by Judy Handley | Nov 17, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 321: Adding a New Newcomers Activity
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Turning Colder; High 49, Low 29 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
I’ve added a new Newcomers activity to my life and I attended the first meeting on Zoom late this afternoon. I am actually not sure if the name of the group is Social Policy or Public Policy in Turbulent Times. Maybe the latter was just the name for today’s session, but I think that is the name for the group. Either way, you get the idea. I was not able to attend the first meeting on immigration policies, but there was a time change for today that allowed me attend. Someone in the group volunteers to lead a meeting, names the topic, and sends out readings on that topic. Today’s meeting focused on the role of journalism in the political process. It was led by Jerry Lanson who has been a journalist and taught journalism at the college level. He did a skillful job of leading the discussion. We met for an hour and 45 minutes, but that is certainly not enough time to even begin to scratch the surface of this topic. Still, it was interesting and I do hope to be able to attend some future meetings. But even if I can’t, I will enjoy reading the articles and thinking about the topics on my own. Otherwise, I didn’t do much today except to prepare for the meeting. I had read the articles, but I reread them today. I had a chiropractor appointment, took a couple of walks with Shadow, and covered some perennial plants with leaves to protect them from tonight’s freeze. It’s going to be a cold one.
by Judy Handley | Nov 16, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 320: Walk, Walk, and Walk Some More
Date: Monday, November 16, 2020
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 60, Low 36 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My day can be summed up in one word—walking. I got up at 6:30 am and walked with Shadow. We went back to bed and when we got up for the day, we walked again.
Then I went for a walk on the cranberry bogs with friend Jane Wooden. It was after 1 pm when I got home. I went for a short potty break walk with Shadow, had lunch, and started prepping the vegetables for making and canning ratatouille. Then I went to pick Ollie up after school. I did a little shopping on the way home, so it was almost dark when I got here. I took Shadow for his last long walk of the day and then returned to making the ratatouille. From the garden, I used rosemary, parsley, thyme, oregano, and the last of the tomatoes. I picked the tomatoes last week, but they were still fine. Tomorrow night the temperature is supposed to be 29 degrees F and the following night, 25 degrees F. The thyme and oregano will make it through the winter, but the rosemary has to come inside tomorrow and the parsley will probably be frozen. Sometimes it makes it through temps in the 20’s. But I will spend time tomorrow bringing some things inside and putting the garden to bed for the winter.
Tonight, I canned the ratatouille while watching the news from the kitchen. I was horrified to hear that Lindsey Graham actually called the Secretary of State of Georgia to inquire about the possibility of discounting certain legal votes. The conservative Republican Secretary of State of Georgia reported this, but Lindsey Graham said he was surprised to hear that the Secretary of State had taken offense to what he called a ‘good’ phone call. He says he was just inquiring. “Just inquiring” to get legal votes thrown out when you are the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is not okay. It is interfering with the democratic process. And then there is Scott Atlas who is currently leading President Trump’s Covid team. In a Tweet he told people to stand up to restrictions state governors are imposing to control Covid. In response to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s restrictions, he tweeted, “The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept. #FreedomMatters #StepUp.” As President Elect Biden said today, “What’s wrong with these people?” When, and more importantly, HOW does this end?
by Judy Handley | Nov 15, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 319: Feeling Thankful
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny and Cool; High 57, Low 45 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My goal today was to find a way to preserve some of the food that has been accumulating from my weekly Misfits orders. I have been getting more apples, pomegranates, winter squashes, and more fall root vegetables than I can eat in a week. I feel thankful for having too much food, but certainly don’t want to waste it. So, preserving the harvest was the order of the day. I wanted to make and can chutney, make apple pie filling to can, make and can ratatouille, roast some of the squash and root vegetables. You get the idea. And, of course, I did not get all of that done.
