by Judy Handley | Nov 12, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 315: Visiting the Mayflower II and Plimoth Patuxet
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Weather: Overcast, Misty Rain Late; High 63, Low 47 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
On a normal Veteran’s Day, I would have spent my morning downtown at the Veteran’s Day observance. But, as we all know, nothing is normal these days. Instead, I spent my time mowing the tons of oak leaves in my yard. Then Upper Cape Septic came to put the new lid on my septic tank, so I had to stop mowing. It was just as well, as it was almost time to go pick up Ollie. I had told him that I would pick him up at 12:30 to take him to Plymouth to see the Mayflower II. Sam and Jonah had an afternoon Scout project, so it was just me and Ollie.
We arrived in Plymouth and started our ‘tour’. We walked by a statue of William Bradford that stated that he was the Governor of Plymouth Colony. Ollie agreed, but said he was not the first. He told me that would have been John Carver. Why was there not a statue of John Carver? I was getting a history lesson from my eight-year old grandson. Next, we stopped to view the Plymouth Rock which is not nearly as big as one would expect. Then it was on to tour the Mayflower II. It left Plymouth in November of 2016 for a total restoration and just returned in September. Ollie had only seen a glimpse of it as it left the Cape Cod Canal and headed out to sea. So, he was anxious to get a closer look. We had agreed to just look at it from afar if there were too many people, but there was no line and only four families aboard, so we went for it. When I was buying the tickets to tour it, the gentleman asked me if I wanted to buy the combined ticket to also tour Plimoth Patuxet, formally known as the Plimoth Plantation. Ollie said he would really like to do that, so I say okay. We didn’t spend long on the Mayflower, but long enough for Ollie to explore all of the decks and get a first-hand look at the rigging. We stood on the main deck and looked back into the forecastle or fo’c’sle that housed the crewmen. Then we headed down to the tween deck where the 102 passengers lived with their farm animals during their 66-day trip across the Atlantic. Ollie just couldn’t imagine how that many people existed in that small space for two months. But then he turned his attention back to the ship’s details. The main mast, the capstan, the ship’s helm, and again the rigging. He was fascinated by the rigging and kept asking me to take more photos of it. But once we had seen it all, he didn’t want to hang around. He was very aware of being in an area with other people during Covid and didn’t want to be there for long. So, we traveled on to Plimoth Patuxet. This is the new name for what has been called Plimoth Plantation in the past. The Plimoth part is the 17th century English village built by the Pilgrims. The Patuxet part is the Wampanoag Native American Homesite, close to the Pilgrim village. And if you are like me, you are wondering why I keep switching from Plimoth to Plymouth. Plimoth is the Old English spelling that eventually became Plymouth. Some things are labeled ‘Plimoth’ and others are labeled ‘Plymouth’.
On this day 400 years ago, November 11, 1620, the Mayflower set anchor off Provincetown. It wasn’t until December that they finally anchored the Mayflower in Plimoth Harbor. There were 102 people aboard the Mayflower, but only half of them made it through that first winter. But more people came and they persisted in establishing a lasting village in Plimoth. The Pilgrims had an interesting relationship with the local Native Americans, not always respecting the fact that they were settling on land that did not belong to them. But without the help of the Wampanoags, it is doubtful that they would have survived. When Ollie and I arrived at Plimoth Patuxet, he wanted to head to the Wampanoag Homesite first. He got to see wetus (homes) covered and uncovered, and a number of different mishoons or dug out canoes. Ollie also noted the way they grew their corn in hills of dirt.
From the Wampanoag Homesite, we walked to the 17th century English village built by the Pilgrims. Crude clapboard homes with thatched roofs, packed clay floors, clay and wood fireplaces, and furniture they brought from England. You walk through the fort and then down into the village on a wide path. There was a movie being shot today and that involved Pilgrims firing muskets. Interesting to watch. I told Ollie that I knew he was distantly related to a couple of the Plimoth Pilgrims on his Grandma Marti’s side of the family, but unfortunately, I didn’t know which ones. But he enjoyed meeting the guides dressed in period costume and wondering which ones might be relatives. We met Governor William Bradford and later we found out that he is one of the relatives through one of his daughters. Ollie enjoyed watching a woodworker making legs for stools, and he really enjoyed the sheep and the one cow. Ollie wants to return sometime with his mom and dad, but he was so excited that he got to see what he has been studying and writing about for the past month. And since I had never been aboard the Mayflower and had never visited the Wampanoag homesite nor the Pilgrim village, I was delighted with the afternoon. As we walked out of the village, Ollie was ahead of me and I really wanted to know what he was thinking as he walked up the path. But I didn’t dare interrupt his quiet time. He likes to process things and then talk about them later, so by the time he got home, he was talking non-stop to Heather about everything he saw. I learned a lot today and I’m certain he did as well. Great day.
