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.

2023 Life Logs, Day 101: Book Club, Power Issues, and Garden Work
Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 62, Low 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My work on Heather and Jed’s boat to remove old varnish has been put on hold while we figure out how to get reliable power to the boat to run a heat gun. I made calls today and found that I can get my Honda 2000i generator serviced, but not until next week at the earliest. I will take it to the dealer where I bought it in Wareham tomorrow afternoon and hope, by some miracle, they can get to it sooner than expected. In the meantime, I am turning my attention to disassembling the raised beds and the drip irrigation system in the front yard. Karen and Peter have offered to come help me do the garden work tomorrow morning, so I did as much prep work for that as I could late this afternoon. My goal is to move the raised bed boards that are not rotten and as much of the organic soil as possible to the house in town where I will be living as of July 1.

My book group met at 11 am this morning. All but one of us met in person. But one member has a very nasty cold and met with us via Zoom. It was the first time all of us have been together for months and we spent more time catching up on life than discussing the book of the month. That was fine with me because I read only half of the book before setting it aside. It was too much like a textbook to be enjoyable, so I made a conscience decision to just stop reading it.

2023 Life Logs, Day 100: Thrown Off Course, Again
Date: Monday, April 10, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 55, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

I’d like to be focusing on removing old varnish from the boat, but I keep getting thrown off course. I had one successful day on the boat, but that day ended early as I lost electricity to run the heat gun. I’m not sure why it worked for a couple of hours and then it just went away. I thought maybe it was my heat gun, so I bought a new one. I went back the next day, but no go. So now we are exploring using my old Honda generator. So that saga will continue.

I was truly thrown off course in early February when I found out that the cottage was going to be sold. Thankfully I was told that I could continue to live here until I could find a new place to rent and that the cottage wouldn’t be put on the market until I moved out. I did find a place that I will move to the first of July, so I started working on getting ready to move. Then last week I was told that landscapers would be coming soon and that I needed to decide what I want to do about the raised beds gardens I put in the front yard. That threw me for another loop. Then today I was told that there will be an open house for realtors on Sunday. And that threw me off course, again. If you have ever lived in a home that has to be shown to interested buyers while you are living in it, you know what a hassle that can be. But I need to quickly get ready for that. Just when I want to be focusing on the boat, I need to be focusing on the yard and the inside of the house and the basement at the same time. It is a lot. Hopefully I do a better job of dealing with all of this tomorrow as today I got almost nothing done.

My day started with the septic tank inspector’s early arrival. I was told to expect him yesterday and that I didn’t need to be home as they knew where the tanks for the cottage and Shirley’s home were located. But this morning the inspector was knocking on my door asking if I knew the location of Shirley’s septic tank. I could direct him to mine, but I had no idea where Shirley’s was. So, then he asked if I had access to Shirley’s house. I do, so you can see where this was heading. I basically spent the first hour and a half of my day dealing with all that, and then I was told about Sunday’s open house.

On Mondays, I now pick Sam up at 3 pm and head to Harwich for his rowing practice. He rows for two hours and during that time I go get dinner for him to eat as we drive to soccer practice. I dropped him off in Dennis for soccer practice and headed home. He was getting a ride home with a friend. I took Shadow with me, and we had a nice long walk while Sam was rowing. By the time Shadow and I got home, it was almost dark, so we headed inside to have dinner and relax before we launch into another day. I’m just hoping there will be no more surprises in my life tomorrow.

2023 Life Logs, Day 99: Easter Sunday
Date: Sunday, April 9, 2023
Weather: Sunny (still felt a bit chilly); High 48, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

To me, Easter Sunday is a day to celebrate spring. There is always a bit of Easter bunny fun fun thrown in, but it is mostly a time for me to focus on the new plant and animal life that emerges at this time of year. I invited Heather and family over for dinner this evening to help me in that celebration. I got to hear a little about their evening at Gillette Stadium yesterday where Ollie’s soccer team played a scrimmage on the field before the Boston Revs took over. And the boys were very excited that the Revs won 4-0. Today they spent their day cleaning up the backyard. I heard from Justin and Jo and they were also celebrating spring today, but their version was a quiet day at Steps Beach, one of my favorites. Happy spring!

