by Judy Handley | Apr 17, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 107: Patriots’ Day
Date: Sunday, April 17, 2023
Weather: Foggy with Drizzle; High 56, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Since 1894, the third Monday in April has been a state holiday in Massachusetts. It is Patriots’ Day. The Boston Marathon is run on this day each year and I think most Massachusetts schools have their spring vacation this week so that students really only miss four days of school.
I didn’t run the in the Boston Marathon today, but I ran my own little marathon. Xfinity was arriving between 8 and 10 am to check out my equipment and update if needed. I was called last week and told that they would be coming even though I had no issues. The technician arrived at 8:30 and his speed testing showed I needed a new modem. That was up and running immediately, but then we discovered that my computer was not “accepting” the new equipment. He got that worked out, then discovered my printer had an issue as well. An hour and a half later, all was well.
At noon, I promised Jed I would be at 43 Grasmere as technicians were coming from Solar Rising to install a new monitoring system for the solar panels. They said they would arrive ‘early afternoon’ and they meant it. I arrived exactly at noon and before I got into the house, they arrived. I took the opportunity to start a laundry and feed the cats as I waited. Then I was off to the boat to continue my varnish removal project. Today’s goal was to get the varnish off the deck sides of the cockpit coaming. It is not just a straight run and the deck is narrow. Difficult to do, but I was making progress when I got a call informing me that there will be a showing of the cottage tomorrow morning. I thought the first showing was an open house on Sunday. But I was told this afternoon that the open house has been moved to Saturday. I had planned to get the cottage ready on Friday, but the showing tomorrow morning meant I needed to head home to do some quick cleaning. My bedspread was in the washer at Heather and Jed’s, so I went there, dried the bedspread, and then went home to clean. It was 6:00 when I got home and by the time I took Shadow for a walk and played fetch with him, my energy level was running low. I did a little cleaning tonight and will get up early and do more in the morning. But Shadow has a 9 am appointment with the groomer, so I will have to leave here by 8:30. Not much time to clean, so whatever I can do will just have to be good enough.
by Judy Handley | Apr 16, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 106: A Little Bit of Everything
Date: Sunday, April 16, 2023
Weather: Foggy Morning with Rain, Partly Cloudy; High 61, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Sam and I left at 7:15 am headed to Cranston, Rhode Island, just a little further than Providence. It stopped raining before the game started, but it was cloudy and chilly.
Heather and family arrived just before the end of the game and then they headed to Washington, DC, and I headed home. I got home around noon, took Shadow for a walk, ate lunch, regrouped, and headed to the boat. My focus today was removing varnish on the outside of the cockpit coaming. This requires sitting in some very awkward positions, so my old body can only do a bit a time. In between all of this, I was on the phone a significant amount of time dealing with issues with my sister. Then I changed gears again, headed home to pick up Shadow to take more bags of soil, a large, round planter, and a bag of echinacea dug out of my raised beds to transplant at the house on Lakeview. The echinacea plants were started from seed by Ollie in the spring of 2019. They thrived and have grown and spread, and I just can’t leave them all behind. Shadow and I explored what will be our new yard and found the just right place for the echinacea—in the planter with a hardware cloth fence around it so the rabbits can’t eat it. While we were at the Lakeview house, a neighbor from across the street came over to meet me and to tell me he had taken packages that arrived from Amazon and put them behind Lynda’s house. I ordered two new metal raised beds and didn’t expect them until next week, so I was very grateful that Andy put them in a secure place for me. He saw all the bags of garden soil I have been moving and offered top soil that he has piled in this driveway for our gardening project. Nice to know I will have nice neighbors.
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.