by Judy Handley | Nov 10, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 314: Afternoon at Quissett
Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 66, Low 57 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Amazing. We had another summer-like day in November and I enjoyed every minute of it. Shadow is now walking a mile in the mornings with me, after a break in our walking for the first few days after his surgery. We enjoyed our walk this morning as he seems to be recovering quickly. Then I had my monthly Newcomers book club meeting. Five of us met in person in the backyard of our fearless leader, Sally Holbrook, and two other members joined us on Zoom. We had a new member join us today and we spent time introducing ourselves to her and learning about her move to Falmouth. She is quite a bit younger than the rest of us, but it is great to have new energy. Then it was time to pick Ollie up from school as this was an Early Release day. We had planned to drive to Plymouth to see the Mayflower, but the weather was so spectacular that he didn’t want to spend it riding in a car.
I agreed, so I took him home where Heather had convinced Sam, Jonah, and Sam’s friend Robert that it would be fun to visit Quissett Harbor and walk out to The Knob. It is a beautiful spot this world. The Goldpebbles LOVE Quissiett Harbor, so off we went for an afternoon of fun in the sun.
On the car ride to The Knob, I warned the boys that I read on Facebook that there have been some changes to the winding, narrow seaside path out to the rocky hill overlooking Buzzards Bay known as The Knob. I read that it is no longer narrow and winding as it has been widened considerably. When we got there, they started down the path in front of me and then I heard the sighs of exasperation. “How can the signs tell us to respect nature when they have destroyed it?” I found them high atop a pile of brush that has been cleared to make the path wider. I tried to explain that the brush will grow back soon enough. They were having none of it, but they soon got over it and continued on out the path. There is a rocky beach on the right side of the path and they climbed down the stairs to sit on the rocks. Then we walked on out to The Knob, enjoyed the view of Buzzards Bay, and headed back by way of the rocky beach along Quissett Harbor. They spent a lot of time adding to the rock cairns along the way. Each boy built cairns that they were very proud of and grabbed my phone from time to time to take photos of them. As we walked back, there were boulders and lots of rocks to negotiate, so I was always bringing up the rear. As I picked my way carefully through the rocks, mostly looking down, at one point, I looked ahead a bit and saw these skinny pink legs topped by a black back standing on a boulder. My first thought was that it looked like a rather gigantic black-winged stilt bird, but then I realized it was just Sam. I had been amazed by his restraint of not jumping into the water today. But now he had started wading to find rocks for another cairn.
The Goldpebbles + Robert ended their adventure by making sand balls and throwing them at boulders out in the water. I am always amazed at how much time boys can spend truly enjoying such an activity. But I just sat on a rock and waited, soaking up the last rays of today’s sun and the sound of boys enjoying a battle with a boulder. Ah, the joys of the simple things in life.
by Judy Handley | Nov 9, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 313: Another November Summer Day
Date: Monday, November 9, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 70, Low 51 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
It was another summer-like day in November. The sun was shining and the temperature was 70 degrees. I put on a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and walked with Shadow. But I was actually too hot and had to come in and put on a tank top. It was that warm mid-morning. Then I started preparing the garden for the winter, did some yard work, and just generally enjoyed the day. I was disappointed in my garden this year, but the fact that I am still picking tomatoes on November 9th made me take a deep breath and reassess.
Lettuce, arugula, kale, and Swiss chard just didn’t do well. But beans and tomatoes, crops that like warmer weather, flourished. The strawberries I transplanted a month ago from the hanging pots on Heather’s deck are flowering and producing little strawberries . . . in November. So that worked. Clearing a few trees to expand my garden and planting tomatoes worked. So, I will think about all of this over the winter and make plans to try again next year.
I am so thankful that I am able to do yard work this fall. The two herniated discs in my back are healing. But I do still have to be careful. Raking just doesn’t work, but the new leaf blower works great. I always hated noisy leaf blowers, but this one is battery-operated and is not nearly as noisy as the gas-powered ones. It allows me to blow the leaves out of nooks and crannies and then I am using Heather and Jed’s battery-powered lawn mower to mow the leaves. They get chopped up and go into the lawn mower bag. I then drive the mower with the full bag to the edge of the woods where I am dumping the leaves. I can easily handle the weight of the full lawn mower bag. Last year I raked and put leaves into big paper leaf bags. Then I had to haul those to my car and take them to be composted. The bags were big and heavy. I just couldn’t do the yard work that way without throwing my back out. This year’s solution is working so much better for me. I can once again enjoy doing yard work.