2023 Life Logs, Day 98: Soccer Saturday
Date: Saturday, April 8, 2023
Weather: Sunny (but felt chilly); High 47, Low 34 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

This was truly a soccer Saturday. I went to Ollie’s 10 am game in Mashpee, drove straight home to take Shadow out for a pee break and have one myself, and then I drove into Falmouth to pick up Jonah. When I got to Heather and Jed’s, I discovered that I had left my phone at home when I made the quick pit stop. There was no time to go back to get it, so we used Jonah’s phone for directions as I had no idea where I was going. I took him to his game in Somerset, north of Fall River, which is a little more than hour’s drive. I watched the game, then at 3 pm Jonah and I headed 45 minutes north to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough so he could meet up with the whole family. Ollie’s team was playing a scrimmage on the field at Gillette Stadium before a Boston Revs soccer game tonight. Once I dropped Jonah off, I headed home. I volunteered to do the stint with Jonah today so the Goldstones could drive home together after the game tonight. If Heather or Jed had taken him, they would have had two cars.

When I got home, I took Shadow for a walk and then headed to the grocery store to do Easter dinner shopping as I am hosting the Goldstones tomorrow night. I hope they took photos of Ollie playing on the big stadium field. If so, I’ll share those tomorrow night. And since I didn’t have my phone, I have no photos of Jonah’s game. I did a lot of driving today, but I enjoyed it. Then watched more episodes of Ted Lasso tonight.

2023 Life Logs, Day 97: Happy 14th Birthday to Ziggy
Date: Friday, April 7, 2023
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 57, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Fourteen years ago today, Ziggy Milo Handley entered this world in Sante Fe, New Mexico,

02 Oma Holds Ten Day Old Ziggy

And tonight, I was invited to a Seder with my Cape Cod grandchildren. Wednesday night was Passover, but having a Seder on a school night was more than could be handled this year with everyone’s busy schedules. Tonight was perfect and now we launch into a busy weekend.

2023 Life Logs, Day 96: A Pink Full Moon
Date: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Weather: Rain early, then Mostly Cloudy; High 53, Low 45 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

The full moon in April is called the Pink Moon, not because of its color, but because April is the month when pink creeping phlox blooms—not in New England, but a little further south. The moon was full early this morning, which meant we should have been able to see the full moon last night. But it was too cloudy. Tonight, the clouds have disappeared for a bit and the Pink Moon is bright and beautiful.

Late this morning when I went to the boat to continue the removal of old varnish, I was surprised to see a big truck in the driveway in front of the boat and then I saw that the removal of layers of old bottom paint were being removed by soda blasting. I thought that was happening tomorrow, but I was wrong. The young man doing the ‘blasting’ was almost finished with the port side of the bottom, so I am assuming he finished today, and I can return tomorrow. Jed and I took the chance to look at the mast which also needs old paint removed. The hardest part of that job is removing the lines and hardware from the mast … a job for another day.

This afternoon I met with Lynda Onthank whose home I will be renting beginning in July. The new roofing is on the house and the landscaping in front of the house is completed with new grass planted and beginning to grow. This time we met about gardening. I have decided to move the three raised beds I have here to there. She just had three pine trees removed from the area where the fenced garden will be located. She had the stumps of those trees chipped and mixed in with the soil. Eventually those pine chips will degrade, but this year we are going to move aside some of that soil and use the raised beds and organic soil from here for this year. Her landscaper was there this afternoon and that was his recommendation. Bucket by bucket, I’ll move the garden soil.

2023 Life Logs, Day 95: Attainable Housing in Falmouth
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Sprinkles; High 49, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

My day got off on the wrong foot. I forgot I had a follow-up appointment with my pain management doctor about my recent spinal epidural, so I was relaxing a little before going to remove more varnish from Eider. When my phone reminded me that I had 15 minutes to get to my appointment, I had to scramble to get to North Falmouth on time. If I had remembered I had that appointment and planned right, I could have stopped at the boat on my way home. But because I had to leave so quickly, I didn’t have everything I needed to do the boat work. And by the time I got home and remembered other things I needed to do, it was too late to go to the boat and get back home in time to get ready for my Public Policy meeting this afternoon. So the boat work was put off until tomorrow morning.

The good thing about today was that the Public Policy meeting about affordable or attainable housing that I was chairing was a success. I had reached out to friends who are not in the Public Policy group to come this afternoon because so many of our members couldn’t come. The friends came through and our invited speaker, Michael Kasparian of the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce, gave a great presentation. I’ve written previously about how difficult it is find a rental in this town and I learned why this afternoon. The rule of thumb is that 30 percent of housing in a community should be rentals. Falmouth has 6 percent. And according to Michael, increasing the number of rentals is the first goal that needs to be reached. Right now we have a shortage of workers in all areas from service workers to scientists to surgeons because no one other than retirees can afford to move here. And at the current rate, by 2030, 65 percent of the people in Falmouth will be over 70. It is a huge problem to tackle that is going to take the cooperation and creative ideas of everyone in the community. In order to get cooperation, everyone needs to be informed. Hopefully our little meeting today was a tiny baby step in informing a few community members of the problem.

