by Judy Handley | Apr 12, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 102: Take a Look at Your Garden (Lawn)
Date: Saturday, April 12, 2025
Weather: Overcast, Rainy and Cold; High Temp 41, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It is April. It is cold and rainy which can easily turn me into grump. But Earth Day is coming up on the 22nd, so today I went with Heather to a Wampanoag ‘Honor the Earth’ fair in the hopes of brightening my cold, rainy day mood. I talked with a ranger from the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge. I had a Wampanoag salmon hash for lunch. I talked to the women of ‘Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage’ (OLAUG) who literally dive down in Cape Cod ponds and remove the garbage they find to help restore the ponds. And I met an amazing Wampanoag woman, a Falmouth native, whose accomplishments are so impressive. She works at WHOI, teaches at MIT and Harvard, makes films, and more, all trying to help us keep our ties to the earth as the Wampanoag people have for thousands of years.
Then I came home and read a NYT article entitled, “The Four Ecologically Crucial Things You Should Do in Your Garden.” Unlike the British, most Americans do not refer to their yard as their garden. But for the purpose of this article, pretend you are British, and your garden is your yard. According to Douglas W. Tallamy, the entomologist and University of Delaware professor who is co-founder of Homegrown National Park, the four ecologically crucial things that need to happen in your garden are:
1) Every landscape (yard or garden) needs to manage the watershed in which it lies.
2) Every landscape (yard or garden) needs to support pollinators.
3) Every landscape (yard or garden) needs to support a viable food web.
4) And every landscape (yard or garden) needs to sequester carbon.
If you already have ornamentals in your yard, you have a head start. According to Tallamy, “You don’t have to think about redesigning the entire landscape. Just say, ‘Can I improve on any one of those four goals incrementally over time?’” But if you just have a yard with grass and no trees, bushes, or ornamentals, you have to start from scratch. A grass lawn doesn’t address any of the four ‘crucials’. Tallamy writes that if you have a ‘good’ lawn in terms of beautiful, green grass, it degrades or destroys the water shed. It doesn’t support any pollinators, nor the food web. And grass is the worst plant choice for sequestering carbon. What small step can you take?
• Do a one-to-one swap. Remove one invasive plant and add one native. The eventual goal is to get to at least 70 percent native, one step at a time. But start slowly by adding one oak tree or a little patch of goldenrod.
• Reduce artificial light at night by switching to yellow lightbulbs and motion detectors.
• Don’t give into mosquito-fogging treatments. Even natural solutions indiscriminately kill monarchs and other butterflies, pollinators, fireflies, and more.
• For Earth Day on April 22, plant a keystone plant in your garden (yard). To find out what these plants are for your area, go to https://homegrownnationalpark.org/. For Cape Cod, these are native container plants like Grass-Leaved Goldenrod, Autumnale Sneezeweed, Common Evening Primrose, Black-Eyed Susan, Cutleaf Coneflower, Old Field Goldenrod, or Blue Wood, Calico, or New England Aster. Keystone trees and plants for Cape Cod are American Aspen, American Plum, Black Cherry, Black Willow, Chokecherry, Red Maple, Red Oak, Sugar Maple, or White Oak.
When I went out into my ‘garden’ to play with Shadow late afternoon, I looked around to see what tiny step I could take this spring, but it was so cold I had to come back inside to get my winter coat. I had put it away near the end of March thinking I would not need it anymore this spring. But for most of our April days this year the high temp has been in the 40’s with the lows in the 30’s. For most of April last year, our days were in the 50’s with nights in the 40’s. There were a few exceptions, but nothing like this last week. After tomorrow, the rest of the upcoming week looks more like last year’s April. I hope!
by Judy Handley | Apr 11, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 101: Beyond the White House
Date: Friday, April 11, 2025
Weather: Cloudy, Rain Late; High Temp 48, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
No, I’m not daydreaming about what might happen to Trump once he is “Beyond the White House.” That is the name of a 6-week course offered by the Mashpee Public Library that I am currently taking. It is an hour and a half class, once a week on Friday mornings, and is taught by Jane Scarborough. Jane is a vibrant 80-some-year-old retired constitutional law professor. She is currently running for a position on the Falmouth School Committee, and she definitely has my vote. Jane seamlessly weaves current events with history. The book that is the basis of our class is “Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House” written by Jared Cohen. Today we focused on Thomas Jefferson. His ‘beyond the White House’ founding the University of Virginia. Before his death, he designed his own gravestone and wrote his own epitaph, “Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” There was no mention of being the third president of these United States.
I had a wonderful artichoke dinner with the Goldstone’s tonight. It has been quite a week. Heather was in Boston for four days at a staff retreat, Jonah had unexpected surgery to set his broken arm,Trump’s tariffs sent the US economy into a period dangerous instability, and the chaos in Washington just keeps on going. So many things happen in just one week these days that a week feels like a year. Hopefully Trump is off playing golf again this weekend so we can have a bit of a break. TGIF
by Judy Handley | Apr 10, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 100: Switching Gears
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025
Weather: Sunshine, Still Cool; High Temp 46, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Since July of 2023, I have served as Co-President of Encore of Falmouth Newcomers. Today I started switching gears to become Vice President of Programs. For 8 months of the year, Encore has monthly general meetings. Three of those are luncheons and the other 5 are programs. Today I met with the woman who will be the Assistant VP to brainstorm what programs we want to present. I met this woman for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and today we had a great meeting. Together we have some great ideas and I am really going to enjoy working with her.