Tomorrow I have a book club meeting in the morning and then I pick Ollie up at 12:20 as it is an Early Release day. I have offered to take all three boys plus Sam’s friend Robert to go to the beach, go hiking, or bring them here to go kayaking. If the older boys decide they just want to hang out at home, Ollie and I are going to drive to Plymouth so he can see the Mayflower II. He has been studying about the voyage of the Mayflower and would like to take a closer look. We got a glimpse of it as it exited the Cape Cod Canal on its way back to Plymouth, but now that he has read about the number of people onboard and some details about life as they sailed across the Atlantic, he will see it through different eyes.
by Judy Handley | Nov 8, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 312: Earthquake
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2020
Weather: Sunny; High 69, Low 48 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
These days, I get up around 6:30 am and go for a walk with Shadow. Sometimes I stay up. Sometimes I go back to bed. But after last night’s election celebration and the fact that it was my first night back in my bed after two nights on the sofa after Shadow’s surgery, I decided to go back to bed and enjoy the comfort. According to my clock, at 9:10 am I was jolted out of bed by Shadow’s barking that just wouldn’t stop and then a low, long rumbling noise that actually shook the cottage. I assumed it was a big construction truck. But on a Sunday? I got up and didn’t think anything more about it until later in the morning when I saw on Facebook that we had an earthquake in New England this morning. It was a 3.6 on the Richter scale. Any thing under 4.5 is not major, but still a bit of a jolt. But later in the day, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie were talking about this and wondering about the top limit of the Richter scale. I thought maybe a 10, but tonight when I looked it up, I found that there is really no official top number. Generally, 9 is used as the top number and an earthquake of that magnitude is equal to the release of the energy of 25,000 nuclear bombs. I hope I never have to experience that. And just in case you are curious, here’s a list of the top ten earthquakes.
1. Valdivia, Chile, 22 May 1960 (9.5)
2. Prince William Sound, Alaska, 28 March 1964 (9.2)
3. Sumatra, Indonesia, 26 December 2004 (9.1)
4. Sendai, Japan, 11 March 2011 (9.0)
5. Kamchatka, Russia, 4 November 1952 (9.0)
6. Bio-bio, Chile, 27 February 2010 (8.8)
7. Ecuador coast, 31 January 1906 (8.8)
8. Rat Islands, Alaska, 2 April 1965 (8.7)
9. Sumatra, Indonesia, 28 March 2005 (8.6)
10. Assam, Tibet, 15 August 1950 (8.6)
I got an email this morning from my daughter-in-law Jo’s parents who live in England. Phil and Margaret were sending congratulations on the election of our new President and Vice-President and announcing the birth of another grandchild. Jo’s sister lives in South Hampton, England, and just had her fourth child. This one was another little boy whom they named Woody. Katherine and Tom now have Kitty, Rufus, Felix, and Woody. It was so good to get the congratulations from Phil and Margaret and to hear their wonderful news. Welcome, Woody! And congratulations to the grandparents.
I thought I would be headed to Heather’s today around 10 am, but it was almost noon when I finally got there. Ollie had expressed interest in coming to my house to do some work today. But when I got there, the boys were deep into the rhododendron forest in their backyard. This rhododendron towers from ground level up to be even with the second floor deck. Invasive bittersweet vines are intertwined with the rhododendron and the Goldpebbles were climbing up from the inside and trying to figure out how to get rid of the vines. But when I arrived, Heather was ready to plant spring bulbs in the front yard gardens. So, the boys stopped and came to help. We did front yard work for an hour or so and didn’t stop for lunch until almost 3 pm. The boys and I then loaded the van with one of my kayaks that we had taken to their house late in the summer, the lawn mower, and leaf blower and headed to my house. It gets fully dark by 5 pm these days, but the boys had almost an hour to take the kayaks out and enjoy the warm weather on the water. We unloaded the lawn mower, which I will use here tomorrow, and then I took them back home. Tuesday is an early release day at school and Heather and Jed have parent conferences during the afternoon. I’m trying to think of some fun things for the boys and I to do during the afternoon. Then Wednesday is Veteran’s Day and a school holiday. We’ll just see what the week develops. I don’t really have any definite plans other than to enjoy the warm weather and resume my walks with Shadow. He is recovering very quickly from his surgery and is so anxious to walk. We did a mile today and might do that twice tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Nov 7, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 311: Soul of the Nation
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2020
Weather: Drop Dead Gorgeous Day; High 70, Low 49 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
What a day! First, I must mention that it was gloriously warm and sunny day. It felt like summer, which is always a great thing in November. I was outside at 11:27 am when I heard a ding on my phone. The message said, “We did it—he won!” And then immediately there was another ding, a message from my son Justin in Puerto Rico saying, “We won!” I headed inside and turned on the TV. Then I got a call from my sister in Nashville asking if I knew the election had finally been called for Joe Biden. And then another text from my friend Linda Stuart in Colorado. I turned on the TV and caught up with the happenings. What a sense of relief washed over me. It has been a tough four days since the election with no final results and an even tougher four years, but all of a sudden I felt the burden being lifted. 
