Day 346, Year 10: Summer to Fall

by | Sep 21, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 346, Year 10: Summer to Fall
Date: Monday, September 21, 2015
Weather: North Wind, High Temp in the 60’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

Saturday felt like a beautiful mid-summer’s day and this morning it was obvious that fall is here. The change from summer to fall was abrupt, but at least it is still sunny and beautiful . . . just cool. The high temperature today was only in the mid-60’s and tonight it will dip into the 50’s. Brrrrr. But no one here can complain. We have had the longest and warmest summer we have ever experienced in New England and it was glorious. But it is now time to break out the polar fleece jackets and down comforters. Fall has come to New England.

I slipped out of bed this morning trying not to wake Mark. I rowed to shore and headed to Heather’s to take Ollie to school. But his cold had gotten the best of him and he needed to stay home today. Heather knew I had to take Mark to Boston and Ollie was fine with traveling with us, so the decision was made that he would be with me for the day. I stayed at home with him for a bit and then we headed back to the boat to get Mark. Ollie was convinced that when you are sick you should be allowed to watch Berenstain Bears videos. So he watched a short video while we got things ready to head to Boston and then continued watching in the car on my computer. We took Granddad to the Hope Lodge to drop off some of his things and then we drove on into downtown Boston to drop Mark off at Mass General. Then Ollie and I headed back home. We got here in time to pick Sam and Jonah up from school. Unfortunately Ollie’s cold seemed worse, not better, by day’s end, so I might have him again tomorrow. If not, I’ll head to the storage unit to dig out the down comforter and continue to go through the boxes in the hopes of finding lots of things that can be tossed. My good friend Linda Stuart and her husband Mike just biked across the border into Mexico. A BIG congrats to them. And everything they own is carried on their two bikes. I’ll never get to that level, but a few less boxes in storage would sure be nice.

150921 Day 346 Cape Cod, USA–Ollie and Granddad Driving the Dinghy

Day 345, Year 10: Sunday Fun Day

by | Sep 20, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 345, Year 10: Sunday Fun Day
Date: Sunday, September 20, 2015
Weather: Cooling Down
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

We had another great day just hanging out with Heather and the boys. I’m calling this day Sunday Fun Day. It wasn’t until the end of the day that I remembered that we had thought about going to the boat show in Newport. We were having way too much fun to think about that. Sam was the first one up this morning, then me, and then Jonah. While they quietly played MineCraft on our phones, I started getting breakfast. About that time Heather got up and Sam rowed her to shore so she could do an early morning run. When he returned he told us that an osprey was sitting on the top of our mast. I love osprey and I love to see them sitting on the top of masts on other boats—just not mine. It is not the sitting that I object to. It is the little ‘presents’ they drop on the deck that drive me crazy.

Ollie (Ollie had a good night with very little coughing) and Mark got up while Heather was out running and we were all finished eating breakfast when she returned. She swam out to the boat from the beach, had breakfast, and then headed back to the beach with the boys. Sam rowed the dinghy, Mark and Ollie went for a kayak ride and then Mark dropped Ollie off on the beach, and Heather and Jonah swam over. Jonah had to wear his ‘swimmies’ (floatation device), but he loved swimming in the deep water with mama. He has always been very tentative about swimming, so this is a true break-through. And besides, he was interested in swimming with the huge schools of fish we saw yesterday and today. In last night’s log I didn’t mention schools of little fish that we watched in the water yesterday afternoon, but I must mention them now. Sam discovered the fish yesterday as he was out exploring in the dinghy. He was amazed by the huge number of fish swimming around the dinghy and he came back to the beach to take us out to see the phenomenon. We’re talking thousands and thousands and thousands of little fish. I saw a fishing boat putting out a net and I sent Heather and Sam over in the dinghy to ask them what they were catching. They told us they were netting peanut bunkers and catching larger bunkers. When they returned with their report we all looked at each other and asked, “What’s a bunker?” Ollie found one on the beach minus his back half, but it was enough for us to use as positive identification. After a little internet research we found out that they are actually Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus). They are also called pogies. The ‘peanut’ version is about 3-5 inches long and the fully mature fish are about a foot to 15 inches in length. These fish are silvery and are in the herring family. The word Menhaden comes from the Native American word munnwhatteaug which translates as “that which manures” or fertilizer. The Native Americans used the menhaden to fertilize their crops. Pogy also has a Native American origin coming from the words pauhagen or pookagan and these words mean the same as munnawhatteaug. So where does the term ‘bunker’ come from? Evidently it can be traced to a similar looking fish found in the Netherlands, the Marsbanker, changed to Mossbunker in this country, and then shortened to ‘bunker.’ Whatever you might call them, they have totally taken over Quissett Harbor. If you are sitting on the beach, it sounds like raindrops as they jump up out of the water. And the osprey, cormorants, and seagulls are here in abundance catching these little guys. It is quite a show and we all really enjoyed watching it up close.