I ran some errands this afternoon and sent a text to Ollie to see if he wanted me to pick him up. I didn’t hear back, so I assumed he was riding the bus home. One of my errands was getting things for Jonah from CVS, so I delivered those and saw that Jonah is doing great. As I was leaving Heather and Jed’s, Karen Baranowski was dropping Ollie off. What? He forgot his phone today and assumed I was picking him up. By the time he figured out I wasn’t coming, he had missed the bus and was walking home. Karen just happened to driving by and asked if he wanted a ride. And he was happy for the offer. It takes a village.
Tonight, I attended the Falmouth Democratic Committee monthly meeting and now I have to finish my reading assignment for a class I signed up for that begins tomorrow morning. Busy, busy.
by Judy Handley | Apr 9, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 99: All is Well That Ends Well
Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Weather: Sunshine, but Windy and Cool; High Temp 43, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I did not mention in last night’s log that Jonah’s weekly check up appointment at Boston Children’s was unlike last week’s optimistic report. After a lot of weighing of the alternatives, the decision was made to go for surgery to ensure he will have full mobility in his left arm. Heather and Jed learned early this morning that the surgery would be this afternoon. The operating room and surgeon had to fit Jonah in, so the wait in pre-op ended up to be longer than expected. But late tonight, he arrived home with a much ‘enhanced’ sling and an ice machine. He looked good and was in good spirits. It was a bit of an intense day for all of us, but all is well that ends well.
Christina Brodie and I both have birthdays the first week of March, but today was the first time our group could get together to celebrate. We went to Leeside in Woods Hole. I had hoped to go for a walk in the village after lunch, but it was just too cold and windy. But lunch was great. 
by Judy Handley | Apr 8, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 98: How to Eat an Elephant
Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Weather: Cloudy with Rain, Windy, Freezing Tonight; High Temp 44, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
“The World Played Chess” is a book by Robert Dugoni, also author of “The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell” which I read a few years ago and loved. “The World Played Chess” is a coming of age story that revolves around the Vietnam War. But that description in no way expresses the depth of this historical fiction novel. For me, this book helped me to finally understand what “woke” really means. The book awakened me to devastation of the war in Vietnam like nothing else I have ever seen, read, or heard. I highly recommend this book.
Now to the question of the day, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer, of course, is one bite at a time. But here is why that is important. Tonight, I attended the weekly meeting of Indivisible Upper Cape where a woman elegantly spoke about recently being fired from her job with NOAA after 19 years of service. I don’t think I need to repeat her story. It is the same story we are hearing of so many federal workers. It was the way she ended her story that impressed me so much. She listed more than 20 things that each of us could be doing daily to push back and end by asking the question about how you eat an elephant. It is a great analogy for how we need to proceed each day in pushing back against what is happening in Washington to destroy our democracy. It is overwhelming, but one ‘bite’ at a time we can eat this elephant.
by Judy Handley | Apr 7, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy 16th Birthday to Ziggy Milo Handley
Date: Monday, April 7, 2025
Weather: Drizzle On and Off All Day and Evening; High Temp 47, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Sixteen years ago today, a star was born. During the month of February and March, 2009, Mark and I were living in a tiny apartment in the Boat Lagoon in Phuket, Thailand. Windbird was on the hard getting a ‘facelift’ but we could see her from our tiny apartment balcony. We spent those two months falling in love with life in Thailand and overseeing the work being done on our beloved sailboat, which was also our home. We needed that work to be completed by early April because Justin and Jo were expecting their first child the middle of April and we wanted to be home for the birth. Heather and Jed were also expecting, but not until June. Our plan was to sail Windbird back to Rebak Marina in Malaysia and fly home to the US in mid-April, stay for a month, and then get to Cape Cod for the birth of another grandchild. Our plan was to be in Sante Fe, New Mexico, for Ziggy’s birth, but he decided differently. He decided to arrive a couple of weeks early. On this day, April 7, 16 years ago, just as we were dropping the lines to leave the Boat Lagoon for Malaysia where we would leave Windbird to fly home, Mark was checking for email one last time before losing our internet connection. There was an email from Justin and Jo saying that Jo’s labor had started. The message said that her water broke two days prior and that they had sent emails but didn’t hear back from us. Somehow, we never got those emails. We tried to call them while we still had land cell service, but they didn’t answer. We called our daughter Heather and found she had also received the emails and would forward them to us. We were literally drifting away from the dock while all of this was happening. But we knew we had to go ahead and leave so we wouldn’t miss our flights out of Malaysia in just a few days. As we sailed south, we heard nothing the next day. We changed our sail plan to stop at an island the following day where we knew we would have phone service. We arrived and rushed to land to try and contact Justin and Jo. We were successful and found that we had a grandson named Ziggy Milo Handley. He had a tough time getting into this world, but both mother and baby were fine. It was a moment of great relief after two days of anguish not knowing what was happening. We celebrated that evening by sending a Chinese lantern into the starry, starry night sky and cried tears of joy that our little ‘star’ was born. This is long, round about story of Ziggy’s birth, but a necessary story to explain while he will always be my shining star. Happy 16th Birthday to Ziggy Milo Handley.
I am at Heather and Jed’s tonight, waiting for Jed to get home from Town Meeting. As I said last night, Heather is in Boston and Jed is a voting Town Meeting member. I have been checking Falmouth cable television during the evening to see how things are going. Town Meeting is set for two nights each spring, but sometimes everything can get done in very long night. From what I have seen tonight, it will be two nights this year. And if so, they will probably close tonight’s meeting around 11 pm. Everyone here is asleep now, so I could go home. I’ll end this, check the tv one more time, and make my decision.
