthday present. I took Jonah home and Heather and Ollie, who were making fish tacos together, invited me to stay for dinner. I accepted and enjoyed the results of their cooking project very much.
by Judy Handley | Jun 24, 2024 | 2024 Life Logs |
2024 Life Logs, Day 176: Summer Has Arrived
Date: Monday, June 24, 2024
Weather: Sunny and Windy Temp 76, Low 63 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth, MA
Camp Oma began today and for me, summer arrived with my first trip to the beach with Ollie and Jonah. After a winter and spring of doing nothing but recovering from two surgeries, it was unbelievably wonderful to walk in sand, and sit in the sun with happy kids. Because my knee incision has a couple of spots that are not completely healed, I can’t go in the water. But I was completely happy just watching from my beach chair.
Jonah and Ollie had fun together on the beach and in the water, skim boarding and playing ball, but it was when Molly, Joey, and Kaiden arrived that the joyous fun began. Molly and Joey are like a sister and a brother to the Goldpebbles and Kaiden is Jonah’s best friend. They had so much fun. It was after 5 :30 pm when Heather joined us. The kids had been out of the water for a bit, but they all got back and started the fun all over again. Great first Monday of summer
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The feverfew and lemon balm that I have been encouraging are also flourishing. These are both plants that just came up naturally in parts of the yard last year. I transplanted some of the fever few to various areas and now its beautiful little daisy-like flowers are everywhere.
And because the lemon balm now gets more light due to the two trees that were cut down last fall, instead of four or five plants, there is a huge patch that gives off that wonderful lemony aroma. All with no work on my part. They are just Mother Nature’s gift.