Jonah was on a crab catching mission this morning and caught calico crabs and hermit crabs while Sam just frolicked in the water. Ollie did a little of both, but it was a cloudy morning and soon everyone was a little chilly. So Heather, Jonah, and Ollie on this boogie board, swam back to Windbird while Sam and I rowed. We all headed to Heather’s to play and to work in the yard and garden. Garden work was definitely on the agenda for today and we got a lot done. Heather did most of the weeding and clean-up and Jonah and I worked together using the push plow to get the garden ready for planting cool weather crops like lettuce, arugula, spinach, Swiss chard, and kale. We should have planted a couple of weeks ago, but there just wasn’t time. So we’ll hope it stays warm enough, long enough, to harvest the fruits of our labor. Jonah and I also emptied one of the compost bins in the garden and Jonah collected masses of earth worms from the compost to repopulate the worm box in the basement. The whole time he worked with me, he kept saying over and over how much fun he was having. So I kept working so he could continue having so much fun. While we did this, Sam kept himself busy with neighborhood friends, and Granddad and Ollie read and took a little nap. Heather and I were both exhausted at the end of the day, so we had Thai take-out for dinner. We did nothing grand this weekend, but Mark and I both enjoyed every minute of it.

Tomorrow starts another busy week. I’ll take Mark back to Boston tomorrow and return in time to pick the boys up from school. I’ll stay here on Tuesday and Wednesday and then return to Boston on Thursday and stay with Mark until we come home on Friday afternoon. Saturday is Heather’s 40th birthday party. Lordy, Lordy, Heather’s gonna be 40! Can’t believe my baby girl is going to be celebrating her 40th.

150920 Day 345 Cape Cod, USA–Sunday Fun

Day 344, Year 10: Super Saturday

by | Sep 19, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 344, Year 10: Super Saturday
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2015
Weather: Beautiful Summer Weather
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

Today was a super Saturday filled with grandkid activities. We went from Sam’s soccer game to Jonah’s soccer game to the elementary school fun day to the beach in Quissett’s inner harbor to dinner on Windbird. Jed left for Maine this afternoon and Heather came to Quissett with the boys and all are spending the night with us tonight. Ollie is getting a cold and coughed a lot last night. Sure hope he has a better night tonight.

Mark and I started the day by moving Windbird back into the inner harbor. We were in here for most of the month of July after dragging our mooring in the outer harbor. When we returned from Fiddler’s Cove where we had work done on the boat, there was no room in the inner harbor so we were once again outside. There’s nothing wrong with being on the moorings in the outer harbor, but it sure is more convenient to be inside. It is very close to the dock and it will be a lot easier for me during the week when Mark is in Boston. The kids love it because the boat is so close to the beach where they play. We can row and swim back and forth easily. Of course, the swimming time is nearing an end, but we’ll continue to act like it is summer as long as we can.
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150919 Day 344 Cape Cod, USA–Soccer and School Carnival

Day 343, Year 10: Home for the Weekend

by | Sep 18, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 343, Year 10: Home for the Weekend
Date: Friday, September 18, 2015
Weather: Beautiful Summer Weather
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