I did make and can the chutney, and I roasted a pork loin with root vegetables to have for dinner. I’ll continue with the other jobs tomorrow. I didn’t push it today. I took time to enjoy walks with Shadow and just relax. I am so thankful that I live here by the water, especially at this time of year. There is so much bird life to watch on the marsh whose grass is turning from green to autumn gold. It is only halfway there and is just beautiful. And I love hearing the unmistakable “Swoosh . . . swoosh . . . swoosh . . .” of swans flying overhead while I am walking Shadow. Their wings are so big and strong that they really move a lot of air as they fly. I know I am imagining it, but it is almost like I can feel the vibrations. I only accomplished two things on my goal list, but I sure did enjoy every minute of the day. It was not as sunny as I would like, but it was a nice fall day. Tuesday night and all of Wednesday looks ‘freezy’, but then things warm up a bit again. Maybe I can stay inside on Wednesday when it is cold outside and warm the inside with more cooking and canning.
by Judy Handley | Nov 14, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 318: Yard Work with Ollie
Date: Saturday, November 14, 2020
Weather: Rainy and Cooler; High 51, Low 32 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
The rain ended, but it was a cool morning. Ollie, my youngest grandson, wanted to come over to help me with yard work today. I pay him by the hour and I get my money’s worth with him. He is only eight-tears-old, but he is strong and a very careful and hard worker. By 11 am, it was dry enough to get started. Most of the oak leaves fell from the trees during the past few days, adding to an already thick layer of a variety of other leaves. With this many leaves on the ground, it feels a bit like walking in water to wade through them. Ollie mowed and I emptied the mower leaf bag. Or sometimes, he raked and used the leaf blower while I mowed. Both of us worked as fast and hard as we could for over an hour and then the battery on the lawn mower needed recharged. So, we took a break for 30 minutes and then worked for another hour and half. I wanted to get Heather and Jed’s lawn mower back to them so they could use it this afternoon, so when we were ‘close enough’ to being finished, we ate a late lunch while the batteries charged again. Then took Ollie and the lawn mower home, along with my leaf blower. When we arrived, Heather was literally knee deep in oak leaves. She was raking and I don’t think I have ever seen so many oak leaves in one small area. I can dump mine down in the woods beside the cottage, but they have no place to dump theirs. They are making a huge pile and hope they can find someone to come pick them up.
I returned home and went for a walk with Shadow. I had been working outside all day with just a long-sleeve shirt on, but it was now past mid-afternoon and the temperature was dropping fast. My phone said it was 47 degrees F, but I was freezing. I put on my light winter coat, a hat, and gloves, and then went for a walk. It is supposed to get down to 32 tonight, but it should be back in the fifties tomorrow.
I spent my evening dealing with an issue with my recent photos. For my two big outings with the kids this week, the afternoon at The Knob and the trip to Plimoth Patuxent with Ollie, I took loads of photos using my phone rather than my camera. And then I spent a great deal of time editing and naming the photos. My Google phone is supposed to have a really high quality camera, but when I made the photo book for Ollie on Thursday, every time I added a photo I got a warning that the photo quality was not acceptable. In the end, the photos worked out okay for the book, but I mentioned this to Heather and Jed. They suggested that maybe I had used the wrong method of importing the photos. The photos were all still on my phone, which means they were also still in Google Photos online. When I checked, sure enough, the photos were extremely high quality on my phone and in Google Photos, but much reduced on my computer. So, I had to go back and download all of them again, which also meant renaming and re-editing the newly imported photos. I think I understand what I did wrong and hope not to repeat that again!
by Judy Handley | Nov 13, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 317: Shopping Away a Rainy Friday the 13th
Date: Friday, November 13, 2020
Weather: Rainy and Cooler; High 52, Low 39 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My plans for laying low on Friday the 13th changed when I woke up worried that we are going to be in another lockdown period soon because of the rise in coronavirus cases. Falmouth is in Barnstable County and there have been 137 new cases over the past seven days, according to the State Department of Public Health. The Barnstable Town Health Agent Thomas McKean is quoted as saying, “We are definitely going back up to the height of that (pandemic peak) curve in the spring.” That got me to thinking that my planned computer work today could be delayed so that I could make a trip to Costco. There are enough items that I buy only there because they are eons cheaper than anywhere else, that it warranted the trip off-Cape to do a little stocking up. , Luckily, just before the spring lockdown, I had made a trip to Costco to stock up for the next six months. I could get everything else delivered by Rory’s or by trips to Stop and Shop every couple of weeks. Then in mid-summer, things were better and shopping was almost back to normal. But that could end abruptly. So, Shadow and I headed north for the hour and ten-minute drive to Costco. I shopped for almost an hour and then we returned home just in time to pick Ollie up after school. It is a long trip, but I will rest better tonight knowing I have the pantry stocked for another lockdown “just in case”.