I continued my day, but after a beautiful sunset over the marsh, I caved and came inside to watch the happenings. It was like watching a national block party. Young people in all parts of the country were celebrating with abandon. They came forth in this election with their votes and they deserve the celebration.
I put on the Biden-Harris t-shirt that had belonged to my niece Lynn that died recently. Her mother wanted me to have it as she knew that Lynn and I shared the same political enthusiasm. Lynn had worked so hard as a volunteer in this campaign, so wearing her t-shirt, I looked up to the heavens to make sure she got the message that we won.
Tonight, I watched the President and Vice-President Elect address the nation. Kamala opened by talking about a new day for America and I heard a television commentator say that she looked and sounded like a new day in America. And she did. She fits this moment in history so perfectly. And Biden’s speech continued the replication of the themes of this campaign—unity over division, decency, empathy, truth, science. Words that we certainly need reintroduced into the political nation. But his most important words were his first, “For love of country.” It is so refreshing to see young Democratic voters all over the country waving the American flag. I heard historian John Meacham say tonight, “Democracy is not a state. It is an action.” And enough Americans took action through their votes to make a change in the direction this country was headed. But the work is just beginning. Another presidential historian, Michael Beschloff also said tonight, “Eternal vigilance is always the price of liberty.” Our job is not done. It is ongoing. But it was wonderful to have one night of celebration before we get down to the hard work of restoring the soul of the nation.
by Judy Handley | Nov 6, 2020 | 2020 Life Logs |
2020 Life Logs, Day 310: And the Count Goes On
Date: Friday, November 6, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High 64, Low 54 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
All day long I kept hearing Sonny & Cher singing, “The beat goes on, the beat goes on. Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain . . . La de da de de, la de da de da.” The beat is the constant news pounding into my brain with updates about this election. And the “La de da de de” is what I sing loudly anytime I see a replay of Donald Trump’s tragic press conference last night when he just spewed out lie after lie undercutting our democracy. This is the fourth day of watching the news, including Election Day itself, and it is just unsure how long it is going to be before we get any sort of final determination on who is going to be our next President. I am so thankful for MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki’s constant analysis of the numbers. It seems he has been on the air continuously since Tuesday. Maybe they let him sleep in the middle of the night. But I see him in the morning, in the middle of the day, and each evening, always in his white oxford cloth shirt with his sleeves rolled up, his khaki pants and Converse sneakers. He promises it is not the same pair of pants, just pants that look the same! But whether or not he has worn the same clothes all week, his steady and careful analysis of the numbers is much appreciated by many, including me.
Shadow was neutered yesterday and I was instructed to keep the plastic Elizabethan cone on him to keep him from licking the stitches. Evidently that can lead to infection. When I put the collar on him last evening, it was obvious that he hated it. He didn’t protest, but he lost all of his spunk. He is not supposed to jump or run for at least 10 days. He sleeps on my bed at night, but my bed is quite high. So, I decided to sleep on the sofa in the living room and hoped he would sleep on his doggie bed or on top of my feet on the sofa. When it was time to turn in for the night, I could not get him to settle in. He just stood in the middle of the floor wearing that cone. I was confident that he would find a place to settle in once I turned the lights out. I went to sleep, but I woke up at 2:30 to find him still standing in the same place. I tried to encourage him to lie down with no luck, but I was determined to not give in. At 4:30 I woke up again and guess who was still standing in the middle of the living room floor–the one, the only, very stubborn Shadow. I gave in and took the cone off and he immediate went to sleep on his doggie bed. By morning, he was on the sofa on top of my feet, sleeping like a baby. I checked the stitches and it was obvious that he had been licking them, so I put the cone back on and dedicated my day to finding an inflatable collar that might me more comfortable. None of the Petco stores between and Boston had any in stock. But they suggested I try PetSmart. I had to drive to Hyannis, but I did find one. Unfortunately, it was extremely expensive. He doesn’t love it, but the bigger problem is that he has found a way to continue the licking. Ugh.