Mark’s home for the weekend—hurrah, hurray, woohoo, yay, yippee! I love Windbird, but she is just not the same without her captain. And the Hope Lodge is nice, but it is not home. Tomorrow is soccer morning. First Sam plays at 10:30 and then Jonah at 12 noon. And, of course, they don’t play at the same field. There is also a PTO sponsored school carnival at Sam and Jonah’s school and Heather has to be there manning some of the booths. I guess that her reward for being a PTO officer. So we will help with the soccer shuffle and watch Ollie while doing that. After the soccer games, Jed heads to Maine for a couple of days to help his mother close down the summer house and I think the boys will come home with us and spend the night on Windbird. That will leave Heather with a little well-deserved time to herself. We have thought about going to Newport on Sunday to the Boat Show, but I’m not sure we have the energy. We might just stay right here on the boat and on the beach with the boys and enjoy these glorious last days of summer. It is still in the 70’s and 80’s during the day and in the 60’s at night—a lot warmer than usual. But it looks like starting on Sunday, the temperature will start slowly dropping. Wednesday is the first day of fall, so I guess the drop in temperature is coming right on cue.

I once again spent my day in Heather and Jed’s kitchen. Today I was canning the mineral broth and chicken noodle soup I made yesterday. The oral chemo drug that Mark is on is affecting him more than he remembers it did during the first round of radiation in the spring of 2014. This time his stomach is just not settled and on many days, soup is all he wants for lunch. Thus, the canning/freezing of chicken noodle soup for him to take with him to Boston. I canned some and froze some so I can compare and see which is best. I barely finished in time to head to Boston to pick him up. He took the T out of town to Quincy where I picked him up. There is always a lot of traffic at rush hour on Fridays, but there was more traffic leaving the Cape than I expected. Mark will be here until Monday morning when I will take him back. At the end of this coming week, he’ll be half-way through the radiation treatments. Another big HURRAY.

Day 342, Year 10: Day in the Kitchen

by | Sep 17, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 342, Year 10: Day in the Kitchen
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2015
Weather: Still Sunny and Warm
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

I spent my day in the kitchen (Heather and Jed’s kitchen), making Magic Mineral Broth, roasting beets, cooking kale, and baking acorn squash. I’ll bet you can guess what we’ll be eating this weekend. I feel bad about invading H & J’s kitchen, but I really can’t make and can the broth on the boat–at least not in the volume that I am doing. Yesterday I used their grill to roast the chickens, today I used their kitchen to make the broth, tonight I am using their refrigerator to chill the broth so I can skim off the fat in the morning, and tomorrow I will return to use their kitchen to can the broth and chicken soup. This is definitely a three-day process, but we are convinced that it is worth the effort. Something in that broth seems to be one of the things that keeps Mark healthy, so I’ll just keep invading kitchens and making the broth!

Mark is feeling so much better than he did last week. He met with this Mass General urologist on Tuesday and he got the report back on the urine culture today. The infection is gone, so the antibiotics worked, even if they did upset his system a bit. He’ll be coming home tomorrow evening on the bus so that I can stay here and complete the canning process. It will be wonderful to have him home for the weekend.

Day 341, Year 10: Back in Business

by | Sep 16, 2015 | Cape Cod, Sailing Logs Year 10 | 0 comments

Day 341, Year 10: Back in Business
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Weather: Sunny and Warm
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

After almost an hour of messing around this morning, I’m back in business with a propane cook stove that works. Miracles of miracles, it was not a big problem. The propane tank was simply empty. Changing tanks was not as easy as I had hoped, but with a little help from Mark via phone, I got the job done and had a nice, hot cup of coffee. The microwave is still a mystery. But since I almost never use it, the microwave not working is certainly a problem I can live with. I spent the afternoon in the storage unit, v-e-r-y slowly going through things. My goal is to get rid of enough things to move into a 10 x 10 unit instead of the 10 x 20 we are in now. I’m not certain I can get that done this fall, but I’ll keep working on it and hope that it can happen. I stopped at 3 pm to go pick up Sam and Jonah from school and then I changed gears and roasted a couple of chickens on Heather and Jed’s grill so that I can make Magic Mineral Chicken Broth tomorrow. Of course, while doing that, I played with the boys in the backyard. Ollie played with Joey from next door and wanted me to take a picture of them (included here).
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150916 Day 341 Cape Cod, USA–Ollie and Joey


The oral chemo that Mark is on during radiation is evidently going to keep the stomach issues coming along, so I’m going to make chicken soup with the broth and freeze and/or pressure can it so he can have it while living in Boston. It is a three day process, so I’ll finish up on Friday. Mark might take the bus home on Friday evening so I can spend the day here getting the soup canned and in the freezer.