2023 Life Logs, Day 94: Happy 16th Anniversary to Justin and Jo
Date: Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warm; High 57, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Justin and Jo were married atop Eagle Rock near Los Angeles on this day sixteen years ago. Happy Anniversary!

Leaving Home

I took advantage of the mostly sunny and wonderfully warm day to go to the boat to start the removal of old varnish. It is always the hope that once teak trim on a boat is varnished that the owners will keep up and recoat the varnish before it starts to crack and peel. But Eider is an older boat whose varnish was not kept up. That means the all the remaining varnish needs to be stripped and sanded before varnishing. It is not a easy task, but it is very rewarding and I have always enjoyed doing it. Eider’s cockpit is surrounded in teak, so that is where I started—on the inside only. I got the rear cockpit board and the half of the board on the port side of the cockpit done today. I will continue to do a little each day using a heat gun and scraper. Once that is done, the teak needs to be sanded and then varnished with many coats. The boat gets launched the end of May, so I will try to keep at it, a little each day.

I took Shadow to spend the afternoon with Jane Woodin while I worked on the boat. Jane is going to spend some time with Shadow in the next week or so to see if she thinks she can handle keeping him for me while I go to North Carolina for five days at the end of the month. Today went well, so next week Shadow will go back for an overnight trial. Bruce is going to be out of town at the same time that I am, so Jane will have to handle Shadow by herself. Brave woman! I truly appreciate her willingness to give this a try.

2023 Life Logs, Day 93: Side-tracked
Date: Monday, April 3, 2023
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High 48, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA

Today was supposed to be my day to start removing varnish on Heather and Jed’s Cape Dory. But that didn’t happen. As I was getting ready to go, all of sudden the driveway was full of vehicles. Caroline, Shirley’s niece that is handling the sale of Shirley’s home and the cottage, knocked on my door to explain that the realtor and the landscaping people were here to survey things and that there has been a change. They are contemplating putting the two properties on the market at the same time with the option to sell as one. So, the landscapers will need to tidy-up the cottage yard and gardens as well as Shirley’s. And the realtor will call me when there is a showing. But now I need to get the cottage ready to show. This is not what I expected and it threw me off balance. Many of the things that I planned to do in June, now need to be done immediately. For instance, I have to decide if I am moving my raised beds and, if so, get it done now so he landscapers can plant grass. And the list goes on and on. Just as I was hoping to fully focus on the boat, I have to do double duty. So, I scrapped going to the boat today, tried to regained my balance, did a little garden work to see how long it will take me to remove fencing and metal fence posts, and then changed gears and took a huge load of laundry to the laundromat. While I was waiting for clothes to wash and dry, I made phone calls I needed to make regarding my sister’s medical plans. About that time, Heather called and said she was headed home in the new ID.4 Volkswagen electric mini-van but was stuck in Boston traffic. She was going to get home too late to pick up Ollie after jazz band practice. So, I finished up at the laundromat, picked up Ollie, and then headed home to walk and play with Shadow. I texted Heather once she was home and asked her to send photos of the new ID.4 and she sent photos of “out with the old, in with the new.” Since the exhaust system in the van is completely defunct, they have told Sam he can spend the next two years getting it ready to be in a demolition derby. You can’t drive in a demolition derby until you are 18, so that is the reason for the two years. The boys got started on that project this evening. And Ollie and Jonah greeted the ID.4.

They love it. Then Jed drove Sam and Jonah to Harwich for soccer in the new mini-van, where it got its first rapid charge while Jed was waiting for the boys. Heather drove it 90 miles home from Medford, just north of Boston and Jed drove it 35 miles to Harwich and it still had ‘140’ left. Jed said that theoretically, at 80% standard charge, it would get about 250 miles per charge. There is no rapid charge station in Falmouth, but both WHOI and Woodwell have charge stations for employees.

I had hoped to watch more of Ted Lasso tonight, but only got in one episode. I spent time contacting sailing buddies, Kevin and Claire in Mexico and Alan in Dedham, to get some advice for barrier coat and bottom paint. Thanks to both for sharing their wealth of knowledge. But tomorrow at 1 pm I have a date on Eider (whose name will change soon) to start removing the varnish and I’m hoping to not break that date.