00 Deepavali or Festival of Lights in Little India
03 Evening in Bustling Little India
16 Little India–What a Magical Place
Everyone in our Dining-in Group got an email this evening from Olivia White wishing us ‘Happy Diwali’. That immediately brought back wonderful memories from October of 2009. Windbird sailed into Singapore on Thursday the 23rd of that year, and after getting settled in a marina on Sentosa Island, on that very first evening in Singapore, we headed to Little India for the Indian celebration of the Festival of Lights. We were told, “Little India is dressed to the nines with lights, lights, and more lights. You don’t want to miss it.” Along with three other cruising couples, Mark and I took a free shuttle bus to get off Sentosa Island and then hopped on the Mass Rapid Transit subway to Little India. Little India is the section of Singapore that is home to thousands of Indian men who leave their families to come work in Singapore and send the money home. It was just getting dark when we arrived and we found ourselves walking shoulder to shoulder down a street filled with thousands of people and Deepavali lights overhead that were just beautiful. We loved it so much that we returned the next night to attend a cultural performance. Diwali, as it is spelled in Northern India, is one of the most popular Hindu festivals. It is a five-day long festival that originated in India and is mentioned in early Sanskrit texts. “Diwali symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.” It is a Hindu holiday, but it can easily be celebrated by all. Diwali falls in either October or November each year, depending on the cycle of the moon. This year, it begins tomorrow. It is generally referred to as the “Feast of Lights”. In South India it is called Deepavali which comes from the Sanskrit vocabulary meaning a ‘line of lamps’, but the Sanskrit word has been modified by the people of North India who refer to the festival as Diwali. Whatever you want to call it, I personally think we should all celebrate ‘light over darkness, goodness over evil, and knowledge over ignorance’ every day of the year.
by Judy Handley | Nov 12, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 316: Rainy Day Activities
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2020
Weather: Rainy; High 64, Low 47 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Yesterday’s mist turned to real rain last night and still continues. It is not a hard rain, just a constant drip drop. According to Weather Underground, today was one degree warmer than yesterday, but it sure felt chillier. The rain is forecast to continue through tomorrow and the temp is supposed to drop by ten degrees and get even cooler through the next week. Next Wednesday is supposed to have a high of 40 and a low of 26 degrees F. Time to break out the fall sweaters!
There was a Newcomers monthly meeting this morning on Zoom. I tuned in for the 30-minute business meeting and then an hour presentation by a Massachusetts cranberry grower. Dawn Gates Allen led us through a year in the life of a cranberry. The United States is the world’s leading cranberry producer. There are five states that grow cranberries and Massachusetts used to lead the pack. But it has now been surpassed by Wisconsin. Wisconsin produces half of the cranberries in this country, followed by Massachusetts producing another third. Washington, Oregon, and New Jersey produce most of the rest. Cranberries are native only to North America, although China is trying to get into the cranberry market. Cranberries are one of three commercially grown crops—cranberries, blueberries, and Concord grapes–that are native to the United States, and all three are native to Massachusetts. I gained a greater appreciation for the organically grown cranberries that I buy. There are a couple of insects that make the use of pesticides almost a necessity. I would love to learn how the organic growers get around the use of pesticides.
It was after 11:30 when the program wrapped up and Shadow was waiting patiently for his morning walk. It was raining, but not hard enough to keep us from doing our daily mile. Then I launched into a photo book project for Ollie. I promised to get a book made for him about yesterday’s tour of the Mayflower II and Plimoth Patuxet. Normally, all Falmouth third graders would be going on this field trip. But because of Covid, there are no school field trips this year. So, Ollie wanted to share his trip with his whole class. I had barely hit the send button to CVS to get a same day book printed when it was time to go pick Ollie up after school. I took him home and headed back to my house to spend the last few minutes of daylight with Shadow. And I had a phone call from my good friend Leslie Kole in New Hampshire. I haven’t talked to her since August, so we had lots of catching up to do. She has a brand new puppy, a female cockapoo named Quinn. She is very excited but struggling with those first few weeks of training with a new puppy. By the time I got off the phone with Leslie, it was time to go back to the CVS in town to pick up the photo book for Ollie. I delivered the book and asked him to proofread it to make sure Oma had not made any mistakes. He was very excited and took the proofreading job very seriously. He found only one error. I wrote that he was ‘sitting’ on a rock when he was actually ‘leaning’ on the rock. I told him that I hoped he might be the only person who notices that mistake. What a careful eight-year-old proofreader!
